While searching for a story to post for today's 365 Short Story Challenge, I ran across a mention of a story called "Spidersong" by an author named Susan C. Petry. The story won the Hugo Award for best short story in 1981, the year after Petry died. There is a
Clarion Workshop Scholarship dedicated to her memory (writer Kathe Koja won it in 1984) and that's about all I can find out about her. On the scholarship site there's a mention of a book that compiled her stories (
Gifts of Blood) but they don't make it easy for you to buy it. (No link, no way to buy it online from them.) You can buy the book new on
Amazon for $49 or used for a penny and $3.99 postage. Most of the stories seem to be about a race of healer/vampires with intense world-building involved. I had hoped to find the story online, perhaps in the
Magazine of SF&F, where it originally appeared, but no such luck. You know what that means? I HAVE to buy another book.
