I read the illustrated novel, “How To Pass As Human” by Nic Kelman recently and really liked a lot of it, so I thought I’d find out more about the author in case other people are interested.
Kelman is an American writer who like many writers has shown his ability to work with different genres including screenplays, novels, short stories, non-fiction, and essays for two decades. He has been the recipient of several awards during this time. For instance, his novel girls: A Paean started as his MFA thesis at Brown University and won him the James Assatly Prize for fiction there.
Although Kelman was born in New York City, at the age of 12 his family moved to England. Kelman didn’t start out with studying literature and writing. Instead, he got his Bachelor of Science in Brain and Cognitive Science from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. He did, however, minor in Film and Media Studies. At MIT, he was also awarded the Burchard Scholarship for exceling in the arts. After that, he did his Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Fiction at Brown University in Rhode Island.
Kelman’s first novel girls was published by Little, Brown and Company in 2003 and was declared a San Francisco Chronicle and New York Journal News Best Book of the Year. According to one interview I found, for Kelman it was “a study in ensuring he does not end up like the characters he created.” It has been published in lots of languages and was about the threats of “toxic masculinity” which his thesis advisor at Brown probably taught him about.
After his first novel, Kelman switched to a different genre, that of art history and published Video Game Art which was the first book ever published on this topic. This was printed and distributed by Assouline in 2006 and has an introduction by Dr. Henry Jenkins, a pop culture professor who taught Kelman at MIT. Kelman’s third book was published by Fazi Editore in 2008 in Italian and called Il Comportamento della Luce [The Behavior of Light].
Kelman then started working on screenplays and the first one, titled “Genneris,” was bought by Steven Spielberg at DreamWorks Studios in 2011. After this, Kelman wrote original screenplays for other big studios, producers, and directors, including Roland Emmerich, Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures.
Another feather in his cap was his illustrated novel, “How To Pass As Human,” published by Dark Horse Books in 2015. It chronicles the attempt of an android to understand humans and it sounds like it is on the way to being a streaming show or movie.
In 2017, Kelman began working at Wizards of the Coast. Currently he is the Director of Entertainment Development there and works with other companies to make Dungeons and Dragons and Magic The Gathering into movies and TV.
Kelman has worked on lots of things at Wizards of the Coast. He asked Hasbro to make an animated series of Magic The Gathering and Netflix has decided to show it. He asked Brandon Sanderson to write a novel set in the Magic The Gathering universe. He edited work from fantasy authors like Martha Wells and Nicky Drayden and also worked with Django Wexler on the storyline for Wexler’s novel, The Gathering Storm, which featured Magic The Gathering’s first openly gay Planeswalker.
I personally hope Nic writes something of his own again and that it’s science fiction. Maybe he will do a sequel to “How to Pass As Human” if the show comes out? I’d love to know what happens to Android Zero next! Check out my review of that book here: LINK
Nic Kelman is not working at Wizards of the Coast but he is working for some good causes. He is working on a charity event related to cancer. Nic Kelman Gamer vs. Cancer Fundraiser is his fundraiser event in support of The American Cancer Society. This event had Raised by 59 people in 3 months.
