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  • At the Heart of Horror: Valjeanne Jeffers, Remembered

    Around this time last year, I was interviewing authors for the Horror Writers Association’s Black Heritage Month blog series when I received the heartrending news that Valjeanne was coming toward the end of her life. She let me know that she was very ill, and asked if I could interview her over the phone, rather than via email, because of her illness. I said yes, of course, and proceeded to type up her answers as she dictated them to me over the phone. Valjeanne told me at the time that she didn’t think she’d be around very much longer. I asked her if there was anything I could do, and she spoke in glowing terms of her longtime boyfriend Quenton Veal checking on her regularly. 

    Just six months later, she was gone, taking her remarkable light from the world and leaving so many of us grieving. Nonetheless, her legacy lives, not just in her body of work but in the way she impacted virtually everyone with whom she came into contact.

    Valjeanne was an exceedingly kind and warmhearted woman, known to many of her friends and loved ones as Sister Moon, which was her email and social media tag. Thaddeus Howze spoke of this in his memorial piece honoring her, “A name to conjure by: Sister Moon, Valjeanne Jeffers,” which ran in the San Francisco BayView.

    Like Thaddeus, I never had the honor nor pleasure of meeting Valjeanne in person, though we were on many of the same virtual convention panels (particularly during the extended stay-at-home period at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic), and we had also spoken over the phone several times.

    Valjeanne was one of the writers I profiled on my original list of 60 Black Women in Horror, which I put together back in 2013. Although I didn’t know her at the time, I met her the following year and interviewed her for my blog. 

    The first time I spoke to her on the phone, I remember her patiently explaining how to pronounce her name, Valjeanne. She was named after Jean Valjean from the Victor Hugo novel “Les Miserables” and her name was pronounced the same way, the “Jeanne” is pronounced more like “Joan” than “Jean”—most accurately, like something halfway between “Joan” and “John”, just like Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek.  Her mom was a huge fan of the play.

    If you haven’t read any of her work, I encourage you to start here: Valjeanne’s stories have appeared in many anthologies – Steamfunk (2013); Griots: Sisters of the Spear (2013); Sycorax’s Daughters (2017); The City: A Cyberfunk Anthology (2015); Blacktastic: Blacktastic Con 2018 Anthology (2018); Dark Universe: The Bright Empire (2018); Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler (2017); Blerdrotica I: Sweet, Sexy, and Special Dark (2020); Fitting In: Historical Accounts of Paranormal Subcultures (2016); and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2007), among others. 

    Valjeanne, in addition to being extremely talented and prolific, was the salt of the Earth. She was a warm, kind person who was extremely well-loved by everyone who knew her. I had the pleasure of sharing a number of tables of contents with her, including the anthologies Scierogenous II: An Anthology of Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy (2018), Black Magic Women: Terrifying Tales by Scary Sisters (2018), Slay: Tales of the Vampire Noire (‎Mocha Memoirs Press (2020), Horror Addicts Guide to Life 2 (2022). 

    She had two series under her belt, The Immortal Series (2009, 2010, 2010, & 2021; about star-crossed shapeshifters), and Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective (2014, 2016, & 2021). She also wrote The Switch: Clockwork (2013; a steamfunk crossover with the “Immortal Universe,”) Colony: The Ascension (2020; a space opera) and Southern Comfort (2016). She was a luminary in the steamfunk subgenre, as detailed in my San Francisco BayView remembrance of her, “The Queen of Steamfunk.”

    You can find many writings by Valjeanne, along with interviews and podcasts of her, by searching her name on HorrorAddicts.net. Her short story “The Lost Ones” can be heard on the Nightlight Podcast.

    I shared a table of contents with her for what is likely the last release of her new original work, Blerdrotica II: Couple’s Therapy, which was released in December 2022, half a year after she joined the ancestors. I still recall speaking on Facebook with Valjeanne, Quinton, and another friend James Goodridge about how excited we all were to have been accepted into it. The fact the anthology came out after her death has given me many moments to reflect anew on her loss.

    In my heart, I keep forgetting that she isn’t going to be at the book release event or conventions, that I couldn’t ask her for an updated bio for Black Women in Horror Month, that despite the many online panels we were on together I would now never be meeting her in person. Valjeanne was one of those people who always showed up, who could be relied on, whose presence brightened the spaces in which she participated, and the presence of her absence still breaks my heart.

  • Introducing the 2023 BWiH Magazine – Special Edition!

    This is the ONLY place you can access the Premium FULL COLOR magazine for download or online viewing. Click the image to get your copy today!!!

    BWiH

  • February is Black Women in Horror Month!

