Press kit

JD Jordan is the award-winning author of the acclaimed scifi-western novel, Calamity: Being an Account of Calamity Jane and Her Gunslinging Green Man—and has also been featured in Creative Loafing, The Grantville Gazette, The International Journal of the Book, Newsweek, Paste, and Smashing Magazine. He is also an award-winning graphic designer, design educator, and historian with experience working with some of the biggest agencies and brands in the Southeast. JD is a member of the SFWA and is represented by The Zack Company.

Detailed author bio and profile photos
Book details and covers
Sample reviews and endorsements
Conference and speaking topics CV
Sample press

JD Jordan is the award-winning author of the acclaimed scifi-western novel, Calamity: Being an Account of Calamity Jane and Her Gunslinging Green Man—a Philip K. Dick Award submission, Georgia Author of the Year nominee, and Nook selection. His writing has been featured in Creative Loafing, The Grantville Gazette, The International Journal of the Book, Newsweek, Paste, and Smashing Magazine. He is represented by The Zack Company.

Since the publication of Calamity, JD has become a frequent figure on the genre and writers’ convention circuit in the Southeast, as well as a variety of public readings, author events, and NaNoWriMo events. He has appeared as a guest on the Swiping Write and Writer Imperfect podcasts, is an active member of The Atlanta Writer’s Club and the founder of The ATL Screenwriter’s Cabal.

After attending The University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and graduating from both Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia, and the University of Georgia with a bachelors in medieval history and a masters in US-Middle Eastern foreign policy history, respectively, JD resettled in Atlanta. He taught design and history at the Atlanta College of Art, The University of Georgia, Creative Circus, and General Assembly while continuing to work as an award-winning design director and a creative consultant with some of the biggest agencies and brands in the Southeast.

A proud Atlantan, JD lives in the city with his wife, the actress Ellie Decker, and five awesome kids. He is currently working on a hard scifi novel and a follow-up to Calamity. 

Please visit o-jd.com for more information about the author as well as sample chapters, reviews, book club resources, a companion story, a guide to Calamity Jane’s notorious saddle slang, and more. And connect with JD on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Calamity: Being an Account of Calamity Jane and her Gunslinging Green Man

Author: JD Jordan
Publisher: Heliophere (San Diego)
Publication date: September 1, 2016
Available: Everywhere books and e-books are sold
ISBNs: ISBN 978-1-937868-47-5 / eISBN 978-1-937868-48-2
Retail prices: Paperback: $16.99 / eBook: $6.99
Page count: 300 pages
Genres: Science fiction, Western, Speculative fiction, Historical fiction
Excerpt: Available at o-jd.com and Goodreads

Description
Long before Calamity Jane scouted with Custer or “Wild Bill” Hickok, she was a fifteen-year-old girl with a fiery temper and nothing to lose. But when violence and tragedy turn young Jane’s world upside down, she finds herself riding with an alien gunslinger—The Green Man—through an unfamiliar Wild West landscape of revenge and betrayal.

Along the way, she learns how to shoot a six-gun and how to stand on her own, even when surrounded by ruthless cattle barons and Lakota warriors. From space ships to guns that can pick off a butterfly a mile away, young Jane realizes the universe is far bigger than the Wild West and she can’t trust anyone to save her but herself. But when murderous Gray aliens—meddling in the wars between the Indians and the Union—stand in the way of her Green Man making his way home, Jane finds her desire for revenge may be less than her loyalty for the longrider. And in that realization, she becomes the hero the Wild West has long remembered.

So, forget what you know of how the West was won. Instead, learn the truth of what happened when a young girl named Jane met an alien gunslinger she called The Green Man…

Praise for Calamity
Check out the complete collection of reviews for Calamity.

