About dan

Dan Mayland is the author of the Mark Sava spy series and The Doctor of Aleppo, novels informed by his long love of history and experiences in the Caspian Region and Middle East. While Azerbaijan was an early focus, Mayland also visited Iran prior to the 2009 uprising, Bahrain shortly after the eruption of the Arab Spring, Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, the Turkey-Syria border after the fall of Aleppo, and more recently Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia and other countries as he followed the Western Balkan migration route from the Middle East to Western Europe. In these places and others, Mayland has interviewed diplomats, spies, doctors, protestors, aid workers, refugees, and anyone else who will talk to him.

In addition to writing novels, Mayland is a professional geopolitical forecaster. He stumbled upon this role in 2014 when he was invited to participate in research funded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). After his probabilistic forecasts proved to be more accurate than ninety-nine percent of other research participants, including those of trained intelligence analysts, Mayland was asked to participate in additional research—in which his forecasts proved to be equally accurate. As a result, he now forecasts professionally for Good Judgment Inc., a firm which claims, with ample justification based on their work with the ODNI, to be “the world’s most accurate geo-political and geo-economic forecasting entity.” In that capacity, Mayland has teamed with other top forecasters all over the world to provide granular-level insight into specific geopolitical issues—the war in Syria included—for nonprofit, private, and government organizations. Forecasts to which he has contributed have appeared in The Economist and on the front page of The Finanical Times. His analyses of Middle Eastern issues have been translated into Arabic for Middle Eastern clients. An interview in which Mayland discusses how forecasting influences his writing can be found here. 

Raised in New Jersey, Mayland received a degree in history from Dartmouth College and after graduating, began writing novels. After detouring into real estate to pay the bills, he resumed writing and now lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and two children, in an old stone farmhouse he and his wife have restored. He enjoys mountaineering, climbing, skiing, camping, reading, and spending time with his family.