    February is Black Women in Horror Month!

    February may be the shortest month of the year, but the LOUDEST month when it comes to celebrations, recognitions and tributes. In 2013, February became the official Black Women in Horror Month, and each year we happily rev up at this time to celebrate the bold voices and lasting impact of black women in the horror industry. 

    This year, as we mark the 10th anniversary of the first Black Women in Horror list series, and 5 years after the last major update to the series, Kenya Moss-Dyme of Colors in Darkness, and Sumiko Saulson, who put together 100+ Black Women in Horror, are revitalizing the series with the launch of the BlackWomenInHorror.org website. We will start off by debuting a new series of interviews, but over time, we will honor not only trailblazers like Octavia Butler, Tananarive Due and L. A. Banks, we also recognize the women creating art and showing up every subgenre of the field. From books to film; from paranormal, sci-fi, dark romance to bad ass monsters, BWiHM will kickoff a celebration that’s far too big for one month – we’ll be following these creatives all year long!

    We’ve only got 28 days so let’s make the most of it! Join us as we introduce you to the women who show up in every space of the horror universe – some you may know, but many who will become your newest darlings. 

    Is there a Black Woman in Horror that we should know about? Someone who was not on the original list and should be added as we improve and increase it? Old bios that should be updated? You can be a part of improving, updating, and increasing the list! Contact Sumiko Saulson at sumikoska@yahoo.com if you have any suggestions for writers who should be on the list, including yourself!

    Watch this space for more information, news and links to BWiHM celebrations across all media. 

    Follow blackwomeninhorror.org to stay in the know.

    Like and Share, and Tag us in your own posts about Black Women in Horror all throughout the month of February and use the #BWiHM and #BlackWomenInHorror hashtags! 

    Sumiko Saulson: @sumikoska on FB, Twitter and Tik-Tok and @sumikosaulson on IG

    Kenya Moss-Dyme: FB: @kenya.mossdyme, Tik-Tok & IG: @kenyamossdyme 

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 8 (Koboah – Loesener)

    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 eighth 10 of them.

    A.D. Koboah

    British novelist A.D. Kobah is of Ghanaian descent. She is the author of The Darkling Trilogy, whose protagonist Luna was a slave in Mississippi in the early 1800s when she attracted the attention of an evil bloodsucking entity. She also wrote Peace, about a heroin addict struggling with self-destructive urges and demons from the past. www.adkoboah.com

    Nicole Givens Kurtz

    Dark science-fiction often dances along the fine line between pure sci-fi and true horror. Stories like The Soul Cages, the first book in The Minister Knights of Souls Series featuring a black protagonist, Sarah, uses the sci-fi context to address the political issue of slavery. Sarah is reincarnated into Valek’s soul cages, where she can’t experience human senses or love, and desires to return to human flesh. The post-apocalyptic dystopic world of The Cybil Lewis Series is not horror but is definitely in the dark speculative fiction wheelhouse.   nicolegivenskurtz.com

    Alexandra Lane

    Alexandra Lane is the author of A Vision of Angels: The Battle Begins, and Donum: The Battle Has Already Begun, two novels in the religious supernatural horror genre dealing with fallen angels and the apocalypse. The first story takes place in historical Maryland during the slavery era, and it’s central protagonist, Minty, is a slave. The second takes place in modern times. alexandralane.tateauthor.com


    Michelle Renee Lane

    Michelle Renee Lane holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and recently joined the faculty of the Speculative Fiction Academy. She writes dark speculative fiction about identity politics and women of color battling their inner demons while fighting/falling in love with monsters. Her work includes elements of fantasy, horror, romance, and erotica. Her short fiction appears in several anthologies and has been featured on The Wicked Library podcast. Her Bram Stoker Award nominated debut novel, Invisible Chains, is available from Haverhill House Publishing. Her nonfiction can be found at Medium, Speculative Chic, and in Writers Workshop of Horror 2. Follow Michelle’s blog, Girl Meets Monster, at michellerlane.com.


