Women in Horror Month starts tomorrow, and I thought I’d kick it off a day early to give you all the opportunity to try this quiz I made of books by women writers of horror published during this century. I looked at a lot of lists online, and as far as we’ve gone, it seems like there’s still a ways to go, particularly when we’re talking about horror for adults (the reverse is true with YA horror- it is almost completely authored by women). We need to be seeing new names on these lists, not just Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson (as influential and talented as they are).

This is not an exhaustive list.  I couldn’t include everyone I would have liked, and some of these writers are prolific- I tried to include just one title for each author, which might not necessarily be their most well-known book. I did like seeing that there seems to be a fair amount of diversity, or at least more than there was. All of these were written since 2000, and most in the past ten years. The closer we get to the present, the more women writers of all kinds there seem to be!  At the same time, don’t be surprised if you have read fewer of these authors and books than you realize. Think of this as a jumping off point if you haven’t chosen a book yet to read for WiHM.

I’d love to see more suggestions! This is a great month to share your favorites, so tell me all about yours!