Brainard's works include the World War II novel, When the Rainbow Goddess Wept; The Newspaper Widow; Magdalena; and Selected Short Stories by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, which won the 40th Philippine National Book Award and Cirilo Bautista Prize.

[2][7][8] Brainard has worked with Asian American youths for which she received a Special Recognition Award from the Los Angeles Board of Education.

Brainard's second novel, Magdalena inspired the playwright Jocelyn Deona de Leon to write a stage play, Gabriela's Monologue, which was produced in 2011 by the Bindlestiff Studio in San Francisco as part of Stories XII!

Her writings have been anthologized in books such as More Cebuano Than We Admit (Vibal 2022), Cherished (New World Library, 2011), Asian American Literature (Glencoe McGraw-Hill 2001), Pinay: Autobiographical Narratives by Women Writers, 1926-1998 (Ateneo 2000), On a Bed of Rice (Anchor 1995), Songs of Ourselves (Anvil 1994), Making Waves (Beacon Press 1989), and others.

[1][2][9][10][11] The Cebuano Studies Center & National Commission for Culture and the Arts produced a documentary video about her: The Cebuana in the World: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard Writing Out of Cebu Cebuano Studies Center.