    Briana Lawrence

    Briana Lawrence is the author of the paranormal murder mystery Treat Me Kindly, on Damnation Books, about shape shifting creature who can turn deadly if their human companions do not treat them kindly. With Jessica Walsh, she co-wrote Seeking the Storyteller, about monster hunters who encounter a supernatural creature capable of re-writing history. brichibi.wix.com/whisperedwords

    Kai Leakes

    St. Louis native and vampire lover, author Kai Leakes began her obsession with all things fantasy, romance, and the dark as a teen. Kai is the creator of the popular dark fantasy/horror series Sin Eaters: Devotion Books & Sin Eater Chronicles novellas. She has short stories in several Afrocentric speculative fiction anthologies: “Taste the Taint: A Cursed Story” in Sycorax’s Daughters; “Sisters” in Black Magic Women; “Free Your Mind” in The City: A Cyberfunk Anthology; and “Traveler’s Song, a Pulse Prelude” in Rococoa. She co-wrote A Christmas Kind of Love with Nikki Michelle  kwhp5f.wix.com/kai-leakes

    Natasha Morningstarr

    Natasha MorningStarr is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Natasha’s stories have been featured in two anthologies, Wasatch Witches: A Collection of Utah Horror and Out of Darkness by WolfSinger Publications 2023. In 2021, Natasha started a series of Twisted Tales on her website, seasonal short horror stories released during the spooky season (October – December). As of 2023, she is working with her husband on their first horror novel together. When not writing, Natasha enjoys sipping glasses of white wine and rituals with her husband during the new moon. With an understanding of the supernatural world and a knack for weaving dark tales that unsettle readers she is part of an extensive network of family members known as Wanderers who are able to speak to the dead. Find her on Twitter: @MorningstarrLit  Instagram @morningstarrlit  and read the Twisted Tales Series at www.natashawrites.info/twisted-tales

    Tonya Liburd

    Internationally recognized as an emerging SFFH writer, Tonya Liburd writes primarily in the speculative genre, as well as literary fiction, and poetry (speculative & literary). She is the editor at The Expanse Magazine, a Codexian, and a member of the Horror Writers’ Association, the Science Fiction Poetry Association, SFWA, HWA, CSFFA. She has received both a 2020 Ontario Arts Council Writers Grant, and a 2021 Horror Writers’ Association Diversity Grant. You can find her on Twitter as @somesillywowzer, Instagram as @TonyaLiburd, Pinterest as @TheSpiderlilly, and streaming games on Twitch at TheSpiderlilly thespiderlilly.wordpress.com/

    A.J. Locke

    A.J. Locke is an author and poet from Trinidad and Tobago. Her poems “The Lonely, Salty Sea,” and “A Real Friend Will Let You Break” appeared in the horror anthology Sycorax’s Daughters. She writes urban fantasy and paranormal fiction. Her books include Affairs of the Dead (The Reanimation Files #1); Requiem for the Living (The Reanimation Files #2); The Ravaging In Between (The Reanimation Files #3); A Torment of Savages (The Reanimation Files #4); Black Widow Witch; and Elemental Inferno.   iqurae.blogspot.com

    KC Loesener

    KC Loesener is the author of The Eve of Darkness and several horror short stories. Proud introvert, bird lover, and a huge horror fan, KC is a horror content creator and writing coach, teaching new writers to focus and write their manuscripts in four months. Besides writing horror, KC loves a good ghost story. The paranormal, vampires, and werewolves exhilarate KC, who loves punk and grunge and desperately misses the 90s. Superhero movies and comics are a necessity. KC enjoys creating complex characters that rise to discover themselves.  Youtube and Instagram: @kcfinalgirl kcloesener.com

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 7 (Jackson – Knight)

    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 seventh 10 of them.

    Tish Jackson


    Tish Jackson wrote “The Love of a Zombie Is Everlasting” for the horror anthology Whispers in the Night (A Dark Dreams Anthology #3), and the short story “Cheaters” for the horror anthology Sycorax’s Daughters. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from an HBCU in New Orleans. She is working on a short story collection about tales of love gone awry.

    www.goodreads.com/author/show/4072410.Tish_Jackson


    Tiara Jante

    Tiara Janté is a Locus Award-winning and Hugo-nominated author, journalist, and national bestselling ghostwriter. She specializes in writing Black centered, character-driven stories that weave the fantasticism of speculative fiction with the realities of the past, present, and future. Her characters are created to reflect the authentic and multilayered dimensions of Black people, their traditions, and their experiences in America. A staunch advocate for amplifying Black voices through media, Tiara frequently collaborates with other Black creatives to help bring their stories to life. Her work spans the gamut of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy. Tiara has a BA in English & Literature from Muhlenberg College and she defends for a MA in Professional and Digital Media Writing from East Stroudsburg University in 2023. Presently, Tiara resides in the metro Atlanta area with her children. Connect with her on FB, IG, & TikTok: @iamtiarajante or at tiarajante.net.

