11 Modern Horror Writers You Should Explore (Besides Stephen King)

While Stephen King often dominates conversations about modern horror fiction—and rightly so, given his prolific career starting with 1974’s Carrie and even publishing under a pseudonym to release more books—there’s a wealth of talent beyond his works. Discover 11 exceptional contemporary horror authors whose novels deserve a spot on your reading list.

1. Agustina Bazterrica

Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica credits a pivotal life moment to her decision to stop eating meat. Observing animal carcasses in a butcher shop inspired her 2020 novel Tender is the Flesh, set in a dystopian world where cannibalism becomes normalized after a virus contaminates animal meat. In The Irish Times, Bazterrica explained, “While my book critiques the meat industry, it also reflects how, in our capitalist, consumer-driven society, we metaphorically consume one another.”

2. Tananarive Due 

Tananarive Due’s fascination with horror stems from her upbringing: Her mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, was an avid horror enthusiast, as Due mentioned in a 2021 conversation with Roxane Gay. She also admitted, “I’ve always been a scaredy-cat.” At age 8, sharing a room with her great-grandmother, who relied on an oxygen machine due to emphysema, Due would lie awake, terrified by the machine’s hissing and the fear of her grandmother’s mortality. “That’s where my stories come from,” she explained, “from confronting that terror and imagining myself in that bed.”

Beyond horror, Due is a prominent voice in Afrofuturism, blending African diaspora culture with themes of technology, science fiction, and fantasy. Her acclaimed works include the African Immortals series, The Between (1995), The Good House (2003), and the upcoming The Reformatory. She also teaches courses on Black horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA, which are available online for enthusiasts.

3. Mariana Enriquez

Mariana Enriquez’s work has earned high praise from Kazuo Ishiguro, who called it “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.” Her writing is deeply rooted in her Argentine heritage: Her 2019 novel Our Share of Night, translated by Megan McDowell, is set in the 1980s during Argentina’s military dictatorship. The story follows a medium and his son entangled in a cult called The Order, which worships an entity named “The Darkness” in pursuit of eternal life.

In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, Enriquez explained, “For those of us who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, slasher films, Stephen King, and Twin Peaks blended with our reality, which was already steeped in horror—disappearances, the children of the dead, the lost generation. Perhaps I amplify it to 11 because of the genre I work in, but horror sheds light on the real terror obscured by terms like

4. Grady Hendrix

Grady Hendrix, an American author, draws inspiration from fairy tales—he once remarked to Mytour in 2021 that “Little Red Riding Hood is the original slasher”—and horror cinema. His 2021 novel The Final Girl Support Group was inspired by the iconic “final girl” trope, the last survivor confronting the killer in slasher classics like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. This book earned him the Goodreads Choice Award for best horror writer, dethroning Stephen King. Hendrix, who once worked at a paranormal research institute, is also celebrated for works like The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (2020) and How to Sell a Haunted House (2023).

5. Stephen Graham Jones 

Stephen Graham Jones, a Blackfoot Native American author, had already published over 20 books before releasing the chilling 2020 horror novel The Only Good Indians. The story follows a group of Blackfoot men who hunt in a forbidden area reserved for tribal elders, leading to a terrifying supernatural encounter. Jones continued his success with 2021’s My Heart is a Chainsaw, featuring Jade, a Native American protagonist. “It’s incredibly meaningful,” Jones told Esquire, “because we’ve never had a Native final girl.” The novel, which has a sequel titled Don’t Fear the Reaper, reflects Jones’s deep love for slasher films, earning him the title of “a walking encyclopedia of the sub-genre” from Esquire.

6. Alma Katsu 

Alma Katsu’s novels often draw from historical events, such as 2018’s The Hunger, inspired by the Donner Party, and The Deep (2020), which explores the sinkings of the RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic. “Art is a mirror to life,” Katsu explained to Mytour in 2022. “Like a great professor, fiction can reveal the bigger picture and make it resonate deeply with you.”

Katsu’s mixed heritage—her mother is Japanese, her father American—shaped her 2022 novel, The Fervor, set during World War II. The story blends Japanese folklore with the experiences of Japanese and Japanese-Americans in incarceration camps. A key historical element involves fu-go (fire balloons), over 250 of which were launched from Japan, drifting to North America. The novel begins with a fire balloon explosion in May 1945, which, in reality and fiction, killed six people. Katsu, a former intelligence officer, also authored the spy thrillers Red Widow (2021) and Red London (2023).

7. T. Kingfisher

Under the pen name T. Kingfisher, Ursula Vernon, a children’s author, writes for older audiences, including 2020’s The Hollow Places and 2023’s A House with Good Bones. Her 2022 novella What Moves the Dead reimagines Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher with a chilling fungal twist. “I read Fall of the House of Usher, and it’s filled with rotting vegetation and fungus,” Kingfisher explained on Lithub’s podcast Voyage into Genre. “It’s very short, and so much is left unexplained … I wanted to dive in and explore the details.”

8. Silvia Moreno-Garcia 

Silvia Moreno-Garcia describes herself as “Mexican by birth, Canadian by choice.” Many of her novels, such as Mexican Gothic (2020), are set in Mexico. This particular story unfolds in the 1950s, following a woman’s journey to uncover the dark secrets of a mansion in the mountains near El Triunfo. Moreno-Garcia’s recent novel, Silver Nitrate, set in 1990s Mexico City, reflects her passion for film. The book blends sound-editing, magic, and the occult, packed with cinematic nods. “I don’t mind if readers miss the film references,” she told USA Today. “[Silver Nitrate] isn’t just about the supernatural—it’s also a love letter to the film industry and the passion it inspires.”

9. Paul Tremblay

Paul Tremblay’s 2015 novel A Head Full of Ghosts, a chilling story about a possible possession, quickly gained fame after Stephen King called it “scary as hell.” Following this success, Tremblay released works like A Cabin at the End of the World (2018), which revolves around a home invasion and an approaching apocalypse. For a pivotal scene, Tremblay drew inspiration from his visit to the ruins of the collapsed St. Francis Dam in Valencia, California. “Walking through that site left a lasting impression,” he shared with Entertainment Weekly. “I think people are drawn to apocalyptic tales because they’re fascinated by the idea of experiencing such a catastrophic event, despite its horror.” The novel was adapted into the 2023 film Knock at the Cabin by M. Night Shyamalan.

10. Catriona Ward 

Catriona Ward, born in the U.S. and raised across multiple countries, studied in the UK. Her experiences with hypnagogic hallucinations—vivid sensations while falling asleep—shaped her understanding of fear, further influenced by reading W. W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw.” Her acclaimed novels, including Rawblood (published as The Girl from Rawblood in the U.S.), Little Eve, and The Last House on Needless Street, have earned the August Derleth Award for best horror novel.

“I adore horror,” Ward told The Guardian in 2022. “It’s one of the most expressive and empathetic genres. Fear is universal, and reading horror is a profound act of empathy. It’s like walking through a dark tunnel, with the author guiding the way, holding the reader’s hand through shared vulnerabilities.”

11. Kiersten White

Kiersten White initially gained recognition as a YA author, notably for her Paranormalcy series, which follows a young supernatural investigator. She has since transitioned to writing for adults, with her debut horror novel, Hide, released in 2022. The story revolves around 14 contestants vying for $50,000 by hiding in a deserted theme park for seven days without being discovered. “Ideas often merge unexpectedly,” White explained to the LA Public Library. “For Hide, it was a mix of Greek mythology’s recurring cycles of violence and a real-life hide-and-seek competition in an abandoned Italian town that struck me as eerily sinister. (It wasn’t, so I created my own version.)”