Caitlín R. Kiernan is a brilliant young author. She is also a goth. When she walks into a room, heads turn, and not just because she's beautiful — but because she's managed to transcend the genres of modern dark writing into the realm of literature. Her novel, Silk, won the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel this year. It was nominated for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award as well.

If you don't recognize the name of the novel, you might recognize her work from the chapbook, Candles for Elizabeth, or creator Neil Gaiman's comic series The Dreaming. Perhaps you don't read The Dreaming, but pine away hours and hours over The Girl Who Would Be Death, because she's just like someone you know... All of this, and more, is from the horrifically wonderful mind of Caitlín R. Kiernan. There is an old Indian legend, that beauty walks the fine silk line of a cobweb, and when water touches it, a fragile world in which beauty lives, can form.

Caitlín R. Kiernan has honed the art of weaving stories that strike us as beautiful, set in a treacherous, unforgiving, and cruel world. Read her for her beauty. Read her because she bites, and it feels good.

RG: Your writing has a definitive style and voice. How do you feel about stylistic writing in general as opposed to more accepted forms, and the difficulties associated with being accepted as a uniquely voiced author?

CRK: I think all good writing has a definitive voice. That's what makes it worthwhile, what separates it from all the other stuff that just sort of runs together. But if you mean my use of impressionism and prose poetry, when the dominant literary voice today is one that's more traditional, what I call pre-modernist . . . that's a different matter. When I read, I want to hear the writer's voice. I've said before that I think those of us who go on to become writers learn how to tell stories when we're very, very young. That's the easy part, making stuff up. Learning how to lie. What's difficult is finding a voice and telling your stories in a way that makes them artful lies.

My favorite authors have always been people like Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Angela Carter, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Patrick McCabe, Kathe Koja — writers who make you feel like every single word matters, that the way they're telling the story, this particular sequence of words, is the only way it could be told. I want writers who make me work as a reader. I've heard people say they dislike writers with very strongly-developed voices, that an author's voice should never "intrude" or show through. I think those people are really better suited to watching television than reading books.

RG: As a female in the horror industry I can attest, sometimes it's been difficult to get my work noticed, let alone published and recognized. Have you run into difficulty being female (or transsexual) with regards to getting published or a substantial advance for your novel? There are a lot of women in the industry who feel men wind up with better paychecks, much like the movie industry, simply because they are male.

CRK: This makes me smile just a little because a few years ago, just before Dell's Abyss imprint folded, a number of male horror writers were complaining, loudly, that you had to be a woman to get a book deal, because Abyss was publishing so many new female writers. But, anyway, as far as my novel and my short fiction, no, I don't think I've ever really felt slighted because of my sex or gender.

There's no way I can ever be sure, of course, because maybe some editor somewhere rejected Silk because I'm a woman, but gave a different reason for the rejection. But I think I've been treated decently by the publishing industry, as decently as most. I think where I started to see some degree of discrimination, of being dismissed out-of-hand because I'm a girl or because I'm a transsexual, is with comics readers.

The editors at DC have been great and there's never been any problem there, I mean, I went from being an absolute nobody in the comics industry to writing for The Dreaming, Vertigo's second bestseller, virtually overnight. But as time goes by, I'm beginning to encounter peculiar reactions from a lot of readers and I think the average fanboy is less than comfortable with women writing their comics. There are almost no women working as regular writers for DC or Marvel — in fact, at Vertigo, I'm the only one with a monthly title — and that has to mean something, because there are so many talented women writing comics for the independent publishers.

RG: I agree. You mention encountering peculiar reactions from readers, being a woman — what sort of peculiar reactions? Do you think it's because the stereo-typical basement-box-pile fanboy is not only male (hence the term fanboy), but intimidated by the thought of a female writer doing their beloved books?

CRK: I hate to say so, but I think that may be precisely what's going on. I think there are a lot of guys who see comics as a "boy thing" and it bugs them when girls start trying to get into the act.

