
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) which is now celebrated by many in March during Women’s History Month. In 2013, as an Ambassador for Women in Horror Month, Sumiko Saulson put together the original book 60 Black Women in Horror at the the intersection of the two. Over the next five years, the world of 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, with the assistance of Kenya Moss-Dyme 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 combined list of 150, listed alphabetically, in batches of 10. Here are the first 10 of them.
Erin E. Adams
Erin E. Adams, the author of Edgar and Lefty award-nominated Jackal, is a first-generation Haitian American writer and theatre artist. A 2022 Kimbilio Fellow, she received her B.A. with honors in Literary Arts from Brown University her M.F.A. in Acting from The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program and her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. An award-winning playwright and actor, Adams has called New York City home for the last decade. Jackal is her first novel. Twitter/Instagram and/Facebook: @iameeadams www.erineadams.com
Linda D. Addison
Linda D. Addison (Photo by Brandan Lee) is an award-winning author of five collections, including How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend, and the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®. She has been honored with HWA Lifetime Achievement Award, HWA Mentor of the Year and SFPA Grand Master of Fantastic Poetry. She has published over 400 poems, stories, articles and a member of CITH, HWA, SFWA, SFPA and IAMTW. Find her in anthologies: Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda; Predator: Eyes of the Demon; Chiral Mad 5; Writing Poetry in the Dark; Shakespeare Unleashed. www.lindaaddisonwriter.com
Pheare Alexander
An African American author from Chicago, Illinois. The author of Str8 Laced and Lot 9, Ms. Alexander occupies a niche within the horror genre that is traditionally male dominated and written for male audiences, a gory sub-genre filled with brutal dismemberments, slashers and serial killers known as “extreme horror.”(Photo by Pheare Alexander)
Angela C. Allen
Angela C. Allen is the editor of the Dark Thirst anthology (Simon & Schuster), and was a staff writer for Sleepy Hollow (Fox). She is the author of “Vamp Noir,” short story in Dark Thirst about a vampire exiled from her clan who decides to start a new life in New York – as a mafia enforcer. She is a twin and a native of Texas. A graduate of Howard University, a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Post, the Washington Post, the Indianapolis Star, the Sun (London), and Honey magazine.
Miracle Austin
Miracle Austin is a Texan gal who works in the medical social work arena by day and in the writer’s world at night, including weekends, as a YA/NA author. Doll is her debut YA supernatural, coming-of-age novel with diverse themes intertwined; it won second place in the Young Adult category in the 2016 Purple Dragonfly Awards. She loves horror, collecting T-shirts, Stranger Things, Wednesday, Marvel & DC, sparkles, unicorns, 80s music, and daydreaming up stories. Miracle lives in Texas with her family, and she looks forward to hearing from her awesome readers, who already know her, and new ones, too. You can find her on Instagram & Twitter at @MiracleAustin7, Facebook as Miracle Austin Author, or at www.miracleaustin.com.
Tiffany Austin
Tiffany Austin (April 26, 1975 – June 23, 2018) was a poet who contributed “Toward a Peacock Poem” to the horror anthology Sycorax’s Daughters, she also wrote the essay “The Gendered Bias in Sonia Sanchez’ Haiku, ” which is a part of the anthology Sonia Sanchez’ Poetic Spirit through Haiku. She was a widely published poet, who was published in .Callaloo, Obsidian III, African American Review, Coloring Book: An Anthology of Poetry and Fiction by Multicultural Writers, Warpland, pluck!, The Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, Valley Voices, Auburn Avenue, TriQuarterly, Sycorax’s Daughters, and Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters. She had a published chapbook Étude. You can find a biography of her here: https://www.clascholars.org/dr–tiffany-u–austin–1975-2018-
Paula D. Ashe
Paula D. Ashe completed her B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in Psychology and earned an M.A. in Composition and Rhetoric with a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies. She is currently completing an M.A. in American Studies from Purdue University. An award-winning author of dark fiction, her first short story collection We Are Here to Hurt Each Other was published in February of 2022 and was an Amazon bestseller in African American horror. She is also an associate editor of Vastarien: A Literary Journal. She lives in the midwest (which is best) with her family. pauladashe.net/
Kamika Aziza
Kamika Aziza is the writer of a children’s’ book series and a comic book series both based in Jamaica. She studied Radio and Television broadcasting at Trident Technical College where she also graduated with a certificate in Radio Production. She works on a comic book series titled League of Maroons based on Caribbean folklore, and a children’s book series titled The Adventures of Kam Kam, both currently available for Amazon Kindle, as well as the poetry chapbook Random Poems from a Desperate Mind. www.facebook.com/Kamika1990
Eugen Bacon
Eugen Bacon MA, MSc, PhD is an African Australian author of several novels and fiction collections. She’s a 2022 World Fantasy Award finalist, and was announced in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Recent books: Mage of Fools (novel), Chasing Whispers (collection) and An Earnest Blackness (essays). Eugen has two novels, a novella and two anthologies (ed) out in 2023, and the US release of Danged Black Thing. Visit her Twitter at @EugenBacon and her website at eugenbacon.com
L.A. Banks
Leslie Esdaile Banks wrote in four different genres under four different pen names. She was the author of the Vampire Huntress Legend series and the Crimson Moon Novels, including Left for Undead and Never Cry Werewolf. She had a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a master’s in fine arts from Temple University. Her Vampire Hunter series reads like a streetwise Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a hip, multicultural cast and grittier adult entanglements rife with lust and complication instead of teenage romance. The highly prolific author passed away in 2011 after a battle with cancer.
Fantastic. Hope to make this list someday.
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