Author Nisi Shawl spoke at the Woodson Regional Library earlier this month about the effect that author Octavia Butler had on her personally and professionally. She was there as part of the One Book, One Chicago series of programs and CPL’s celebration of African American History Month. Did you get to go? If you did, please comment below and tell us what you thought of it.
Nisi Shawl's latest novel, Everfair, was nominated for a 2016 Nebula Award, and her collection of short stories, Filter House, received special mention for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.
Why not check out some books by other award-winning black women science fiction and fantasy authors? Here are just a few to get you started.
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower won the 1995 Nebula Award for Best Novel. In the same year, she won the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant.
Nalo Hopkinson’s Skin Folk won the 2002 World Fantasy Award for Best Story Collection.
Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novella in 2016.
N.K. Jemisin’s The Stone Sky won the Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novel and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy in 2018.
Tananarive Due’s short story collection Ghost Summer won the 2016 British Fantasy Award.
Andrea Hairston’s Mindscape won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and was a finalist for both the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the Philip K. Dick Award.
Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo won multiple awards (too many to mention here) and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Karen Lord was also nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Rivers Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts won the 2018 Firecracker Award in Fiction for Independently and Self-Published Literature from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses.
Eve Ewing's poetry collection Electric Arches won the 2018 Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association.
Nicky Drayden's The Prey of Gods won the 2018 Compton Crook Award for best first novel of the year.
For more Afrofuturism, see our Afrofuturism in Science Fiction booklist. And while you're reading science fiction, don't forget to read this year's One Book One Chicago selection, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
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