"Jordan's weird western snatches the best adventure and suspense elements from both genres and distills them to their essences, creating a violence-laced but enjoyable romp."
—Publishers Weekly

"This first novel adds a fresh sf twist to a coming-of-age tale of a Wild West legend. Told from Calamity Jane's point of view, this gritty story blends the right amount of hard trials and humor, giving readers a revitalized perspective on a familiar folklore heroine."
—Library Journal

"Calamity is a lesson on how to do it right. Highly recommended."
—Peter David, New York Times best-selling author of Artful

"A brilliantly imagined adventure crossed with a story of trust and faith and all the things of the universe we think we understand but don't—there's action and humor and pathos ... so much heart in these pages. Do not miss this jewel of a book."
—Emily Carpenter, author of Burying The Honeysuckle Girls

Conferences and events
A Novel Idea
AJC Decatur Literary Festival
Agnes Scott NaNoWriMo
Atlanta ComicCon
AtomaCon
The Broadleaf Writers Conference
ConCarolinas
Connect.Tech
Dahlonega Literary Festival
General Assembly
Georgia Center for the Book
IllogiCon
JordanCon
LibertyCon
MarsCon
RavenCon
SupernovaSouth
Various author expos

Panel topics
AI in Fiction and Reality
Are any myths sacred?
Blurring the Lines Between Genres
Cover design for self-published independently-published authors
Femme fantasy: B*tch or bad-ass?
The Fermi Paradox
Fiction that doesn't take itself too seriously
Genre blending
Historical Figures in Fantasy
Remaking the classics
Research for Alternative History
Star Wars
The Coming Jobs Crash
The importance of genre in fiction
The life and lessons of the debut author
Technology, tools, apps, and gadgets to help you write
Turning your passion into a job
Westerns in science fiction and fantasy
What's new in science
What's new in weird wild west
Working with an agent
The villainous motive: when being bad isn’t bad enough

JD offers a variety of general and author-specific workshops to round out you con’s programming. Each of these topics has been presented, tested, and iterated—and can fill 1-2 hours in either presentation or classroom settings.

Adapting your novel for television
How do you adapt a book for the small screen? It’s a very different process than adapting for film, with television you have to expand your story across episodes and seasons. In this workshop, we'll take you through the book-to-TV process—looking at recent examples as well as those of well-known shows you already love—and help you craft everything from pitches and loglines to one-sheets and show bibles. By the end of the session, you will have started transforming your book into something producers and studio executives will jump at!

Design your cover
Step 1: You wrote a book. Now you need to market it and despite the cliches, readers really do judge a book by it's cover. Your novel needs to stand out from the crowd, both on the shelf and in the search results, and no matter if you're self-published or with a small or large press, you might be the one responsible for the cover. Novelist and designer JD Jordan will take you through the basic process of researching, designing, and testing book covers so you can create, critique, and market the best possible face for your work. 

Design your life
The defining characteristic of UX design is it's focus on the user and on an iterative, user-centered, approach to creating solutions. But what if we applied the user-centered design process to ourselves, our lives, and our careers. In this talk, JD Jordan, an expert in the design and UX field will demonstrate several UX research, design, and measurement techniques that can be used to audit, brainstorm, and critically test how we live and lead purposefully lives.

More information about Design your life can be found at J+E Creative’s website.

Books 'n Bourbon
A killer review that grades Calamity against 5 unique reader metrics—and offers a bourbon pairing, matching Calamity Jane and her Green Man with Yipee Ki-Yay from High West Distillery.
Read the whole article at booksnbourbon.com

Swiping Write, Episode 32: Speculative Fiction with JD Jordan
For the second week of Genre July, Austin and I are joined by JD Jordan, author of Calamity, to discuss one of genres that is most near and dear to the hearts of these two geeks: Speculative fiction...
Listen to the podcast at Swiping Write.com or anywhere podcasts are heard

Evolution: JD Jordan 
My buddy and Falstaff Books author Darin Kennedy hooked me up with JD, and since we will both be at JordanCon next weekend, I thought this might be a very good time to feature him on this blog post...
Read the whole article at JohnHartness.com