Caitlin R. Kiernan is the author of a vast body of work, ranging from dark fiction, sci-fi, comics and even scientific papers. She has had short fiction selected for Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and The Year's Best Science Fiction, just to name a few things you might have seen her name in. She isn't one to be placed into one label, be it genre or otherwise. Caitlin R. Kiernan writes. You cannot describe her in one sentence, let alone one paragraph, and that's just how she likes it. Which makes it hard to describe her work if you haven't read her fiction. When I first picked up on of her novels Silk, I was spellbound by the passion in her prose. Each page kept me turning, kept me wanting more. So when I got the chance to have some of her time, I was thrilled to pick her brain.

Caitlin, you're both a writer and a paleontologist, among your other interests. How long have you been balancing both these worlds? Which do you think you put the most time into?

I pretty much stepped away from paleontology completely back in 2002, because the balancing act had become much too difficult. There are only so many hours in a day, and my writing career had long since reached the point where it required all my attention and available time, as it was paying the bills and my scientific work wasn't. My last scientific paper was published in 2005 (though it was written in '02), and I don't have plans for any further research at this time.

You seem to have a sense of play about you. For example: you like to dress up at conventions as Nar'eth and look great doing it. But your work tends to be very serious and challenges the reader. Do you find writing takes you to places where you can remove the gloves and push yourself and your readers?

I think if I'm not pushing myself and my readers with my writing, both in terms of how I write and what I write about, then there's no point to my writing. I could have taken a very different route with my fiction, one that probably would have won me a larger readership and less financial worries, but I couldn't see the point in simply churning out more of the sort of formulaic dark fantasy that people take to the beach or on airplanes. I want to tell stories that no one else is telling, with a language no one else is using. I don't want to write novels and short stories that are easy to chew and quickly digested and forgotten. I've taken a lot of criticism in this regard, but, for me, it only says I'm doing what I set out to do. I want to be challenged, and I want to challenge my readers. I see people say things like, "That wasn't a satisfying read, because it didn't do A and B and end up at C," and, frankly, I think that's bullshit. I want to show readers things they've never seen before. I want to make them consider these things, facets of themselves and questions concerning the paranormal and our perceptions of reality, things that we tend to relegate to "escapism." Peter Straub once characterized my fiction as having a sort of "high seriousness," and I think he was right.

What would you consider to be the most challenging book you've ever written and why?

Well, they're all hard. But I suppose the most difficult would have to be Murder of Angels, because I was forced to go deeper into my own personal demons than I'd ever gone before. I can't even stand to read that book now. There are just too many bad memories buried in there. My agent read the manuscript shortly after I finished it, and she was appalled at the grimness. But it was something I had to get out of me, the logical ending of the story I began in Silk. As hard as it was to write, I love it, and it's one of my best books, and I know I did it the right way, as right as was able, but damn, it's a hard book for me to go back to.

Out of curiosity, Why Nar'eth out of all the FARSCAPE cast? Why FARSCAPE for that matter?

Nar'eth wasn't an actual FARSCAPE character, but a character I created in 2002, because I wanted to do the Nebari costume, but knew that I couldn't pull off Chiana. So, I tried to imagine a tougher, darker Nebari woman. Anyway, as to why FARSCAPE, I just fell in love with the show, for a lot of reasons. I'm a sucker for good space opera. And two friends dared me to do the costume, and people shouldn't dare me to do things. I found a makeup artist in Atlanta that could help me get it right, and it ended up being a lot of fun. I did the costume five times, I think.

Would you call yourself a border dancer, considering the scope of all your writing? You have a vast body of work, and your range is very broad.

I've never heard that term, "border dancer," but yeah, sure. It works for me. I mean, I'm writing everything from hard sf to urban dark fantasy to paranormal erotica to space opera to high fantasy. I've been called horror, dark fantasy (the label I prefer), new gothic, slipstream, new weird, splatterpunk, cyberpunk, squidpunk, steampunk...it's a truly ridiculous list of labels. But I'm never going to be comfortable just writing one sort of fiction.

