13 female horror writers you should read

Octavia Butler (Image by Patti Perret)

2.) Octavia Butler

Though she is often listed as a science fiction writer, Octavia Butler was no stranger to the uncanny. Her novels, which include Fledgling, Kindred, and The Parable of the Sower, do not shy away from the darkness inherent in humanity.

Butler was the recipient of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, and was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship, more popularly known as the “Genius Grant”. She often wrote protagonists who were marginal characters and who often were people of color.

After her death, the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship was established in order to provide scholarships to writers of color to attend the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. The original Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop helped Butler start her career.

In both her novels and short stories, Butler was unafraid of confronting troubling issues. For example, Kindred is both a time-travel story and a slave narrative that describes the brutality of slavery with unflinching prose.

Where to start
Butler’s final novel, Fledgling, which tells the story of Shori Matthews. Shori is descended from the Ina, a race of creatures that gave rise to the vampire myth. Shori appears to be an African American girl, but is actually the result of genetic engineering by the Ina in order to increase their resistance to daylight. All the other Ina are white-skinned. Fledgling, like much of Butler’s other work, deftly explores race and otherness through the lens of science fiction and horror.