Diana Gabaldon

One of the Doctor's companions was a Scot from around 1745, a young man about 17 years old named Jamie McCrimmon, who provided the initial inspiration for her main male character, James Fraser, and for her novel's mid-18th century Scotland setting.

Gabaldon decided to have "an Englishwoman to play off all these kilted Scotsmen", but her female character "took over the story and began telling it herself, making smart-ass modern remarks about everything."

To explain the character's modern behavior and attitudes, Gabaldon chose to use time travel.

Writing the novel at a time "when the World Wide Web didn't exist", she did her research "the old-fashioned way, by herself, through books."

Later, Gabaldon posted a short excerpt of her novel on the CompuServe Literary Forum, where author John E. Stith introduced her to literary agent Perry Knowlton.

Knowlton represented her based on an unfinished first novel, tentatively titled Cross Stitch. Her first book deal was for a trilogy, the first novel plus two then-unwritten sequels.

Her US publishers changed the first book's title to Outlander, but the title remained unchanged in the UK According to Gabaldon, her British publishers liked the title Cross Stitch, a play on "a stitch in time"; however, the American publisher said it "sounded too much like embroidery" and wanted a more "adventurous" title.

When her second book was finished, Gabaldon resigned her faculty position at Arizona State University to become a full-time author.

, the Outlander series comprises nine published novels.

The ninth installment, Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone, was published on November 23, 2021.

The spin-off series currently consists of five novellas and three novels, which all take place between 1756 and 1761, during the events of Gabaldon's Voyager.

They can be generally categorized as historical mysteries, and the three novels are shorter and focus on fewer plot threads than the main Outlander books.

Professor Gabaldon's research works included:

The Outlander series has been released in unabridged (read by Davina Porter) and abridged (read by Geraldine James) audiobooks.

Several of the Lord John Books have been released in audiobook form, read by Jeff Woodman.

Diana J. Gabaldon (born January 11, 1952) is an American author, known for the Outlander series of novels.

Her books merge multiple genres, featuring elements of historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure and science fiction/fantasy.

Gabaldon was born on January 11, 1952, in Williams, Arizona, United States, the daughter of Jacqueline Sykes and Tony Gabaldon (1931–1998), an Arizona state senator from Flagstaff for sixteen years and later a supervisor of Coconino County.

Her father was of Mexican ancestry, and her mother was of English descent.

Gabaldon grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona.

She earned a bachelor of science in zoology from Northern Arizona University, 1970–1973; a master of science in marine biology from the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1973–1975; and a PhD in behavioral ecology from Northern Arizona University, 1975–1978.

During the mid-1980s, Gabaldon wrote software reviews and technical articles for computer publications, as well as popular-science articles and Disney comics.

She was a professor with an expertise in scientific computation at ASU for 12 years before leaving to write full-time.

Gabaldon was the founding editor of Science Software Quarterly in 1984 while employed at the Center for Environmental Studies at Arizona State University.

In 1988, Gabaldon decided to write a novel for "practice, just to learn how", and with no intention to show it to anyone.

As a research professor, she decided that a historical novel would be easiest to research and write, but she had no background in history and initially no particular time period in mind.

Gabaldon happened to see a rerun episode of the Doctor Who science fiction TV series titled "The War Games".

Gabaldon also published The Exile (An Outlander Graphic Novel) in 2010.

The Lord John series are additional books in the Outlander series rather than a spin-off series, centering on a secondary character from the original series.

Gabaldon announced in September 2021 that she is working on the tenth Outlander series book, which is possibly the last.

Gabaldon lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with her husband Doug Watkins, with whom she has three adult children.

Her son, Sam Sykes, is also a fantasy writer.

Gabaldon is a Roman Catholic.

The Outlander series focuses on 20th-century nurse Claire Randall, who time travels to 18th-century Scotland and finds adventure and romance with the dashing James Fraser.

Set in Scotland, France, the West Indies, England and North America, the novels merge multiple genres, featuring elements of historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure and science fiction/fantasy.

The Lord John series is a sequence of novels and shorter works that center on Lord John Grey, a recurring secondary character in Gabaldon's Outlander series.

A television adaptation of the Outlander novels premiered on Starz in 2014.

A television adaptation of the Outlander series premiered on Starz in the US on August 9, 2014.

Gabaldon made a cameo appearance as Iona MacTavish in the August 2014 episode "The Gathering".

Gabaldon is a paid consultant for the show, and wrote the screenplay for the 2016 season 2 episode "Vengeance Is Mine".