    Valjeanne Jeffers


    Author of the Immortal erotic horror series, which includes Immortal, Immortal 2: The Time of Legend, Immortal 3: Stealer of Souls, and Immortal IV: Collision of Worlds. She is also the author of The Story of Eve (nonfiction); The Switch II: Clockwork; Grandmere’s Secret and Colony. She is a member of the Carolina African American Writer’s Collective.

    www.vjeffersandqveal.com


    Jemiah Jefferson

    The hero of nerdy black women everywhere, Jemiah Jefferson is like a superhero: comic book editor by day, author by night. She works at the editorial department of Dark Horse Comics. Her Gothic Horror series The Vampire Quartet begins in San Francisco with the adventures of Daniel Blum and then follows his extended vampire family across the ocean and back in time. It has been published in multiple languages.  

    http://www.jemiah.com/


    N.K. Jemisin

    Science-Fiction & Fantasy author N.K. Jemisin won the Locus Award and has twice been short-listed for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her dark fantasy The Killing Moon: death, dark magic, and a peaceful religious society with a creepy “angel of death” style mercy-killing squad with a dream blood addiction all add up to the kind of disturbing thought provocation associated with top-notch horror.

    nkjemisin.com

    Delizhia D. Jenkins

    Horror, paranormal, urban fantasy and paranormal romance author Delizhia Jenkins wrote the urban horror story Dark Moon’s Curse for Black Magic Women. She writes paranormal and paranormal romance titles under the name Delizhia D. Jenkins. Her titles include The Dark Royals Series, which includes Blind Salvation; The Vampire Hunter’s Academy Series, which includes The Darkness and The Reckoning; In the Light of Darkness, Viper: The Vampire Assassin, Into The Shadows, Sin: Daughter of the Grim Reaper, Nubia Rising: The Awakening, and Love At Last.

    m.facebook.com/MissJenkinsAuthor 

    Alaya Dawn Johnson

    Speculative fiction writer Alaya Dawn Johnson’s work of paranormal science-fantasy Moonshine gives us an alternate 1920′s New York that is crawling with blood-drug addicted vampire mobsters. Social activism isn’t enough to keep her protagonist Zephyr Hollis off the radar of a darkly seductive blood sucker named Amir. Its sequel is Wicked City. Zephyr works on outlawing the blood-drug Faust. 

    www.alayadawnjohnson.com

    Tenea Johnson

    Dark futures dominate the landscape of Tenea D. Johnson’s speculative fiction. “The Taken” was her contribution to Dark Dreams III. Publisher’s Weekly dubbed the short story a “provocative meditation on revenge.” R/evolution, her science fiction dystopian novel, takes place in a future USA marred by stark class divisions, economic and racial divide and limited access to advanced new biogenics.

    www.teneadjohnson.com 

    R. J. Joseph

    Rhonda Jackson Garcia, AKA RJ Joseph, is an award-winning, Stoker Award™ nominated, Texas-based academic and creative writer/professor whose writing focuses on the intersections of gender and race in horror, romance, and popular culture. She has had works published in two fiction anthologies of Black, female horror writers, Sycorax’s Daughters, and Black Magic Women, as well as the 2020 Halloween issue of Southwest Review and The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Series. Her recent horror collection, Hell Hath No Sorrow like a Woman Haunted, was released by The Seventh Terrace in August 2022. Rhonda is an instructor at The Speculative Fiction academy and co-host of the Genre Blackademia podcast. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she can usually be found wrangling her huge blended family of one husband, five adult sprouts, six teenaged sproutlings, four grandboo seedlings, and one furry hellbeast who sometimes pretends to be a dog. 

    Social media: @rjacksonjoseph or  www.rhondajacksonjoseph.com

    Kish Knight

    Kish Knight is a New Adult and Young Adult urban fantasy, paranormal romance and teen thriller author. Her forever goal is to create fun, escapist novels with characters of color or otherwise. She is the author of the following projects: the Dark-Inferno urban fantasy novels, the Returned urban fantasy series, the Immortal Blood young adult urban fantasy series, and the Senior Year young adult contemporary series. She has also the author of a middle grade novel, Our Crew PLUS boys! (under the pen name Cher Cabal). Her current round of busywork involves developing a plethora of design documents for her latest e-book series.

    www.kishknight.com/

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 6 (Hobbs – Jackson)

    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 sixth 10 of them.