Your latest publication is Daughter of Hounds . Would you like to share with the readers what that novel is about?

I'm absolutely lousy at summing things up. I mean, I suck at it. Remember what I said earlier about reductionism. But let's see. It's sort of a sequel to Low Red Moon (which was sort of a sequel to Threshold), because it's about Chance and Deacon's daughter, and about all the consequences of what occurred in Low Red Moon. It's also me really digging into New England and taking a lead from Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model," continuing the mythology of ghouls and changelings I began Low Red Moon and a number of short stories. It's a story about childhood and the loss of innocence, about how children are often so much stronger than we give them credit for.

How do you think Daughter of Hounds compares to your other books?

Well, in many ways, it's a different sort of novel, than the earlier ones. I mean, try to imagine a scene with a demon and a night gaunt playing poker in Silk or Threshold. I was aiming for a sort of Alice in Wonderland meets Pulp Fiction feel, and I think I nailed it pretty well. It's still very, very grim, but it's also got a sense of whimsy that I'm just beginning to explore. In places, it's actually a very funny book. Anyway, right now, I think it's my best novel to date.

Some writers can hear the voices of their characters before they put the words on the page. Some see images, or just sense a mood they want to convey. When you write, do the words come to you first, or do you see things as images or sensations?

I've always, always been a very visual writer. I have to be able to see the people, the places, whatever. And often stories and novels first occur to me as dissociated sets of images that only slowly coalesce into narratives. So, yes, I'd say I "see" first, and the words come later. Or rather, I have to find the words to describe what it is I'm seeing, to make it happen.

Would you say you are a person who lives by expression, reason or an equal mix of both?

I like to think I live by an equal mix of both, but I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong, that I tilt in one direction or the other. I think a lot of people see a great deal of contradiction in me. I'm trained in the sciences, but I choose to write fantasy. I'm an atheist, but I'm also a practicing witch. I'm a staunch rationalist who has experienced many inexplicable and irrational things. I feel like have to try to find a balance, constantly, a way to accommodate all these apparent contradictions, but the truth is, they're just me, and I should be comfortable with it and stop worrying about how humans parse the world into what is and is not rational.

How do you juggle all the many interests and projects you're a part of, like Sirenia Digest, paleontology, etc? Any new projects you are venturing into in the next while?

Well, I don't sleep much. I spend most of my time writing, it feels like. No social life to speak of. It helps to be reclusive by nature. Right now, Sirenia Digest is an ongoing project, yes, and one I'm really loving. Also, I'm working on my next novel, Joey Lafaye , and a collection of my sf short fiction for Subterranean Press, which will be released in 2009 as A is for Alien . My third collection of erotica will be released soon. Lots of short stories to be written. I think that covers most of it, at the moment.

You've said you are a movie buff. What sort of movies do you enjoy the most?

I really don't think there is a sort of move I enjoy the most. Good movies? I just love film, in all shapes and sizes. Whenever I try to make a list of my favorite films, I'm inevitably all over the place as far as genre and whatever. In the end, it's about the power of that visual and auditory medium to tell stories and create worlds that seduces me so utterly. I'm an eye-whore.

Writing is a hard business to work in for anyone, including women. What sort of advice would you give to young writers trying to break in?

That's always a bad question to ask me. Because yes, it's a very, very hard business -- and it is a business, as much as it's an art. I mean, unless you are astoundingly lucky and end up like J. K. Rowling or Stephen King, this is a tough row to hoe, and, hell, it's probably even pretty tough for the bestselling authors. What I would say is go to college, get a good education and good job training, do not set out at eighteen or twenty-one to make writing fiction your day job, because the odds are you won't succeed, and it's better to fail if you've not sunk your entire future into this one enterprise. When I've said this at conventions, a lot of people don't want to hear it, but it's the truth. Virtually no one can make a decent living off their fiction, and it gets harder every year. I'd also tell prospective writers to use college as a chance to read everything they can, everything. Nothing's a waste. It'll all go into the stories, sooner or later. Mostly, I try not to offer advice to other writers, because there are very few rules or rights and wrongs.

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