Post series: Tortured Willows

Articles / Guest Post

 by 

Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Angela Yuriko Smith’s Sneak Peek

  1. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Lee Murray’s Sneak Peek
  2. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Geneve Flynn’s Sneak Peek
  3. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Christina Sng’s Sneak Peek
  4. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Angela Yuriko Smith’s Sneak Peek

A preview of ‘Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken’

Angela Yuriko Smith

 

Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken

Poetry by Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn

 

I’m delighted to present Tortured Willows, a collaborative collection of 60 poems exploring otherness, expectation, and tradition. 

 

What began as a deepening of the conversation based on the multi-award-winning anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women became a discovery of a culture silenced and traded. This series of poems opened up a Pandora’s Box for me. I began by writing about how my grandmother lost her name (Yuriko) because Caucasians couldn’t pronounce it. As I scratched the surface of what it means to be Okinawan, or more accurately Uchinanchu, my world pivoted. This is not about a woman losing her voice, but a culture—a people—losing everything. 

  (more…)

Articles / Guest Post

 by 

Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Christina Sng’s Sneak Peek

  1. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Lee Murray’s Sneak Peek
  2. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Geneve Flynn’s Sneak Peek
  3. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Christina Sng’s Sneak Peek
  4. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Angela Yuriko Smith’s Sneak Peek

A preview of ‘Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken’

Christina Sng

 

Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken

Poetry by Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn

 

Tortured Willows is a collaborative collection comprising 60 poems expanding on the themes of otherness, expectation, and tradition that were introduced in our multi-award-winning anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards). 

 

I am a fourth-generation Singaporean-Chinese. My paternal grandparents were Peranakan and Teochew-Cantonese, while my maternal grandparents were Hakka and Cantonese. In Tortured Willows, I write about the horror stories and mythologies I grew up with from a unique blend of multiculturalism, modernism, and tradition.

  (more…)

Articles / Guest Post

 by 

Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Geneve Flynn’s Sneak Peek

  1. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Lee Murray’s Sneak Peek
  2. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Geneve Flynn’s Sneak Peek
  3. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Christina Sng’s Sneak Peek
  4. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Angela Yuriko Smith’s Sneak Peek

A preview of ‘Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken’

Geneve Flynn

 

Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken

Poetry by Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn

 

I’m thrilled to introduce Tortured Willows, a collaboration by four authors from the Bram Stoker® and Shirley Jackson Award-winning anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women which continues the exploration of otherness, expectation, and tradition. 

 

In writing for this collection, I had to be brave on two counts: it was my very first foray into poetry; and I would be writing about deeply political issues and challenging cultural norms. Asian women are expected to be gentle, quiet, accepting. To be outraged and outspoken is such a foreign state. Tortured Willows allowed me, once again, to step into this space. 

  (more…)

Articles / Blog Tour

 by 

Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Lee Murray’s Sneak Peek

  1. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Lee Murray’s Sneak Peek
  2. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Geneve Flynn’s Sneak Peek
  3. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Christina Sng’s Sneak Peek
  4. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Angela Yuriko Smith’s Sneak Peek

A preview of ‘Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken’

Lee Murray

 

Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken

Poetry by Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn

 

I’m delighted to join my Crane sisters—Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Geneve Flynn—to bring you Tortured Willows, a collaborative collection comprising 60 poems expanding on the themes of otherness, expectation, and tradition that were introduced in our multi-award-winning anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards). With a foreword by dark fiction writer, poet, and historian, K.P. Kulski, the author of Fairest Flesh, and a stunning cover design by Kyra Starr, Tortured Willows releases on Poetry Day, 7 October 2021, from Yuriko Publishing. Today, I’m excited to give readers of The Horror Tree an advance peek of one of my poems from the collection:

(more…)