    Allison Hobbs

    Best known for her works of erotic fiction, Allison Hobbs has written two adult horror novels, “The Sorceress” and “The Enchantress.” Under the pen name Joelle Sterling she wrote Midnight Cravings, The Dark Hunger, and Forbidden Feast, which follow the story of a teen who emigrates from Haiti to the United States, where he finds love, romance, and wars between vampires, witches, and zombies. 

    www.allisonhobbs.com

    Chanel Harry

    Chanel Harry is a horror novelist who combines psychological horror with paranormal terrors in her novel, The Other Child, about a child psychologist who has to separate a vengeful spirit from the traumatized children it inhabits at Black Hallow School for Blind and Disabled Girls. Other horror titles include Heebie Jeebies: Tales of Terror, a macabre and terrifying ten-story collection; Skin Witch: Tales of Soucouyants; and The Restless: Evil Has Come Home. She hails from the Bronx, New York. Her mother is from Trinidad and Tobago, which she visits annually. She is immersed in her mother’s culture, and her book Skin Witch is about the Soucouyant vampire folklore from Trinidad.

    www.facebook.com/FireLadyTalesOfTheSoucouyants 

    Akua Lezli Hope

    Poet, writer, and hand papermaker Akua Lezli Hope is a founding member of the Black Writers Union and the New Renaissance Writers Guild. She is one of the writers in the short story anthology Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. Her surrealistic near-future tale “The Becoming” got Honorable Mention for The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Award. 

    Official Website


    Pauline E. Hopkins

    One of the lesser-known figures of the Harlem Renaissance, she was a prominent African American novelist best known for her Afrocentric historical romances. Her short story “Talma Gordon,” published in 1900 in The Colored American Magazine, is considered by many the first African-American mystery story. Her fourth novel, Of One Blood mixed dark fantasy with realism, setting the stage for the magical realism that would become a mainstay of modern African-American literary fiction. It mixes gothic horror and fantasy to tell the story of one educated black man’s journey to racial self-discovery.

    www.paulinehopkinssociety.org


    Nalo Hopkinson

    Jamaican sci-fi and fantasy writer Nalo Hopkinson received the 1999 Locus Award for Best First Novel for Brown Girl in the Ring, a tale set against a post-apocalyptic backdrop involving a seer named Ti-Jeanne whose psychic visions only include the deaths of others. Her short story anthology Skin Folk tells tales of skin-shedding shape shifters. 

    http://nalohopkinson.com/


    Zora Neale Hurston

    Best known for her critically acclaimed Their Eyes Were Watching God, her collection of African American folklore Every Tongue Got To Confess includes stories about witches and ghosts (or “haunts”). With a 1937 Guggenheim Fellowship, she conducted studies in Jamaica and Haiti and wrote the non-fiction work “Tell My Horse,“ which includes voodoo and zombies.

    zoranealehurston.com


    Alledria Hurt

    Alledria Hurt is horror, fantasy and science fiction writer. She contributed the horror short story “The Prizewinner” to the horror anthology Black Magic Women. Her books include Chains of Fate, October Sky, Dark King Rising, Objects: Stories of Things, Hush, Ruins of Fate, Blades of Fate, Wearing His Ring, and Harmony: A Killer Mystery. Born in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, Alledria Hurt has traveled Europe and the United States. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and her Master of Arts in Liberal and Professional Studies degree from Armstrong Atlantic State University.

               www.alledriahurt.com

    Beatrice Iker

    Beatrice Winifred Iker is an author and poet whose work can/will be found in FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Anathema Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, the Death in the Mouth horror anthology, and others. Iker is a Voodoonauts Fellowship alum, co-host on the Afronauts Podcast, and a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA). Originally from East Tennessee, Iker lives in New England with a wonderful husband, many cats, and a robust tarot deck collection. You can find Iker on Twitter (@BeatriceIker), Instagram (@beatricewinifrediker), or through the website beatriceiker.com

    Monica Jackson


    Her entry into the Dark Thirst collection was “The Ultimate Diet,” the story of a chubby computer programmer who is longing to be thin when a strange blood-sucking woman moves in across the street. It parodies the American obsession with getting thin by any means necessary. She also wrote the paranormal romance titles A Magical Moment and Heart’s Desire, featuring a protagonist with psychic gifts.

    Monica Jackson’s catalogue of work at Goodreads

    Tiffany D. Jackson


    Tiffany D. Jackson is the NYT Bestselling, award-winning author of YA novels Monday’s Not Coming, Allegedly, Let Me Hear A Rhyme, Grown, White Smoke, Santa in The City, The Weight of Blood, and co-author of Blackout. A Coretta Scott King — John Steptoe New Talent Award-winner and the NAACP Image Award-nominee, she received her Bachelor of Arts in film from Howard University and has over a decade in TV/Film experience. The Brooklyn native is currently splitting her time between the borough she loves and the south, most likely multitasking.


  • The Official Black Women in Horror Merch Shop!

    Now you can shop the official merch shop for BWiH tees, hoodies and caps! All proceeds go directly to support BWiH projects.

