Unquiet Spirits - by Lee Murray & Angela Yuriko Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

"From hungry ghosts, vampiric babies, and shapeshifting fox spirits to the avenging White Lady of urban legend, for generations, Asian women's roles have been shaped and defined through myth and story. In Unquiet Spirits, Asian writers of horror reflect on the impact of superstition, spirits, and the supernatural in this unique collection of 21 personal essays exploring themes of otherness, identity, expectation, duty, and loss, and leading, ultimately, to understanding and empowerment."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

From hungry ghosts, vampiric babies, and shapeshifting fox spirits to the avenging White Lady of urban legend, for generations, Asian women's roles have been shaped and defined through myth and story. In Unquiet Spirits, Asian writers of horror reflect on the impact of superstition, spirits, and the supernatural in this unique collection of 21 personal essays exploring themes of otherness, identity, expectation, duty, and loss, and leading, ultimately, to understanding and empowerment.

Review Quotes

The 2023 Bram Stoker Awards Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction for Nadia Bulkin's essay, "Becoming Ungovernable: Latah, Amok, and Disorder in Indonesia"

Ignyte Awards Finalist in Outstanding Creative Nonfiction for "The Substitute".

"Unquiet Spirits is a collection of intimate, insightful essays that will become essential reading for those looking to understand the voice of women of the Asian diaspora in horror. I can't overstate how important this book is." --Priya Sharma, British Fantasy award-winning author of Ormeshadow

"A captivating collection of hungry, neglected, abused ancestral beings, with each piece ending in a treasure trove of reference material to inspire and teach." --Linda D. Addison, Award-winning author, HWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and SFPA Grand Master

"A deeply emotional and insightful exploration of the female Asian experience by some of the best writing talent today. Haunted by generational gifts, traumas, and hungers, the essays in Unquiet Spirits give voice to the quest for identity informed by the echoes of those who came before and never quite left us." --Tosca Lee, New York Times bestselling author


"A haunting and phenomenally intriguing undertaking. With the variety of perspectives, Unquiet Spirits is powerful, poignant, and very, very moving. An emotionally draining experience in the best way possible!" --Steve Stred, Splatterpunk-nominated author of Sacrament and Mastodon, and reviewer at Kendall Reviews

"A powerhouse of cultural revelation." --Midwest Book Review

"A tight view on the symbolism of the monstrous feminine... struck a deep chord." --Interzone Magazine

"As an expert in the paranormal I've researched ghosts around the globe, but there's a vast gulf between studying hungry ghosts and fox spirits in scholarly journals, and reading first-hand experience of these extraordinary stories. The pieces in Unquiet Spirits are beautiful, enlightening, poignant, and yes, haunting. This is a must-have book for anyone who is interested in the folklore of Asia and how it has impacted the lives of the women actually living it." --Lisa Morton, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Ghosts: A Haunted History

"Fierce and fervid, Unquiet Spirits... deserves ascent to the literary canon for both the Asian diaspora and feminism. This volume is a must." --Austin Gragg, Editor-in-Chief at Space & Time Magazine

"Raw, emotional, honest, and empowering." --Amanda Headlee, The Horror Tree

"The spirits don't whisper in this collection, they roar across the pages-every word carefully selected and earning its place. These personal stories traverse time and space to be everyone's stories. A book for the collection, to be read many times over." --Renata Pavrey, Horror Addicts

About the Author

Lee Murray is an author, editor, screenwriter, and poet from Aotearoa, and a third-generation Chinese New Zealander. A USA Today bestselling author, double Bram Stoker Award(R) and Shirley Jackson Award winner, her work includes military thriller series, the Taine McKenna Adventures, supernatural crime-noir trilogy The Path of Ra (with Dan Rabarts), and short fiction collection, Grotesque: Monster Stories. Lee is the editor of nineteen volumes of dark fiction, among them Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (with Geneve Flynn) and Asian Ghost Short Stories (Flame Tree Press). Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Shimanchu American and an award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years of experience as a professional writer in nonfiction. A three-time Bram Stoker Awards(R) Finalist for excellence in long fiction (Bitter Suites, 2018), excellence in poetry (Tortured Willows, 2021) and excellence in short nonfiction, she was also selected as HWA Mentor of the Year for 2020. In addition, two of her poetry chapbooks have been nominated for the Elgin Awards. Lisa Kröger holds a PhD in Gothic Literature and is the author of Monster, She Wrote and the forthcoming Toil and Trouble. She also co-hosts the Know Fear and Monster, She Wrote podcasts. Her work has won the Bram Stoker and Locus awards. Lisa's fiction and nonfiction work may be seen in Lost Highways: Dark Fiction from the Road, EcoGothic, and Horror Literature through History. Her edited essay collections include Shirley Jackson: Influences and Confluences and The Ghostly and the Ghosted in Literature and Film.