BOOK DEAL: Black Cranes, Hardcover Edition

Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, a 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 have signed Black Cranes for re-release in hardcover and paperback. The hardcover edition will have new cover art by Greg Chapman, synching artistically to other books within the Black Cranes universe. This edition will also include an afterword by Nancy Holder, six-time Bram Stoker Award winner and New York Times best-selling author.

Pre-order availability will be announced soon. Publication will be in Spring 2023. For now, take a look at the beautiful cover art!

Edited by award-winning author and editor Lee Murray, and published short story author and award-winning editor Geneve Flynn, the previous edition of Black Cranes went on to win the well-earned Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association and the prestigious Shirley Jackson Award. It was also critically acclaimed in reviewer circles and well-loved by readers.

It includes Grace Chan’s Aurealis-nominated story “The Mark,” 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.

“We heard this ground-breaking anthology was going out of print and felt such an important anthology needed to remain in available,” said Jennifer Barnes, co-founder and managing editor at RDSP. “This anthology was the beginning of something special and its ripples are still being felt today.”

Book Description –

Almond-eyed celestial, the filial daughter, the perfect wife.

Quiet, submissive, demure.

In Black Cranes, 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 is a dark and intimate exploration of what it is to be a perpetual outsider.

Amazing TOC of Contributors –

  • Foreword Alma Katsu
  • The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter Elaine Cuyegkeng
  • Kapre: A Love Story Rin Chupeco
  • A Pet is for Life Geneve Flynn
  • Phoenix Claws Lee Murray
  • Hunger and Fury Grace Chan
  • Skin Dowdy Angela Yuriko Smith
  • Truth is Order and Order is Truth Nadia Bulkin
  • Rites of Passage Gabriela Lee
  • The Ninth Tale Rena Mason
  • Vanilla Rice Angela Yuriko Smith
  • Fury Christina Sng
  • The Mark Grace Chan
  • Frangipani Wishes Lee Murray
  • Little Worm Geneve Flynn
  • Afterword Nancy Holder

Artist Biography –

Greg Chapman did a beautiful job on the new hardback cover, creating a swoon-worthy, complementary addition to the other companion books in the Black Cranes universe.

Chapman is an artist from Central Queensland, Australia, specializing in the horror field. Trained as a graphic designer and visual artist, he’s provided artwork for various magazines, comics, graphic novels and promotional designs for the Horror Writers Association and the Australian Horror Writers Association. He is also an author. You can find out more about his art at https://dark-designs.com/ and his writing at www.darkscrybe.com.

Expanding on the Black Cranes Universe –

In 2021, an anthology of poetry called Tortured Willows was published by Yuriko Publishing as four Southeast Asian women writers of horror (Lee Murray, Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng, and Geneve Flynn) expanded on the exploration of otherness that began with Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women. It went on to be a Bram Stoker Award Finalist.

Also, in February 2023, a new non-fiction anthology, entitled Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror, will be published by Black Spot Books. Editors are Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith, with a foreword by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lisa Kroger. In Unquiet Spirits, Asian writers of horror reflect on the impact of superstition, spirits, and the supernatural with a unique collection of twenty-one personal essays exploring themes of otherness, identity, expectation, duty, and loss, and leading, ultimately, to understanding and empowerment. You can pre-order HERE.

Raw Dog Screaming Press –

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Media –

Review copies of our titles, when available, can be obtained upon request, and interview inquiries can be coordinated, through Erin Al-Mehairi, publicist, at hookofabook@hotmail.com or twitter or Instagram (@erinalmehairi).