Jordan Stratford

Jordan Stratford is a Canadian author of children's fiction. He has two children with his wife Zandra Stratford.

Life

In 2005, he was ordained a gnostic priest in the Apostolic Johannite Church, having received a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from St. Raphael the Archangel Theological Seminary. He has written extensively on gnosticism as a modern spiritual practice and on the history of alchemy. He has worked as an advertising creative director, filmmaker, screenwriter, instructor at Vancouver Film School and writer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

He cites poet Robin Skelton as an influence.[1]

Steampunk and Wollstonecraft

Jordan Stratford has been involved in steampunk for many years. He co-founded the Victoria Steam Expo, the first steampunk art exhibition in Canada.[2] Vintage Tomorrows, a documentary about the movement, interviewed him at the 2012 event, which he described as "an interactive art experience"[3] The film quotes him encouraging people to engage with technology, make it, break it, and reinvent it.[4] CNET described his children's series, the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency novels, as steampunk plus Jane Austen.[5]

He is the author of the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency series (Knopf / Random House), a pro-math and science adventure series for girls 8-12. The first book was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that soon reached multiples of its target $4000,[6] being promoted on Wired[7] and io9[8] The series was recognized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The first book in the series, The Case of the Missing Moonstone, has sold 40,000 copies worldwide, and was translated into Russian, German and Turkish; it was a finalist for the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize (part of the British Columbia Book Prizes)[9] and the Silver Birch Award (part of the Forest of Reading, created by the Ontario Library Association).[10] The second novel in the series, The Case of the Girl In Grey, was released in January 2016, with The Case of the Counterfeit Criminals in January 2017.

Books

Children's books

All of the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency books are illustrated by Kelly Murphy. The overall title refers to Mary Wollstonecraft, and the two protagonists are based on Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace.

Adult books
  • 2011 - A Dictionary of Western Alchemy, Quest Books, 2007, ISBN 0835608972
  • 2007 - Living Gnosticism, Apocryphile Press, 2007, ISBN 1933993537

References
  1. Stratford, Jordan. "The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency - Author Q&A". Random House Kids. Retrieved 26 February 2017. What has been the greatest influence on you with respect to encouraging you to write and become a published author? In my teens, I grew up, effectively, in my girlfriend’s house. Her father was Robin Skelton, the poet and professor, who hosted a weekly salon of writers and artists. The university would fly in all kinds of amazing voices from all over, they’d do a reading, we’d go out for dinner and come back to this sprawling Victorian pile and party into the wee small hours, reading each other’s poetry. And do it again next week. And I thought, this is it. A life of arts and letters. Gallery crawls every Sunday, readings every Thursday, and scrambling like hell to create something new to share for next week. Never looked back. Why would I?
  2. VanderMeer, Jeff (2012). The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature. p. 170.
  3. Carrott, James H. (2013). Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian And A Futurist Journey Through Steampunk Into The Future of Technology.
  4. Rasmus, Daniel (September 2, 2015). "'Vintage Tomorrows' inspires a Steampunk prescription for designers and developers". Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  5. Moyer, Edward (13 April 2012). "Can Jane Austen + steampunk spark girls' science fire?". Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  6. Moyer, Edward (13 April 2012). "Can Jane Austen + steampunk spark girls' science fire?". Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  7. Liu, Jonathan. "Wollstonecraft: Girl Power for Young Readers". Wired. Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  8. Davis, Lauren. "An Ada Lovelace-Mary Shelley team-up". io9. Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  9. "2016 FINALISTS". BC Book PRizes. Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  10. "Silver Birch® Award Program Winners and Nominees" (PDF). Forest of Reading. Ontario Library Association. Retrieved 26 February 2017.
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