Caitlín Kiernan papers (Ms.2017.008)

Biographical/Historical Note

Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan is a science fiction writer and vertebrate paleontologist who has published novels, short stories, comics, and scientific articles.  She was born in Dublin, Ireland on May 26, 1964 to Susan Ramey Cleveland.  They moved to the United States when Kiernan was a baby and she spent most of her childhood in Leeds, Alabama.  Her early interests included herpetology, paleontology, and fiction writing.  As a teenager, she lived in Trussville, Alabama where she began doing volunteer work at the Red Mountain Museum in Birmingham and spending summers on her first archaeological and paleontological digs.  Kiernan was the co-founder of the Birmingham Paleontological Society in 1984.

She attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Colorado at Boulder to study English, geology and vertebrate paleontology.  During her career as a vertebrate paleontologist, she held both museum and teaching positions at the Red Mountain Museum and the University of Colorado Museum.  She described a new genus and species of the giant marine lizards known as mosasaurs, Selmasaurus russelli.

Kiernan is a transgender woman.  The name on much of her paleontology research is the name given to her at birth, Kenneth Robert Wright.  She changed her name in 1990. She also writes under the pseudonym Kathleen Tierney.

She turned toward fiction writing as her main avocation in 1992.  In addition to the books and stories she has published, listed in the Bibliography, Kiernan also worked with DC Comics to complete a sixty-issue series of comics called The Dreaming during 1997-2001.  She publishes Sirenia Digest which is an online "monthly journal of the weirdly erotic."  She also contributes entries most days to her blog which began on November 23, 2001 as "Grey Girl Beast" and then renamed as "Dear Sweet Filthy World" (https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/). Kiernan is a two-time recipient of both the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards.

Between 1996 and 1997, Kiernan was the vocalist and lyricist for a "goth-folk-blues band," called Death's Little Sister based in Athens, Georgia.  The band was named for Neil Gaiman's character, Delirium. The other members were Barry Dillard (guitars), Michael Graves (bass), and Shelly Ross (keyboards).

She lived in Providence, RI from 2008-2018 with her partner Kathryn A. Pollnac. She now lives in Birmingham, Alabama.

-Caitlín R. Kiernan, Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitl%C3%ADn_R._Kiernan, accessed August 1, 2018.

Bibliography:

Novels

• Silk, Penguin-Putnam, 1998
• Threshold, Penguin-Putnam, 2001
• The Five of Cups, Subterranean Press, 2003
• Low Red Moon, Penguin-Putnam, 2003
• Murder of Angels, Penguin-Putnam, 2004
• Daughter of Hounds, Penguin-Putnam, 2007
• Beowulf, HarperCollins, 2007; novelisation of 2007 film
• The Red Tree, Penguin-Putnam, 2009
• The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, Penguin-Putnam,2012
• Blood Oranges, (writing as Kathleen Tierney), Penguin-Putnam, 2013
• Red Delicious, (writing as Kathleen Tierney), Penguin-Putnam, 2014
• Cherry Bomb, (writing as Kathleen Tierney), Penguin-Putnam, 2015
• Agents of Dreamland, Tor, 2017
• Black Helicopters, Tor, 2018

Short fiction 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
• Alabaster, (illustrated by Ted Naifeh), Subterranean Press, 2006; reissued as Alabaster: Pale Horse by Dark Horse Comics, February 2014
• A is for Alien, (Subterranean Press, 2009; illustrated by Vince Locke)
• The Ammonite Violin & Others,Subterranean Press, 2010
• 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 Stories, 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
• The Dinosaur Tourist, Subterranean Press, (forthcoming as of August 2018)