Caitlin R. Kiernan

Caitlin R. Kiernan
Full Name	Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan
Pseudonym(s)	Kathleen Tierney, Ivy Devlin
Connection to the Mythos	Author
Birth Date	26 May 1964
Birthplace	Dublin, Ireland
Nationality	United States

Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan (26 May 1964 - present) is an Irish-born American author of weird fiction, much of which includes Lovecraftian themes. They have published over 10 novels in the science fiction and dark fantasy genres, along with more than 250 shorter pieces of fiction and a series of comic books. Kiernan is a two-time recipient of both the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards. They are also a published paleontologist.

Saying that "too many people are obsessed with Lovecraft’s monsters, tentacles and polyps and shuggoths," Kiernan has cited the elements of Lovecraft that have had the greatest influence on their own work: "the importance of atmosphere, the found manuscript as a narrative device, and his appreciation of what paleontologists and geologists call deep time":

Deep time is critical to his cosmicism, the existential shock a reader brings away from his stories. Our smallness and insignificance in the universe at large. In all possible universes. Within the concept of infinity. No one and nothing cares for us. No one’s watching out for us. To me, that’s Lovecraft.

They also cite John Steinbeck as a "tremendous formative influence," who "taught me invaluable lessons about characterization; that stories, novels, are not about events. They’re about people.... Steinbeck also introduced me to the importance of profoundly flawed characters." Other writers who play important roles in Kiernan's fiction include Lewis Carroll and Charles Fort.

Kiernan's novels Threshold (2001), Low Red Moon (2003), and especially Daughter of Hounds (2007) explore the subterranean world of ghouls as envisioned in Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model". Their Tinfoil Dossier series--Agents of Dreamland (2017), Black Helicopters (2018), and The Tindalos Asset (2020)--mix the Cthulhu Mythos with the shadowy world of government conspiracies, a la The X-Files.

Kiernan's 2019 collection Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales includes many of their shorter Lovecraftian fiction pieces.

Kiernan is the publisher of Sirenia Digest, billed as "A Monthly Journal of the Weirdly Erotic", where much of their short fiction has first appeared since 2005.

Bibliography

Low Red Moon (Penguin-Putnam, 2003)

Novels

• Silk (Penguin-Putnam, 1998; Gauntlet Press, 1999)
• Threshold (Penguin-Putnam, 2001)
• The Five of Cups (Subterranean Press, 2003)
• Low Red Moon (Penguin-Putnam, 2003; Subterranean Press, 2004)
• Murder of Angels (Penguin-Putnam, 2004)
• Daughter of Hounds (Penguin-Putnam, 2007)
• Beowulf (novelization) (HarperCollins, 2007)
• The Red Tree (Penguin-Putnam, 2009)
• The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (Penguin-Putnam, 2012; Centipede Press, 2014)
• La Belle Fleur Sauvage (Dark Regions Press, 2020)

As Kathleen Tierney

• Blood Oranges (Penguin-Putnam, 2013)
• Red Delicious (Penguin-Putnam, 2014)
• Cherry Bomb (Penguin-Putnam, 2015)

Agents of Dreamland (Tor, 2017)

Tinfoil Dossier

• Agents of Dreamland (Tor, 2017)
• Black Helicopters (Tor, 2018)
• The Tindalos Asset (Tor, 2020)

Selected Short Fiction

• "Paedomorphosis" (1998)
• "Valentia (1994)" (2000)
• "So Runs the World Away" (2001)
• "From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6" (2005)
• "The Drowned Geologist (1898)" (2003)
• "The Dead and the Moonstruck" (2004)
• "Houses Under the Sea" (2007)
• "Pickman’s Other Model (1929)" (2008)
• "The Thousand-and-Third Tale of Scheherazade" (2009)
• "The Bone’s Prayer" (2009)
• "The Peril of Liberated Objects, or the Voyeur's Seduction" (2012)
• "At the Gate of the Deeper Slumber" (2012)
• "Fish Bride" (2009)
• "The Alchemist’s Daughter (A Fragment)" (2009)
• "Houndwife" (2010)
• "Tidal Forces" (2011)
• "John Four" (2010)
• "On the Reef" (2010)
• "The Transition of Elizabeth Haskings" (2012)
• "A Mountain Walked" (2012)
• "Love Is Forbidden, We Croak and Howl" (2012)
• "Ex Libris" (2012)
• "Pushing the Sky Away (Death of a Blasphemer)" (2013)
• "Black Ships Seen South of Heaven" (2015)
• "Pickman’s Madonna" (2013)
• "The Peddler’s Tale, or Isobel’s Revenge" (2013)
• "One Tree Hill (The World as Cataclysm)" (2013)
• "The Cats of River Street" (2014)
• "Far From Any Shore" (2014)
• "M Is for Mars" (2019)

The Dandridge Cycle

• "A Redress for Andromeda (2001)" (2000)
• "Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea (1957)" (2002)
• "Study for The Witch House (2013)" (2013)
• "Andromeda Among the Stones" (2003)

Waycross (Subterranean Press, 2003)

Dancy Flammarion

• Threshold (2001)
• "The Well of Stars and Shadow" (2001)
• "Les Fleurs Empoisonnées" (2002)
• "Waycross" (2003)
• "Alabaster" (2006)
• "Bainbridge" (2006)
• "Highway 97" (2006)
• “Bus Fare” (2014)
• “Dancy vs. the Pterosaur” (2015)
• “Tupelo (1998)” (2017)
• “Dreams of a Poor Wayfaring Stranger” (2020)
• “Requiem” (2020)
• "Refugees" (2020)

Houses Under the Sea (Subterranean Press, 2018)

Collections

• Tales of Pain and Wonder (Gauntlet Press, 2000; Meisha Merlin, 2002; Subterranean Press, 2008; PS Publishing, 2016)
• Wrong Things (with Poppy Z. Brite) (Subterranean Press, 2001)
• From Weird and Distant Shores (Subterranean Press, 2002)
• To Charles Fort, With Love (Subterranean Press, 2005; PS Publishing, 2018)
• Alabaster (Subterranean Press, 2006; expanded edition, Dark Horse Comics, 2014)
• A is for Alien (Subterranean Press, 2009; expanded edition, PS Publishing, 2015)
• The Ammonite Violin & Others (Subterranean Press, 2010; PS Publishing, 2018)
• Two Worlds and in Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) (Subterranean Press, 2011)
• Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart (Subterranean Press, 2012)
• The Ape's Wife and Other Tales (Subterranean Press, 2013)
• Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume Two) (Subterranean Press, 2015)
• Dear Sweet Filthy World (Subterranean Press, 2017)
• Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales (Centipede Press, 2018; Subterranean Press, 2019)
• The Dinosaur Tourist (Subterranean Press, 2018)
• The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Tachyon Publications, 2019)
• A Little Yellow Book of Fever Dreams (Borderlands Press, 2019)
• Comes a Pale Rider (Subterranean Press, 2020)
• The Variegated Alphabet (Subterranean Press, 2021)
• Vile Affections (Subterranean Press, 2021)
• Cambrian Tales: Juvenilia (Subterranean Press, 2021)
• Bradbury Weather (Subterranean Press; forthcoming, 2023)

External Links

• Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caítlin R. Kiernan's blog
• Summary Bibliography: Caítlin R. Kiernan at Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Caítlin R. Kiernan at Wikipedia