RG: What was the thought behind the idea for The Girl Who Would Be Death? She's blonde on the cover, with a rather striking resemblance to you . . .

CRK: You think so? I've never noticed that, and the painter, Dean Ormston, had never met me, so it would have to be purely coincidental. But The Girl Who Would Be Death was a sort of compromise between Neil Gaiman and Vertigo, because they wanted a new Death mini-series, but had promised him that they wouldn't allow another writer to use the character. So Shelly Roeberg proposed a mini-series about a cult that worships Death, in which Death would not actually appear, and Neil, darling that he is, said "Only if Caitlín writes it." As I developed the story, I moved away from the cult idea somewhat, though I guess it's still there in the ghouls from Lafayette Cemetery. So, as I said in my introduction to the series, it's a story about Death's influence on the world of the living and the impact of our icons, in general, upon our everyday lives. I thought it was a nice twist to make the title character, Plath, blonde, because I think everyone would have expected her to look more like Death.

RG: I still think Plath looks like you;-) How does it feel, to have such confidence from Neil Gaiman, the creator of the characters that you work with, to do . . . well . . . what you do with them? (heh). Also, are you able to comprise the story lines for The Dreaming without too much intervention from DC? I'm curious to know if you follow a set of guidelines first from Neil, then from DC. I'd consider that difficult, yet you crank these things out so fast!

CRK: It's very scary that Neil has so much confidence in me, and it's strange. And disorienting. But it also helps me find new confidence in myself, where I've never really had very much. I think most writers are very insecure people and it's an extremely important part of the writing process to have peers and, especially, artistic role models, express confidence in younger, or newer, authors.

As for intervention from DC, well, it's a rare thing. I don't really have any guidelines, per se. Some very simple ground rules: try to avoid minors in sexual situations unless it's absolutely crucial to the plot, I'm not supposed to use any of The Endless because Vertigo and Neil have a sort of "gentleman's agreement" involving those character — though he sometimes makes exceptions —, stick to the general story continuity established in The Sandman and related titles. So you have to really know what people have written before you. But just stuff like that. I've actually been given much more latitude than I would have expected. I've been allowed to take The Dreaming, and so, to a degree, the Sandman mythos Neil began, in a darker, grittier direction and I think, again, that demonstrates a lot of trust in me on the part of both Vertigo and Neil. And, as I said, that's scary and it gives me faith in myself.

RG: In the times I've seen you read, you often mention that The Dreaming is what pays your rent, as opposed to the novel, Silk. Do you find the comic industry a better paying one? Or simply steady?

CRK: Simply steady. Steady is the cool thing about The Dreaming — well, one of the cool things. But there is a trade off. I spend a lot of time with every issue of The Dreaming and it's severely cutting into time I once spent on short stories and novels. It's almost like I didn't have a day job when I was writing Silk but now I have a day job writing for Vertigo — actually, it's exactly like that. But there's a lot to be said for steady gigs.

RG: I'd gladly give up my day job, for a day-job-like-thing working for DC any day. How did you come about writing for The Dreaming?

CRK: Early on, when they were lining up the first few stories for The Dreaming, Neil Gaiman suggested that I might be a good choice for a story about The Corinthian. But I guess that answer begs the question, doesn't it? I'd done a short story for the prose anthology, The Sandman: Book Of Dreams (HarperPrism, 1996), called "Escape Artist." The anthology was co-edited by Ed Kramer and Neil Gaiman and that's when I first met Neil, at World Horror '95 in Atlanta, just after he and Ed accepted my story.

We got to be friends and Neil knew how much I liked The Corinthian and that I have a sort of fetish for knives, so he said I seemed like a logical choice. He called me and said something like, "I'm sure you have better things to do than write for comics," and I said, "Are you kidding?" I was such a fan of The Sandman I think I would have done that first story, "Souvenirs," for free.

