In a surprising plot twist the Black Cranes anthology has been recognized by the Carl Brandon society, making the Honors List for the Parallax Award while Elaine Cuyegkeng’s story from the anthology, “The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter,” has received the Parallax Award in the short form category. This came as a particular surprise because the book was originally released in 2020.
About the Award
“The jury considers works published in the preceding year. So these winners were published in 2020, the jury deliberated in 2021, and then the pandemic complicated matters for us,” explained Carl Brandon steering committee member Yang-Yang Wang. “All winning authors will receive a $1,000 cash prize in addition to the physical award.”
While the jury was deliberating the original publisher closed up shop and Raw Dog Screaming Press picked up the title in order to keep it in print. “The decision to re-publish Black Cranes continues to be an excellent one,” says managing editor Jennifer Barnes. “We felt the anthology was an historic contribution to the horror genre and did not want to see it become unavailable to readers. It seems even more important now than ever to keep the book in print.”
About the Anthology
Almond-eyed celestial, the filial daughter, the perfect wife.
Quiet, submissive, demure.
In Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, Southeast Asian writers of horror both embrace and reject these traditional roles in a unique collection of stories which dissect their experiences of ‘otherness’, be it in the colour of their skin, the angle of their cheekbones, the things they dare to write, or the places they have made for themselves in the world.
Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women is a dark and intimate exploration of what it is to be a perpetual outsider.
It’s available in two formats: paperback and hardcover
New Edition
This Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-winning anthology in which Southeast Asian authors explore what it’s like to feel otherness, took the literary horror communities and readers by storm in 2020 when it was first released. Now, Raw Dog Screaming Press is proud to re-release it in hardcover and paperback. The hardcover edition has new cover art by Greg Chapman, synching artistically to other books within the Black Cranes universe. The interior has been redesigned by book guru Todd Keisling who has incorporated images and textures for a lush reading experience. A new afterword by Nancy Holder, six-time Bram Stoker Award winner and New York Times best-selling author has been added to this edition.
Many of the stories included have been recognized individually. Grace Chan’s Aurealis-nominated story “The Mark,” was shortlisted for Australia’s Norma K. Hemming Award, which recognizes excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, sexuality, class, or disability in a published speculative fiction work. The Eugie Foster was also awarded for Elaine Cuyegkeng’s story “The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter.” Black Cranes was an Aurealis Award Finalist, Australian Shadows Award Finalist, British Fantasy Award Finalist, and was Locus Award Recommended.