February is African American History Month here in the United States. In 2013, when this series began, it was also Women in Horror Month (WiHM). In 2013, as an Ambassador for Women in Horror Month, the original book 60 Black Women in Horror was born during the intersection of the two. . Over the next five years, the world women writing horror from the African Diaspora nearly doubled. and 100+ Black Women in Horror, a 2018 update, containing 109 biographies, was born. Now, in 2023, five years after 100+ Black Women in Horror, the list is once again being updated, to include over 40 new names compiled in a new book, 150 Black Women in Horror.
Here is the fourth list consisting of 10 biographies of women who will be listed in the new book.
Melody Cooper
Melody is a Sundance Episodic Lab Fellow and winner of an Adobe Women at Sundance fellowship for her sci fi horror script “Those Who Kill.” Upcoming: the feature adaptation of African fantasy novel Beasts Of Prey. She’s also developing a horror TV series with Sterling K. Brown and Academy Award-winner Tarell McCraney. Melody started out as staff writer on CW’s Two Sentence Horror Stories while still in the 2019 HBO Access Writing Program. One of her two episodes, “Ibeji” was directed by Bola Ogun and won a Silver Telly. Other credits: Law & Order: SVU, co-producer on Power Book IV: Force, Shudder Labs. Melody also writes comic books, including OMNI, Noir is the New Black (“Igbo Landing”) and DC’s Milestones of History. She’s co-founder of Nyx Horror Collective and co-producer of the Nyx short film program “13 Minutes of Horror” on Shudder (2021 and 2022). Nyx offers horror fellowships in partnership with Stowe Story Labs to woman-identifying writers. socials: @melodycooper@mastodon.world Instagram: @melodycooperflims www.melodyMcooper.com www.nyxhorror.com
Photo by Dan Ostergren
K T Rose
K.T. Rose is a horror, thriller, and dark fiction writer from Detroit, Michigan. She posts suspense and horror flash fiction on her blog at kyrobooks.com and is the author of a suspenseful short story series titled Trinity of Horror, an erotic thriller novel titled When We Swing, and A Dark Web Horror series. She also writes supernatural and paranormal horror novels and short stories. https://www.kyrobooks.com/
Chikodili Emelumadu
Chikodili Emelumadu was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and raised in Nigeria. Her work has previously been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards (2015), the Caine Prize for African Literature (2017) and a Nommo award (2020). In 2019, she won the inaugural Curtis Brown First Novel prize for her novel Dazzling.
Candace Nola
Candace Nola is an award-winning author, editor, publisher, and reviewer. Her books include Breach, Beyond the Breach, Hank Flynn, Bishop and Earth vs The Lava Spiders. She has short stories in The Baker’s Dozen, Secondhand Creeps, American Cannibal, and Exactly the Wrong Things. Beyond the Breach won the Novel of the Year award for 2021 from the Horror Authors Guild and her debut novel, Breach, placed 2nd for Debut Novel of the Year for the same awards that year. She is the publisher and editor of the 2022 Splatterpunk Award-winning anthology Uncomfortably Dark Presents: The Baker’s Dozen. She is the creator of UncomfortablyDark.com, promoting other indie authors in the industry with weekly book reviews, interviews, and special features. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and her website,. https://www.uncomfortablydark.com/
Donyae Coles
Donyae Coles is an artist and a writer whose work is speculative in nature. Her writing is lyrical and haunting and focuses on blending real life anxieties and issues with genre elements found in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She is represented by Lane Heymont of Tobias Literary for written works. She works in traditional media, mainly watercolor, acrylic, and ink. Her artworks convey a narrative all of their own. https://donyaecoles.com/
Jessica Guess
Jessica Guess is a writer and English teacher who hails from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She earned her Creative Writing MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2018 and is the founder of the website Black Girl’s Guide to Horror where she examines horror movies in terms of quality and intersectionality. Her creative work has been featured in Luna Station Quarterly and Mused BellaOnline Literary Review. She loves anything horror but especially slashers and werewolves with maybe a bit of romance thrown in. Jessica will read or watch nearly anything with a black female protagonist. Her horror novella Cirque Berserk is available now.
Isaiyan Morrison
Isaiyan Morrison was born and raised in Minneapolis, but her heart is in the impressive magical worlds she dreams up. She hopes to share her love for world-building with her readers and help guide them through the extraordinary settings she creates. Her other passions include reading, and researching historical events. She also enjoys gardening, gaming, spending quality time with her three cherished cats and beloved pitbull, and practicing her Christian faith. https://isaiyanmorrison.com/
Suzan Palumbo
Suzan Palumbo is a Nebula finalist, active member of the HWA, Co Administrator of the Ignyte Awards and a member of the Hugo nominated FIYAHCON team. She is also a former Associate Editor of Shimmer magazine. Her debut dark fantasy/horror short story collection Skin Thief: Stories will be published by Neon Hemlock in Fall 2023. Her novella “Countess” will be published by ECW Press in spring 2024. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Lightspeed Magazine, Fantasy, The Deadlands, The Dark Magazine, PseudoPod, Fireside Fiction Quarterly, PodCastle, Anathema: Spec Fic from the Margins and other venues. She is officially represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary Agency and tweets at @sillysyntax. When she isn’t writing, she can be found sketching, listening to new wave or wandering her local misty forests. https://suzanpalumbo.wordpress.com/
Stephanie M. Freeman
Four-time #1 Bestselling Hybrid Author, Stephanie M. Freeman began her writing career when Simon and Schuster published her first novel, Necessary Evil. Stephanie is a member of the Cavalcade of Authors and Naleighna Kai’s Tribe Called Success, a collective of New York Times, USA Today and Essence Magazine National and International Best-Selling Authors. Her Diamonds, Blood and Shadows series and books 10 Days of Pleasure and Queen of Shadow Bay are fan favorites. She co-wrote Knight of Bronzeville with National and International Bestselling Author Naleighna Kai and 40 Days of Pleasure with Bestselling Author Martha Kennerson. Stephanie is featured in the Powerhouse Voices of Clubhouse and both The Write Stuff and The Marketing Stuff and hosts the popular Club House Event called Murder, Mayhem and Mysteries (and the people who love them), and Books and Beyond, a podcasting platform where readers meet some of today’s National and International Bestselling Authors. https://stephaniemfreemanauthor.com/
Carolyn Saulson: The author of Living A Lie: Tales of Intrigue, Homelessness and Telepathic Power; the comic book Living A Lie; and the plays The Strange Case of Dr. Henriette Jekyll and Song of Solomon: A Love Story. Her works have appeared in Writer’s Muse Magazine and Tale of an Iconoclast: The Carolyn Saulson Story. Co-Author of Profiles in Black published by the Congress of Racial Equality in 1978, one of the first Black Who’s Who guides in America. She was the lead singer of the Afrocentric gothic band Stagefright, and co-founder of the media arts non-profit Iconoclast Productions, the San Francisco Black Independent Film Festival, and the African American Multimedia Conference.
Black Women in Horror 