Anyway, I said that I'd love to do it, even though I'd never seen a comic script and had no idea how to write one. Everyone at Vertigo, and most of the readers, seemed to like "Souvenirs," so they asked me to do a second story, which was "Unkindness of One." It was even more popular than "Souvenirs." Around that time, the decision was made to move away from The Dreaming's original (and not very popular) anthology format, to build in more continuity and work with four writers.

Four writers became two, me and Peter Hogan, and so Peter and I were the writers through the end of "Many Mansions" (#34). Then he left to pursue other projects, such as stories for the new The Sandman Presents title, and, as of #35, I took on The Dreaming solo. So, that's how I got to write for The Dreaming. Mostly I think I was just astoundingly lucky.

RG: What's this "fetish for knives" thing?

CRK: It isn't really a fetish in the sexual sense. Well, maybe a little bit. I know what Freud would say. It's really more of a fascination with blades, with their potential — to open, you could say. And it isn't just knives, but most sharp things. Knives have such a simple elegance.

RG: Did the income from The Dreaming enable you to write the novel, Silk, or was it purely a labor of love?

CRK: Actually, I'd finished Silk and it was already being shopped around to the publishers several months before I was asked to write for The Dreaming. I started Silk in October '93, a few months after I sold my first short story. In the three years it took me to complete the novel, my short fiction began to sell and I started building a name with it, which, in turn, helped me land a good deal for Silk. So I suppose Silk was a labor of love, as much as anything else. I honestly never thought it would be published. I wrote it because I wanted to write it.

RG: I understand you fought pretty hard to have the classification of "horror" taken off the spine of Silk before it reached stores. Why is that? Was it more of a "recognizing the overall 'literary' section market value of the novel" decision, as opposed to a "horror is a dead market and I won't get a good shelf placement" decision?

CRK: I made it clear to my agent and my editor at Roc that I would prefer "horror" not appear on the spine of the book, since I knew it would sell better and get more attention from reviewers if the spine said "fiction." I know it's silly that things work that way, but they do. Anyway, it was my editor, Laura Anne Gilman, who really deserves credit for keeping "horror" off the spine. She's the one that convinced Penguin to go with "fiction."

I'm not particularly keen on genres and I don't see myself as a genre writer. My fiction is usually dark and often involves supernatural elements, but I don't consider myself a "horror" writer. To paraphrase Doug Winter, horror is an emotion, not a genre. And there are a lot of other emotions and themes that are just as important to my work as horror — wonder, terror, awe, despair, transformation — it's a long list, and boiling Silk down to "horror" because that makes the book easier to market or because people are more comfortable with literary shoe boxes does a disservice to the novel and fiction in general. As far as I'm concerned, there's good fiction and bad fiction.

RG: A great amount of attention is paid to the music your characters listen to, and the part it plays in their lives -- lip-synching to Concrete Blonde, humming along to Patti Smith, and of course flat-out PJ Harvey worship. Does the nihilism inherent in the music reflect on the characters?

CRK: I don't think I ever really thought of those musicians as inherently nihilistic. Often dark, but hardly nihilistic. Likewise, I think my characters are rarely genuinely nihilistic. Their lives are often very hard, sometimes horrendous, but I feel like they're always struggling toward survival and some sort of peace. They don't always win, but they rarely give up without a fight. And I think that fight, the struggle against an almost unbelievably shitty world, is inherent in the music of these performers. So it's not nihilism, but a sort of realism that I think most people would call pessimism. Things are gonna suck. Things are gonna suck bad. If you're lucky, you'll come out with a minimum of scars. And occasionally there are people, like Spyder Baxter in Silk or Jenny Haniver in "Tears Seven Times Salt" who are so screwed by the circumstances of their lives that there's really no way we can expect them to escape the gravity of their respective pasts — but they do try. A nihilist wouldn't.

RG: John Rechy's novel City Of Night is considered seminal in its study of young hustlers, a subject which was quite taboo up to that point. Are you familiar with his work and consider it influential?

CRK: I haven't read Rechy.

RG: How big of an influence do you feel James Joyce has been on your work?

