20 legendary Black science-fiction authors you need to know

Author K. Tempest Bradford. Photo Credit: K. Tempest Bradford.

K. Tempest Bradford

Today, you are more likely to find authors that don’t just write books or stories (though those are important enough in their own rights). They are just as likely to also create plays, storylines for games, comics, podcasts, and cultural criticism, to name just a few avenues. There are as many ways to take part in science fiction as you can be creative. Why stop at just one thing?

See: K. Tempest Bradford. She writes speculative fiction, but also has been highly active in other respects. She takes a critical look at cultural trends, especially as they relate to science fiction and people of color. That leads pretty naturally into her activist work, too, of which there is quite a lot throughout her bibliography.

This all means that there are many different ways you can start to engage with Bradford’s work. Maybe a bit of nonfiction work will be a nice change from all of the fictional realms we’ve been exploring so far. Check out the handy nonfiction bibliography hosted on her website. These include things like interviews with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actor Avery Brooks for DragonCon. Bradford’s also produced reviews of anthologies, Harry Potter, and the racial anxieties expressed in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Though she hasn’t published any full-length novels as of yet, K. Tempest Bradford has produced quite a few shorter fiction pieces published throughout the science fiction arena and beyond. You can listen to some of her work through PodCastle, a podcast that produces episodes using short speculative fiction. Bradford’s “Change of Life,” featuring a mysterious rabbit, is a good place to start.