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 5 (G – Hill)

    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 fifth 10 of them.

    Dormaine G

    She is the author of several horror, paranormal fantasy and paranormal mystery, and young adult titles. She was a 2015 Kindle Book Awards finalist for The Time of Sanura, the third book in her Madame Lilly horror series about a vengeance-driven Creole voodoo priestess born in the 1800s who uses dark magic to become immortal. Other titles include the paranormal murder mystery Anguta’s Reign, and the paranormal fantasy Blood Thirst; An Eternal Romance.

     dormainegblog.blogspot.com


    Robin Green

    The author of the psychological horror series Terror Text, two novellas about a serial killer who uses cellphone text messages to harass his teenage victims before forcing them to watch one another’s suffering, and The Day after Yesterday, a sci-fi thriller about three boys who find marbles that grant them visions and may have greater powers still.


    Tyhitia Green

    Tyhitia Green writes horror, fantasy, and science fiction. She sometimes dabbles in other genres as well. She began writing poetry as a child and ventured into fiction years later. Her horror flash story, Margie, appeared in the July 2009 issue of Necrotic Tissue magazine, and her non-fiction has appeared in Lightspeeid magazine and on Black Girl Nerds.com.

    /https://tyhitiagreen.com/

    Dicey Grenor

    Dicey Grenor is the author of the Narcoleptic Vampire Series novellas, which contain darkly twisted, sexy stories of vampires, werewolves, and supernatural fetish clubs. Don’t let the erotic content fool you: Dicey isn’t hold backing when it comes to the gore, violence, and disturbing content horror fans tend to expect, and love stories may be present but aren’t the core of her stories.

    www.diceygrenorbooks.com


    Jewelle Gomez

    Activist Jewelle Gomez won the Lambda Award for her stories about a black lesbian vampire named Gilda, The Gilda Stories. Gilda makes a reappearance in the traditional and fantasy short story collection Don’t Explain.  Well known as a writer of lesbian erotica and poetry, she contributed the story “Chicago 1927″ to the anthology of African Diaspora speculative fiction Dark Matter

    www.jewellegomez.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.

    Virginia Hamilton 

     She received the Edgar Alan Poe Award for The House of Dies Drear, a ghost story that took place in a house that was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Her paranormal romance Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush about a fourteen year old girl who embarks on a journey of self-discovery after meeting a handsome ghost won the Coretta Scott King Award. She won every major award in children’s literature.

     www.virginiahamilton.com

    Veronica G. Henry


    Veronica G. Henry is the author of Bacchanal, The Quarter Storm, The Foreign Exchange (Feb 2023) in the Mambo Reina series. Her work has debuted at #1 on multiple Amazon bestseller charts, was chosen as an editors’ pick for Best African American Fantasy, and shortlisted for the Manly Wade Wellman Award. She is a Viable Paradise alum and a member of SFWA and MWA. Her stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and FIYAH Literary Magazine.

    https://www.veronicahenry.net/


    Donna Hill


    Donna Hill is a pioneer of the African American romance genre, with more than fifty tiles to her name over the past thirty years – now, just let that sink in for a minute. At a rate of a novel and a half per year, she writes books faster than some of us can read them. Three of her books were made into movies. On top of that she’s found the time to write short stories for the horror anthologies Dark Thirst and Creepin.  donnahill.co

    Kim. M. Munsamy

    Kim. M. Munsamy is a horror and science fiction short story author. She completed her Masters in Counseling Psychology at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Her work has appeared in The Misbehaving Dead Anthology, The First Line Literary Journal, the F is for Fear Anthology, Mystery Tribune, Ripples in Space,  and the Last Girls Club.

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 4 (Davis – Freeman)

    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 fourth 10 of them.

    Lexi Davis

    Paranormal romance novelist Lexi Davis’ cautionary tale “Are You My Daddy?” graced the pages of Dark Dreams III. Her debut novel, Pretty Evil, about three guys on the wrong side of a female demon, was nominated ”Best First Novel” African American, Romantic Times Book Club Reviewer’s Choice Awards. Her second novel, The After Wife is about Nia Youngblood the daughter of a witch who promised her hand in marriage to a demon named Rephaim. Unfortunately she’d have to die to marry him, in the afterlife. www.lexidavis.com

    Dahlia DeWinters

    Self-described “Writer of romance, speculative fiction and horror, sometimes all three” Dahlia DeWinters has horror shorts in the notable black horror anthologies Black Girl Magic: Horror Edition and CID’s Forever Vacancy. Her novels include the southern gothic horror novel Tea and Tomahawks, the zombie-themed paranormal romance Loving Among the Dead, and the paranormal romance Reluctant Magic. She also writes horror reviews for her blog, The Sultry Scribe. bohowriterchick.com


