Little did I know that my dumb little morning tweet would provide such an incredible list of recommendations of short story collections by female authors.
I’ve compiled most of the responses below. I can’t speak to the quality of all of these (yet!), but I’ve highlighted my favorites. I like to think of myself as a short story aficionado, but there are so many new names here! I’m so excited to dig into these amazing recommendations. Thanks to everyone who responded.
- These Foolish and Harmful Delights by Cate Gardner
- Six Dreams About The Train – Maria Haskins
- The Moon Will Look Strange – Lynda E. Rucker
- You’ll Know When You Get There – Lynda E. Rucker
- Sing Your Sadness Deep – Laura Mauro
- All the Fabulous Beasts – Priya Sharma
- Seeds – Tabatha Wood
- I Spit Myself Out – Tracy Fahey
- The Watcher in The Woods – Charlotte Bond
- Things We Say in the Dark – Kirsty Logan
- Octoberland – Thana Niveau
- Someone to Share My Nightmares – Sonora Taylor
- The Mother Wound – Jess Landry
- Eleven – Patricia Highsmith
- The Ghost Sequences – AC Wise
- Anything by Kelly Link
- The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
- Nest of Nightmares – Lisa Tuttle
- And I Do Not Forgive You (Amber Sparks)
- What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (Helen Oyeyemi)
- Fen (Daisy Johnson)
- The Dark Dark (Samantha Hunt)
- Blacklight (Kimberly King Parsons)
- Orange World (Karen Russell)
- I Hold a Wolf by the Ears (Laura van den Berg)
- Arcadia (Lauren Groff)
- Dark Breakers – C.S.E Cooney
- Dancing in Silver Lands – Mari Ness
- Between Two Seas – Cerece Rennie Murphy
- Dark Blood Comes from the Feet – Emma J Gibbon
- Songs for Dark Seasons – Lisa L. Hannett
- Anything by Angela Slatter
- Alias Space – Kelly Robson
- Unfortunate Elements of my Anatomy – Hailey Piper
- Anything by Gemma Files
- Cautionary Tales – Emmanuelle de Maupassant
- Night Terrors and Other Tales – Lisa Morton
- Distaff: A Science Fiction Anthology by Female Writers
- Tender – Sofia Samatar
- Alien Virus Love Disaster – Abbey Mei Otis
- Souls – Terri Bruce
- The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert – Rios de la Luz
- Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
- How Long ’til Black Future Month? by NK Jemisin
- Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal
- Velocities: Stories by Kathe Koja
- Furnace – Livia Llewellyn
- Engines of Desire – Livia Llewellyn
- Anything by Cat Valente
- Vandana Singh’s Ambiguity Stories
- Anything by Amal El-Mohtar
- Anything by Cat Rambo
- Ten Minute Warning – EM Dehaney
- How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters – Erica L. Satifka
- The Mistletoe Bride – Kate Mosse
- Ship Fever – Andrea Barrett
- Forget the Sleepless Shores – Sonya Taaffe
- Rare Birds – L.S. Johnson
- Unsafe Words – Loren Rhoads
- Dreaming in Quantum – Lynda Clark
- Next Door – Kimberly Davis Basso
- Welcome to the Bitch Bubble – Lauren Dixon
- Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women
- The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa
- Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
- Anything by Tabitha Womack
- Fight Like a Girl (anthology)
- Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker
- The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories by Caitlin R. Kiernan
- At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson
- After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh
- What I Didn’t See and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler
- Map of Dreams by M. Rickert
- Bibliomancy by Elizabeth Hand
- Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
- The Start of the End of It All and Other Stories by Carol Emshwiller
- Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
- Ventriloquism by Catherynne M. Valente
- Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear
- Meet Me in the Future by Kameron Hurley
- Six Months, Three Days, Five Others by Charlie Jane Anders
- The Best of Kage Baker
- The Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black
- The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
- Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Patterns by Pat Cadigan
- The Collected Short Fiction of CJ Cherryh
- The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
- Hell Hath No Sorrow like a Woman Haunted by R.J. Joseph
California Reading 