CRK: Along with most of the other Modernists, like Faulkner and Eliot, and perhaps more than any other single writer, Joyce has been tremendously influential. I discovered his work in college in an honors seminar where we read Ulysses and I was immediately hooked. I spent a lot of time studying his stories and novels and when you spend that much time with another author's work I think it's very hard to keep them from leaking into your own. Ulysses and Dubliners made me want to write a novel. It was like someone slapped me in the face and said, "Wake up! Look! Did you ever dream such marvelous things could be accomplished with language?" And Joyce led me to Faulkner and Yeats and a lot of other people.

In April '96, Poppy Z. Brite and I went to Dublin to speak at Trinity College, and that was the first time I'd been back in Ireland since I was a kid. So it was the first time I got to experience Dublin through the lens of Joyce. I dragged poor Poppy all the way out to Martello Tower in Sandycove, where Ulysses begins. I think those sorts of literary pilgrimages are very important for writers.

RG: What was the difference, viewing Dublin — in that remarkable way — as an adult, versus how you viewed it in childhood?

CRK: Well, for one thing, as I child I wasn't very aware of the political problems facing Ireland, even though they were the reason we left. When I went back, during the first cease-fire, I met college kids whose families were IRA and they would say things like, "You know, in Dublin we just try to keep our heads down." Dublin's like that. That Belfast is less than a hundred miles north, with its British soldiers and paramilitaries and barbed wire, that just doesn't feel real when you're walking around Temple Bar or St. Stephens Green with all the students and tourists and people just going about their everyday lives. But what struck me more than anything, going back, was the beauty of the country and the people. For me, Ireland feels alive in a way that few places in America have ever felt. The stones feel alive.

RG: What are you currently working on?

CRK: My next novel, Trilobite, which is starting to feel like it's going to take forever to really get a handle on. I was actually relieved when Silk didn't win the Stoker for best first novel, after having already won the Guild award and the Barnes and Noble Maiden Voyage award — not that I wouldn't absolutely love to win a Stoker, but I think my fear of readers' expectations for my second novel is beginning to cause me trouble. Anyway, I'm also finishing up a short story collection, Tales of Pain and Wonder, which will be released by Gauntlet Publications next year. I'm finishing the proofreading of the Gauntlet limited of Silk. There's the next issue of The Dreaming, and a story for Vertigo's Winter's Edge III. And I'm working on music again, on a studio project called Crimson Stain Mystery. It's always this crazy these days.

RG: Will the masses be able to get a hold of Crimson Stain Mystery upon it's completion in some way?

CRK: That's the idea. Gauntlet will have something like a six month exclusive, when you can get the disc free if you buy the numbered or deluxe limited edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder, or you can purchase the disc separately from Gauntlet. But after that, I hope it will more widely available. We're looking for a distributor now.

RG: What really pisses you off?

CRK: What doesn't piss me off. I feel like I exist in a perpetual state of pissed-offness. If depression gives me perspective, then anger gives me motivation — that sounds terrible but I think it's true. Specific things that piss me off? Stupidity. That encompasses a large portion of the things that piss me off. People who are too stupid to see that, sooner or later, we're going to have to pay for decades of selfishness. The NRA. Pro-lifers. People who can't grasp that there's no issue facing us that's more important than the preservation of habitat and biodiversity. Academic left-wingers who have sacrificed the heart and soul of higher education to poorly conceived notions of multi-culturalism and egalitarianism. Disposable diapers. Deer hunters. PETA. Camille Paglia. Germaine Greer. Howard Stern. People who actually think they have a right to have three children (or one, for that matter), with the world population heading toward six billion. Creationists. People who think that a sweat shirt and cut-offs are acceptable public attire. Rudeness — and you see, this could go on for ever. It's easier to ask me what doesn't piss me off. Tiffany lamps don't piss me off.

RG: Tiffany lamps piss ME off. So I'm not even going to touch that... OK -- if you exist in a perpetual state of pissed-offness, the better question would have been to ask you, what actually makes you happy?

