It’s officially Spooky Season and what better way to celebrate than by reading scary stories. And that’s exactly what I did when I read Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror.

The last horror book I read was Lone Women by Victor LaValle and it really reawakened my desire to read books in that genre. I used to read Stephen King religiously but lost my love of his work because he constantly and unnecessarily used the N word in his stories. And to be honest, I had never really read horror books by Black or other people of color until I came across Tananarive Due’s book, My Soul to Keep. Reading this anthology burst the dam that was my lack of horror reading.

The anthology contains 19 stories in total by authors I’ve read before like N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor and Tananarive Due, and some authors I read for the first time. None of the stories were the same except that the main characters in each one are Black. And being Black and just existing carry their own horrors, depending on the situation.

I can say with all honesty that I enjoyed every single story in this anthology. That rarely happens but I found each one to be imaginative, frightening, mysterious and, in their own way, relatable. The stories that scared me the most were those where Black people had no control over their own bodies or lives. I found those stories to be the most relatable because the world we live in has been controlling what Black people do for a very long time. And with more laws and the removal of protections by corrupt politicians and Supreme Court justices, the world is definitely trying to take even more control of us.

The stories that include supernatural forces meant to protect Black people were my favorites. Calling on those forces for protection is a practice I’m sure still exists, which fills me with joy. Our forms of spirituality were stripped from us during slavery and to include them in this anthology added an extra something to what I read. Because it showed me that our history and practices are still out there for us to discover and explore, no matter how much others try to erase us.

I definitely want a finished copy of this book and will be adding it to my very full Bookshop cart. Out There Screaming is out now.

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