Science fiction short stories by BIPOC, female, and LGBTQ authors?

February 15, 2023 1:31 PM

I'm trying to put together a high school unit of science fiction short stories, but noticing the ones I have are all written by white men. I'm ok using those stories, but I want to aim for more diversity. Most of my students are not white, some are gender neutral, some are not straight, and I want them to be exposed to work written by people they can relate to.

These stories need to be appropriate for high school students between the ages of 15-17.

As teenage attention spans are increasingly short these days, it's best if these stories are fewer than 10 pages long, or they will complain enthusiastically.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

posted by figaro to Writing & Language (28 answers total)

Nisi Shawl has a bunch of short fiction out - they are a non-binary Black writer.
posted by leslies at 1:35 PM on February 15, 2023

I read a LOT of short SF and my favorite story of all time is Bloodchild by Octavia Butler. It can be summed up as “humans have become pets/egg incubators for their alien keepers” but it has a huge amount to say about gender and power and agency and is just so good.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:36 PM on February 15, 2023

Take a look at brainwane's posting history on MetaFilter. I don't have specific recs, but there is a lot there. She blogged about the posts here.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:40 PM on February 15, 2023

Women Invent the Future (real book or free ebook available) is a an ‘experimental anthology written by women, and published by Doteveryone, to challenge how technology is imagined’.

The book features six stories and one poem by Madeline Ashby, Anne Charnock, Molly Flatt, Cassandra Khaw, Becky Chambers, Liz Williams and Walidah Imarisha, with a foreword by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock. It reimagines space travel, fertility and productivity; shows alternative realities for dating and family life; and imagines what emancipation and equality could look like.
posted by atlantica at 1:47 PM on February 15, 2023

Ted Chiang is of Chinese descent and is probably the best science fiction writer alive. His work doesn't generally put race or ethnicity in the foreground. In general his work should be accessible to high school students, and his story "Story of Your Life" was adapted into _Arrival_.

Greg Egan is a gay Australian of I've-no-idea ethnicity. A few of his stories do center queerness, but not many, and probably not his best. You will want to be careful about what you select for high school students because some of his work is basically relativistic physics with a plot wrapped around it. A lot of his stories like "Axiomatic" or "Learning to be Me" are pretty accessible, though.

Seconding Octavia Butler.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:53 PM on February 15, 2023

There's such a wealth out there these days that it's hard to know where to start. But you could try Cast of Wonders, which has stories both in audio and text format, tor.com, or Nature Futures (these are flash, so very short).
posted by wintersweet at 2:04 PM on February 15, 2023

In addition to their own stories -- Nisi Shawl edited collections of stories by authors of color, New Suns (I have read and recommend) and New Suns 2 (just now found out about!)

My personal favorite was the Darcie Little Badger ghost story.
posted by away for regrooving at 2:11 PM on February 15, 2023

NK Jamisin has a whole book of charming lil short stories in 'How Long 'til Black Future Month?'
posted by sibboleth at 2:21 PM on February 15, 2023

Octavia Butler, a Black woman, wrote some amazing stories.

Also, your students may already know Nnedi Okorafor. She has a great story, "Spider the Artist," that's available online.
posted by bluedaisy at 2:48 PM on February 15, 2023

the lady astronaut of mars!

might be a bit too long, but is very good.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 2:54 PM on February 15, 2023

Fandom for Robots is about an obsolete robot that gets into anime fanfic.
posted by credulous at 2:59 PM on February 15, 2023

If the story has to have spaceships/technology to fit the theme:

• Marissa Lingen, "My Favourite Sentience"
• Holly Black, "Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind)"
• Shaenon K. Garrity, "Leg"
• If by chance Arthur C. Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God" was on your list or appropriate for it, then Vajra Chandrasekera's response, "The Negation of the Negation of the Negation"

If fantasy/weird fiction falls under the concept of science fiction you're working with:

• Iona Datt Sharma, "All Worlds Left Behind"
• Lesley Nneka Arimah, "Who Will Greet You at Home?"
• Vanessa Fogg, "Taiya"
• Julia Armfield, "The Great Awake"
• K.M. Ferebee, "The Earth and Everything Under"

Also everything I guess brainwane will probably come along and recommend soon.
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:23 PM on February 15, 2023

Levar Burton Reads' podcast has a wide variety of short stories from acclaimed, diverse authors, including Ken Liu, Tobias Buckell, Louise Erdrich. He is also an excellent reader, and it's basically "Reading Rainbow for grownups".
posted by toastyk at 3:44 PM on February 15, 2023

The Escape Pod family of scifi/fantasy/horror podcasts has or at least had a month every year focused on diverse authors. All of the stories are available as audio as well as text.

Clarkesworld doesn't have specific months like that but has thousands of stories and strives for diversity in its authors.
posted by Candleman at 4:05 PM on February 15, 2023

Ursula K LeGuin "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" paired with the response
N.K. Jemisin "The Ones Who Stay and Fight" - both classic stories from excellent, award-winning writers. They're under ten pages together and I'd love to talk about them with high schoolers.
posted by momus_window at 4:14 PM on February 15, 2023

I have taught this story to that age group with great success: The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere. Deals really beautifully with queer/Asian identity and also a great genre example.
posted by nancynickerson at 4:17 PM on February 15, 2023

Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series would likely be suitable for this group - there's several short stories, though I haven't read them, just the novellas.

Plenty of the characters are LGBTQ, and Seanan has described herself as pan and bi (Wiki).

Strong agree with NK Jemisin, and love momus_window's suggestion of pairing her with Ursula LeGuin.