CRK: What makes me happy . . . that's a damned good question. I don't think life is about being happy. Maybe it's about finding a degree of peace and joy at some point, but the word "happy" just seems to rub me the wrong way. Maybe I've just seen too much bad shit, and I hate that thought, that I've become cynical or jaded or callous or whatever. But, anyway, things that "make me happy". . . spending a day or two at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Walking the beaches in northern California or Oregon. Good music. Rainy days. Vintage clothing stores. Pretty mundane stuff.

RG: I was on a plane to LA once, and there was a guy sitting across from me (you meet the weirdest people in the exit rows) reading Jack London's Science Fiction Stories, and he visibly could not get through the first chapter. I handed him (out of the blue) my copy of Candles for Elizabeth, which I'd just finished reading, and told him to give it a try. He was locked in for the rest of the hour on the plane, and finished it, asking where he could find more.

The guy was about mid-40's, total technology-industry-probably-owns-a-chunk-of-the-silicon-valley, and oddly conservative in outward demeanor and obvious literary tastes. Do you feel your work is versatile enough to reach readers who wouldn't necessarily pick up non-mainstream horror or sci-fi/fantasy/dark fantasy works? I'm talking the clearly Koontz N' King Only readership...

CRK: It's hard for me to say. I like to think that's true, because it's a waste of time to spend all your energy preaching to the choir.

RG: Where were you when they were announcing your win of the International Horror Guild Award for Silk in the Best First Novel category (tied with Mike Marano, Dawn Song)? Neil Gaiman (as ToastMaster) made sure the audience was to chide you for your absence, anytime they saw you afterwards.

CRK: Argh! This is going to haunt me forever, isn't it? Okay. True story. There I was, in my room at the hotel waiting for the ceremony to start, when, without warning, a tear in the fabric of space and time occurred, sucking me four million years into the future where I had to save a race of sentient mollusks from a dictator bent on global domination. By the time I managed to hitch a ride with an alien time-traveler and return to March 6, 1999, well, shit, I'd just missed the awards presentation. Afterwards, I explained the whole thing to Neil over sushi and he was very understanding. Yep. I like that story. After WHC, I learned through Paula Guran that someone, I don't know who, had started a rumor that I didn't come because I was mad about having to share the award, which is idiotic, since I didn't know that I'd won. And besides, the mollusks were in need.

RG: I hadn't heard that rumor. How in the world could you eat Sushi with good conscience after being subjected to the (assumingly) oppressive nature of "sentient mollusks from years into the future?"

CRK: I ate no molluscan sushi that night.

RG: Have you been catching a lot of shit for being "Goth" or labeled as a "Goth" writer, since the Littleton, CO incident?

CRK: Have I been catching more shit than usual since Littleton? Actually, no. I had a reporter from the Philadelphia Daily Inquirer who wanted to interview me about goth, but I refused. Have I been labeled a goth writer? Yes, though that was going on before Littleton. But I am a goth and I am a writer, so it's something I can live with.

RG: Lastly. . .Trent Reznor and his life's recordings (largely including never-heard-before, rare, and unheard stuff -- the really-really-angsty-NIN tracks) are about to be swallowed by a tornado. You have five seconds and just enough distance to grab either him or the music before you are safely in the cellar. What do you do?

CRK: I have to say that I'd save Trent Reznor. Of course, that's based on the presumption that he'll be capable of producing new recordings (and reproducing some of the old stuff). What's worth more? An artist or their work? That is a sticky question, isn't it? Anyway, I confess that I find Trent Reznor incredibly sexy and maybe, if I saved his life . . . well, there you go.
 

Be sure to check out Pandora Station, the exclusive website for Caitlín R. Kiernan, Poppy Z. Brite, and Christa Faust. http://www.negia.net/~pandora/

Order the new limited edition copy of Silk from Gauntlet Press: http://www.gauntletpress.com/ (under coming attractions). Save this URL folks. This is also where you'll find Crimson Stain Mystery!