Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror From the Asian Diaspora

by Lee Murray, Kristy Park Kulski (Editor), Ai Jiang

Overview

Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora will tease forth folk horror rooted in the experience of the Asian Diaspora. From lengths of muscle and vein, ground bones, endless ropes of sinew it is with our bodies folk horror is woven.

With Stories and Poetry by Ai Jiang, Nadia Bulkin, Christina Sng, Rena Mason, Lee Murray, J.A.W. McCarthy, Geneve Flynn, Bryan Thao Worra, Ayida Shonibar, Yi Izzy Yu, Angela Yuriko Smith, Kanishk Tantia, Robert Nazar Arjoyan, Christopher Hann, Audrey Zhou, Seoung Kim, Rowan Cardosa, Gabriela Lee, Shawna Yang Ryan, Priya Sridhar, Jess Cho, and Saheli Khastagir And a Foreword by Monika Kim.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798992483710
Publisher:	Bad Hand Books
Publication date:	05/06/2025
Pages:	370
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

KRISTY PARK KULSKI is a Hawaii-born Korean-American author, historian, and career vampire of patriarchal tears. Channeling a lifelong obsession with history and the morose she’s managed to birth the gothic horror novel, Fairest Flesh, and novella, House of Pungsu. She bartered nine years of her life to the U.S. Navy and Air Force for food and later taught college history for a captive audience. Trapped by a force field, she currently resides in the woods of Northeast Ohio where she (probably) brews potions and talks to ghosts.

AI JIANG is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Bram Stoker, and Nebula Award winner, and Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist from Changle, Fujian currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She is the author of A Palace Near the Wind, Linghun, and I AM AI. Find her at www.aijiang.ca

LEE MURRAY ONZM is a multi-award-winning author-editor, essayist, poet, and screenwriter from Aotearoa-New Zealand. A USA Today Bestselling author, Shirley Jackson and five-time Bram Stoker Awards® winner, she is a New Zealand Prime Minister's Award-winner for Literary Achievement in Fiction. Lee lives in the sunny Bay of Plenty with her well-behaved family and a naughty dog.

“Lee Murray is synonymous with Kiwi horror.” —Alan Baxter, award-winning author of The Gulp and Sallow Bend.
“Horror author Lee Murray is New Zealand's Stephen King .” —NZ Woman's Weekly
“Lee Murray is a powerful voice in horror.” —Interstellar Flight Magazine
“A feminist warrior of our time.” —Happy Goat Horror

In July 2024, Lee was listed in the Listener's Quiet achievers, rebels, and dreamers: 50 of New Zealand's most inspiring people.

Lee is represented by Becky LeJeune of Bond Literary Agency.

Editorial Reviews

04/01/2025

"Soil," "Estuary," "Bedrock," "Roots," and "Air" are the five sections that ground this ambitious anthology of stories, poems, and drawings, which dig into the anger, complications of assimilation, and racist stereotypes from which the volume's Asian folk horror is unearthed. Each section begins with a poem by a foundational author. The stories that follow take readers on an unsettling journey where trigger warnings abound. As readers make their way through, tales of ghosts, shape-shifters, and family dynamics morph into sinister nightmares of violence, body horror, cannibalism, and more. For example, Nadia Bulkin's "Things To Know Before You Go" directly confronts the horror inherent in the question "Where are you really from?," while Rowan Cardosa's "In Twain" pulls no punches addressing the common inquiries into what Asian people eat. Hammering its message home, this resolute volume delivers a reading experience that will terrify readers of all identities. VERDICT A solid anthology from a trusted small press that has recently secured major distribution. Suggest to fans of compelling horror stories that center rage and identity, such as House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias or The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim.

Library Journal