    Amber Doe

    Amber Doe is an artist, poet and author. She wrote The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, a short horror story in Sycorax’s Daughters.  She has been published in the Finnish art journal Hesa Inprint three times; By Sixteen for their Phobia issue and Moon in Cancer and This will hurt for their Harvest Issue. Both pieces are related to the longer piece The Last of the Red Hot Lovers published in Sycorax.  She was born in Washington DC, raised in Philadelphia PA and an Indian reservation outside of Charlotte, NC. Amber earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College.  amberdoe.co

    Tananarive Due

    Stoker Award nominee Tananarive Due is an NAACP Image Award and an American Book Award winner. The New York Times called her novel My Soul to Keep “Riveting, and masterfully researched.” A highly prolific writer, her impressive body of work includes over a dozen titles, written alone or in collaboration with her husband, Steven Barnes. Taking on everything from supernatural viruses to zombies to vampires, she is a trailblazer in that she is one of the first African American purely genre horror writers. 

               www.tananarivedue.com 


    WC Dunlap


    WC Dunlap draws her inspiration from the complexities of a Black Baptist, middle class upbringing by southern parents, and all that entails for a brown skin girl growing up in America. Equally enthralled by the divine and the demonic with a professional background in data & tech, she seeks to bend genres with a unique lens on fantasy, fear, and the future. Her writing career spans film, journalism and cultural critique, previously under the byline Wendi Dunlap. You can find her writing in FIYAH, Lightspeed, Podcastle, and Nightmare. Carnivàle is her first long-form fiction which will be published by Broken Eye Books. Her short story “March Magic,” appearing in the award-winning anthology Africa Risen, is on the 2022 Locus Recommended Reading List. WC Dunlap holds a BA in Film and Africana Studies from Cornell University. She is the proud mother of a young adult son and two British Shorthair familiars.   wcdunlap.com


    Janiera Eldridge


    Eldridge writes horror, thriller, dark paranormal, and mystery novels and released her first novel, Soul Sisters in 2012. Since then, she has written Dark Expectations, and Good Ghost Gone Bad, making Soul Sisters a vampire fiction trilogy. She reviews books and interviews authors for her horror blog. Find her online at her website  at www.janieraeldridge.blogspot.com or on Twitter  @lazenbeauty

    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.


    Ann Fields

    Her most recent novel is a welcome addition to the horror genre. Fuller’s Curse is about an African American family with a terrible legacy; the mysterious legend of BlackHeart, and a curse that is causing members of this family to die horrible deaths, one by one. She is also the author of several romance titles on Arabesque under the pen name Anna Larence and has been writing since 1996. http://annfields.com/

    Penelope Flynn

    Penelope Flynn creates mixed genre adult-targeted speculative fiction and illustrations featuring elements of dark fiction, horror, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, and erotica and erotic romance. Her works are included in the Dark Universe anthologies, Steamfunk, Scierogenous II, and SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire. She authors the Sci-Fi/Horror/Erotica mash-up series, the Chronicles of Renfields, and co-edits and contributes to the Blerdrotica Black erotica anthology series. She is a member of the Horror Writer’s Association and has joined the faculty of the Speculative Fiction Academy. She has appeared on panels for World Fantasy Con, WorldCon, MultiverseCon, Blacktasticon and the FAMU Literary Forum. Penelope Flynn moderates and co-hosts the weekly podcast, Discussions From the OTHERhood and heads Prolific Hybrid Multimedia.

    Stephanie 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/

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 3 (Canterbury – Davis)

    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 third 10 of them.

    Patricia E. Canterbury

    Award-winning poet, short story writer, novelist, philanthropist and political scientist Patricia E. Canterbury contributed the story “Wild Chocolate” to the Dark Dreams anthologies of paranormal horror and suspense. It is the story of a visit to a remote village in the Brazilian jungle and what happens to a married couple, and of the power of pure love. Her primary genre is mystery. +

    www.patmyst.com

    Pearl Cleage

    Known for her civil rights orientation and her feminist views with regards to what black women experience, Pearl Cleage has achieved critical acclaim and commercial success for her non-fiction titles and her genre-hopping fiction. Her supernaturally themed 2011 Just Wanna Testify is about a couple of black fashion models in Atlanta who happen to be vampires, although they have a whole lot in common with succubi. www.pearlcleage.net