Obvious suggestion maybe, but you could hit the recent Nebula or Hugo nominations - in recent years very few noms have gone to white men (skip 2015-16 though, as a bunch of right-wing trolls were brigading the awards).
posted by Pink Frost at 4:34 PM on February 15, 2023

Naomi Kritzer has written award-winning short scifi/speculative fiction stories. Several are linked on her wikipedia page - I'd check out "Little Free Library", "The Dragon Project", or "Field Biology of the Wee Fairies".
posted by belladonna at 4:48 PM on February 15, 2023

Def recommend you check out Kameron Hurley.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 6:21 PM on February 15, 2023

You've gotten lots of recs for Octavia Butler, and I nth those, but you might also find the anthology Octavia's Brood to be a good source of stories. I'd also recommend taking a look at Meanwhile, Elsewhere and Love after the End.
posted by dizziest at 7:48 PM on February 15, 2023

You might check out the various People Destroy Science Fiction issues: Disabled People, People of Colo(u)r, Queers*, and Women.

In addition to the recommendations above, I'd add Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (listed in some venues as A. Merc Rustad), A.C. Wise, Theodora Goss, Catherynne M. Valente, Charles Yu, Sofia Samatar, Vandana Singh, Isabel Yap, Maureen McHugh, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Charlie Jane Anders, Samuel R. Delany, and no doubt more I'm forgetting.

There are also anthologies devoted to more diverse pools of authors and a more progressive lens on the world. Sisters of the Revolution is just one example among many.

*Per the title.
posted by xenization at 7:54 PM on February 15, 2023

I really liked "Patient Zero" by Tananarive Due but it reads a little differently now that COVID exists. She has other short stories including a couple in the Dark Matter anthologies, though.
posted by sigmagalator at 9:15 PM on February 15, 2023

Came in to recommend Nnedi Okorafor, mentioned above, who has a whole book of short stories, called Kabu Kabu.
posted by SeedStitch at 5:56 AM on February 16, 2023

Annalee Newitz. Autonomous is very powerful.
Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is devastating.
Samuel Delany. Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand is a challenging read.
Arkady Martine. A Memory Called Empire/A Desolation Called Peace.
Ken Liu. Grace of Kings (et al) is Asian-themed fantasy.
Ada Palmer. Too Like the Lightning (et al). Didn't really work for me, but had a lot of ideas. Another challenging read.
posted by adamrice at 6:04 AM on February 16, 2023

I love most of Connie Willis’s short stories. “The Last of the Winnebagos” could be a good one for high schoolers. But I’d probably skip “All My Darling Daughters” in a classroom setting.
posted by music for skeletons at 7:13 AM on February 16, 2023

Charlie Jane Anders. I have a special affection for Six Months, Three Days (previously on MeFi), but if you're looking for something that's more classic sci-fi she has others.
posted by Night_owl at 12:32 PM on February 16, 2023

There are many fine recommendations in the answers already! But since it has been prophesied that I would comment, I shall comment.

From last year: the Ask "Best short short stories for high schoolers that stimulate discussion" mentions and links to (among others) "What's expected of us" by Ted Chiang, "STET" by Sarah Gailey, and "The Husband Stitch" by Carmen Maria Machado.

"The Carl Brandon Parallax Award is given to works of speculative fiction created by a self-identified person of color." Some of the past honorees are short stories.

I serve on the board of the Otherwise Award, which celebrates "works of speculative fiction which explore and expand gender". Some past honorees are short stories, such as "They Will Dream in the Garden" by Gabriela Damián Miravete which won the 2018 award. Check out the awardees as well as the Honor Lists and Long Lists.

“They Will Dream In the Garden,” a beautifully written and translated story, uses the future tense to imagine a Mexico in which femicides are already part of history. In a collective attempt by survivors to preserve memory and justice, traces of the minds of the women murdered are encapsulated in interactive holograms “living” in a beautiful garden. The story looks at the economic, social, and racial dimensions of violence against Mexican women today, focusing on indigenous women, poverty, and unemployment, on repression of women’s educational opportunities, and of women’s ability to move about freely. The story hints at positive change as some women decide to fight back through collective action, mutual support, and self-defense, eventually shifting the public perception of gendered violence and improving the actions of the next generation. By offering a possible look into the future, far from giving the sense of a closed chapter, the story itself is a device of memory preservation, a call to action, and a fine example of science fiction as a tool for feminist exploration and social change.

Additional recommendations:

Violet Allen's "The Venus Effect" on police violence against Black people.

Connie Willis's "Even the Queen" on menstruation. 1992. Available p. 10-26, Nebula Awards 28 (ed. James Morrow, 1994), and other collections.

René Rebetez-Cortes's "The New Prehistory" on new eerie, horrifying collective behavior of humans. Published in Spanish in 1967, later translated into English. Available in p. 141-145, The World Treasury of Science Fiction (ed. David G. Hartwell, 1989), and other collections.

"Ghosts" and "Unknown Number" by Azure Husky, both of which are about people realizing and accepting that they are trans. "Unknown Number" by Blue Neustifter a.k.a. Azure Husky (MeFi front page post about it) is a story that was originally published as a Twitter thread containing a series of simulated text messages. Blue Neustifter's story "Unknown Number" is also available to read via the less-privacy-invasive Twitter reader nitter. Neustifter notes:

I understand twitter threads aren't the most accessible way to read things. I ask to not be tagged into any sort of "thread unroll" type bot: I block them as much as possible because I don't want other people to control and monetize my work that way



While not a perfect solution, I've made a version of this story on Facebook that is readable and shareable publicly ( https://www.facebook.com/1458186996/posts/10224963153413566 ). Someday I hope to have this published elsewhere and will share in this account when that occurs.

posted by brainwane at 9:09 AM on February 17, 2023

Upon rereading "The Venus Effect": please note that it uses the n-word multiple times and thus is likely not suitable for your class.
posted by brainwane at 6:27 PM on February 17, 2023