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 second 10 of them.
Tracey Baptiste
The New York Times bestselling author of Minecraft: The Crash. A Contributor to Sycorax’s Daughters, she wrote the short story “Ma Laja,” and is the author of the creepy Caribbean series The Jumbies, which includes The Jumbies (2015), Rise of the Jumbies (2017), and The Jumbie God’s Revenge (2019), the contemporary young adult fiction novel Angel’s Grace (named one of the 100 best books for reading and sharing by NYC librarians) and nine non-fiction books for kids in elementary through high school. She’s a former elementary school teacher, currently on the faculty at Lesley University’s Creative Writing MFA program. The Jumbies (2015) and Rise of the Jumbies (2017) are both Junior Library Guild Selections, and received numerous accolades including starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly, New York Public Libraries Staff Pick, Brightly’s Best Kids Books, We Need Diverse Books “Must Read,” named to Bank Street’s Best Books, Kirkus Best MG of the year, Publisher’s Weekly Best MG of the year, and NPR’s end year roundup.
Michele Tracy Berger
Michele Tracy Berger is a professor, an award-winning writer, a creativity coach and a pug-lover. She specializes in helping writers remove blocks around perfectionism, procrastination and inner critics. Her main love is writing speculative fiction, though she also is known to write poetry and creative nonfiction, too. A few places her short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction has appeared, or is forthcoming include: 100 Word Story, Glint Literary Journal, The Wild Word, Apex Magazine, Blood and Bourbon, FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Ms Magazine, various zines and anthologies. In 2020, her science fiction novella, “Reenu-You” about a mysterious virus transmitted through a hair care product was published by Falstaff Books. Much of her work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender. Find her at her website at https://micheleberger.wordpress.com/
Darlene Black
African American novelist Darlene Black is the author of the 2008 horror title Necromancy. She is working on a second novel, Hollis Hill. She hails from Philadelphia, which she sets as the backdrop for her debut work: an occult horror story about a man who follows his fiancée further down the rabbit hole after she gets in too deep with a woman who has convinced her that she can speak to the dead.
www.goodreads.com/book/show/7395357-necromancy
Ebony Bowser
E. Bowser is an author of paranormal romance, Fantasy, and Horror Fiction. She writes whatever stories her imagination can conceive. E. Bowser has always wanted to write a story that people would like to read and would fall in love with the characters. She loves when readers give their feedback so she can make her next book better. E. Bowser loves to read herself and takes great pleasure in doing so whenever she has the chance. E. Bowser started writing short stories about life, anything horror or paranormal when she was in middle school and still has not stopped. E. Bowser has been an independent self-published author since 2015 and has no plans to continue as long as her characters keep talking. Catch up with her on Facebook at authorE.Bowser, on Twitter at ebowser0110, Instagram at e.bowserbooks. linktree at AuthorE.Bowser and her website at www.ebowserbooks.com
Regina N. Bradley
Author of the short story Letty in the anthology Sycorax’s Daughters, Dr. Regina N. Bradley is a writer and researcher of African American Life and Culture. She is the author of Boondock Kollage: Stories from the Hip Hop South. a collection of twelve short stories that addresses issues of race, place, and identity in the post–Civil Rights American South. She is an acclaimed fiction writer, with her work being featured in Obsidian journal, Oxford American, and Transition Magazine. Dr. Bradley is an Assistant Professor of English and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA. She can be reached at http://www.redclayscholar.com.
Kinitra Brooks, PhD
The author of the Bram Stoker-nominated Searching for Sycorax: Black Women’s Hauntings of Contemporary Horror, Dr. Brooks is a scholar who specializes in black female contributions to horror. Searching for Sycorax is a monograph examining the works of women across the African diaspora. She is also one of the editors of Stoker-nominated Sycorax’s Daughters, a horror anthology featuring short stories by black women. She wrote The Black Maternal: Heterogeneity and resistance in literary representations of black mothers in 20th century African American and Afro-Caribbean women’s fiction. She is working on a book called Divinely Monstrous: Black Women Conjuring the Grotesque in Popular Culture. She is also coediting a volume on black women and horror entitled Towards a Black Women’s Horror Aesthetic: Critical Frameworks with Susana M. Morris and Linda Addison. She has published articles in African American Review, Obsidian, and FEMSPEC. www.kinitradbrooks.com
Chesya Burke
Speculative fiction writer Chesya Burke blends literary fiction in the African American tradition with contemporary horror. She’s published over forty short stories. She won the 2004 Twilight Tales award for short fiction. Publisher’s Weekly said of her short story collection Let’s Play White: “The label of “dark fantasy and horror” fits this collection both ironically and genuinely.” www.chesyaburke.com
Claudia Mair Burney
The author of The Exorsistah series which following the trials and travails of Emme Vaughn, a young black exorcist who must face demons of both the literal and metaphysical sort and is being haunted by a mysterious ghost. She is also author of the Amanda Bell Brown mystery series, and has written romances and religious inspirational stories. ragamuffindiva.blogspot.com
Octavia Butler
Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction writer Octavia Butler was high-profile as a genre writer, although not all fans were aware of her race. She successfully crossed barriers of race and gender on the page, breaking down doors for generations to come. While best known as a science-fiction writer, her paranormal fiction, such as Fledgling, the story of an adult vampire forever trapped in the body of a child, also crosses over into the realm of horror. She passed away in 2006, leaving behind a legacy of firsts. octaviabutler.org
Tara Campbell
With a BA in English, MA in German, and MFA in Creative Writing, Tara Campbell has a demonstrated aversion to money and power. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, she has also lived in Oregon, Ohio, New York, Germany and Austria. She currently lives in Washington, D.C. She received the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’s 2016 Larry Neal Writers’ Award in Adult Fiction, 2016 Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding New Artist, and Arts and Humanities Fellowships for 2018 – 2022. She is also a 2017 Kimbilio Fellow and winner of the 2018 Robert Gover Story Prize. Tara earned her MFA from American University in 2019, and is a fiction editor at Barrelhouse. She teaches fiction with American University, Johns Hopkins University’s Advanced Academic Programs, the Writer’s Center, Politics and Prose, Catapult, and the National Gallery of Art’s Virtual Studio. Find her on Twitter: @TaraCampbellCom, Instagram: @thetreevolution, Mastodon: @TaraCampbell@writing.exchange and Facebook: CampbellTaraP www.taracampbell.com
Black Women in Horror 
Leave a Reply