    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. donyaecoles.com


    Crystal Connor

    Sci-Fi and horror writer Crystal Connor began writing tales of the things that strike fear in the hearts of men during her time serving overseas in the US Navy. Travel to Africa, Asia and the Middle East while in the service helped her to learn of creatures in many national legends that sparked her imagination, leading to the creation of her first novel, The Darkness.  www.wordsmithcrystalconnor.blogspot.com


    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


    Joy M. Copeland


    Short horror fiction author Joy M. Copeland has been included in the horror anthologies Dark Dreams. Sycorax’s Daughters and To Hell in a Fast Car. She also wrote a series of books on histories of select members of the Teamsters Union. 

    www.goodreads.com/author/show/4072428.Joy_M_Copeland


    Arielle Crowell

    Arielle Crowell is the author of Deadly Magnolia, the story of Nicodemus LaCroix a serial killer who may have met his match. After his wife’s sudden death, he finds out the hard way that her family has deep ties to the Haitian voodoo community. She also wrote Monster, which is about more human horrors, and Mr. Undesirable, about three bad boys on a road to redemption.

    www.ariellecrowell.com


    Tracy Cross

    Tracy Cross’s work has been featured in several podcasts and mass-market anthologies. Tracy Cross’s work has been featured in several podcasts, including ‘Nighty Night with Rabia Chaudry (advocate and author of the New York Times bestselling book “Adnan’s Story”). Her work can be found in several anthologies, including Don’t Break the Oath, Pandemics Unleashed and 99 Tiny Terrors. Her first book, Rootwork, a folk horror homage to her late grandmother. Her first book, Rootwork, was published by Dark Hart Publishing in 2022. She lives in Washington, DC, and is an active member of the HWA. She is on instagram as tracycrosswrites and twitter as tracycwrites. She loves disco and shares her latest exploits and information on her blog: tracycwritesonline.com.


    Vicy Cross

    She writes dystopian fiction, gothic horror, historical fantasies and other speculative fiction. Her debut novel on Storm Moon Press, Tuesday Apocalypse takes place in the 1940s in a post-apocalyptic London where tentacle monsters draw a nun and a young girl into increasingly treacherous worlds of erotic temptation and madness. She has written dark poetry and short stories in Infernal Ink Magazine and Poems from the Darkside.

    www.facebook.com/AuthorVicyCross


    L.M. Davis

    An author of young adult paranormal fiction, science fiction and dark fantasy, Ms. Davis successfully applies a horror overlay to her young adult science-fiction series Skinless, where a teenage alien finds her mother abducted by intergalactic bogeymen. Shifters is another paranormal young adult fiction series featuring a cast of multicultural shape-shifters. It includes the titles Interlopers and Posers.

    lmdaviswrites.wordpress.com

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 2 (Baptiste – Campbell)

    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.

    https://traceybaptiste.com/

    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.

    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

  • Congratulations to Cerece Rennie Murphy on The Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award!

    Upward and onward for Black Women in Horror! Yet another award will be coming home to one of the many talented writers on our list. The Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA) just announced that the 2023 Kate Wilhelm Solstice Awards will be presented to Cerece Rennie Murphy (and posthumously to Greg Bear) at the 58th Annual SFWA Nebula Awards® ceremony in May. Congratulations, Cerece! 

    According to the SFWA Press Release, “The Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award is given by SFWA for significant contributions to the science fiction, fantasy, and related genres community. The award was created in 2008, with Wilhelm named as one of the three original recipients, and was renamed in her honor in 2016. Murphy and Bear join the ranks of distinguished previous Solstice Award winners, including Petra Mayer, Carl Sagan, Octavia Butler, and Gardner Dozois.”

    Cerece Rennie Murphy writes sci-fi/fantasy that sometimes takes a stroll on the darker side with demons, and murderous fairies, with a bit of gory killing on the side. In 2011, Cerece experienced her own supernatural event – a vision of her first science fiction story. Shortly after, she began developing and writing what would become the bestselling Order of the Seers trilogy.  Order of the Seers was selected as one of The Best Kindle Books of 2014 by Digital Book Today.  To date, Cerece has published ten speculative fiction novels, short stories, and children’s books.  In addition to working on the 3rd book in the award-winning Ellis and The Magic Mirror children’s book series with her son and releasing her first short story collection, Cerece launched Virtuous Con, an online sci-fi convention in February 2021. Her current writing projects include a new steampunk fantasy series.  Cerece lives and writes in her hometown of Washington, DC. Find her on her website at https://www.cerecerenniemurphy.com/

  • 160 Black Women in Horror Part 1 (Adams – Banks)

    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  

    www.cith.org/linda

    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.

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