About the Book
What exactly is the difference between a love letter and a suicide note? Is there really any difference at all? These might be the questions posed by Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan's fourteenth collection of short fiction, comprised of twenty-eight uncollected and impossible-to-find stories.
Treading the grim places where desire and destruction, longing and horror intersect, the author rises once again to meet the high expectations she set with such celebrated collections as Tales of Pain and Wonder, To Charles Fort, With Love, and the World Fantasy Award-winning The Ape's Wife and Other Stories. In these pages you'll meet a dragon's lover, a drowned vampire cursed always to ride the tides, a wardrobe that grants wishes, and a lunatic artist's marriage of the Black Dahlia and the Beast of Gévaudan. You'll visit a ruined postindustrial Faerie, travel back to tropical Paleozoic seas and ahead to the far-flung future, and you'll meet a desperate writer forced to sell her memories for new ideas. Here are twenty-eight tales of apocalypse and rebirth, of miraculous transformation and utter annihilation. Here is the place where professing your undying devotion might be precisely the same thing as signing your own death warrant or worse.
The stories in Dear Sweet Filthy World were first published in the subscription-only Sirenia Digest, run by Caitlin for her most devoted readers. This publication marks the first availability to the general public for most of these rare tales.
About the Author :
Caitlín R. Kiernan was born near Dublin, Ireland, but has spent most of her life in the southeastern United States. In 1992, she began writing her first novel, The Five of Cups (it remained unpublished until 2003). She is a prolific short fiction author, and her award-winning short stories have been collected in numerous volumes. Her short science fiction novel The Dry Salvages was published in 2004.
Lisa Flanagan is an award-winning audiobook narrator, voice actor, director, improviser, and classical soprano based in New York City. Her voice-over work includes animation, video games, and commercials. Lisa has received multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and Voice Arts Awards, including Best Audiobook Narration, Children's for Disney-Pixar's WALL-E. Lauren Ezzo is a Chicago-based audiobook narrator and commercial voice talent. A Michigan native and Hope College alumna, at this writing she has narrated over 100 titles for authors including Catherine Ryan Hyde, Georgia Clark, Adam Rapp, M. Dressler, Christopher Rice, Kirk Lynn, Lauren James, and Dot Hutchison. She has won multiple awards for her narration, including several "Best of the Year" lists, and several Earphones Awards. In 2016, her performance of The Light Fantastic, by Sarah Combs, conarrated with Todd Haberkorn, was named one of AudioFile's best books of the year. She was accorded the same honor in 2017 from School Library Journal for her narration of To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party. In 2018, she was Audie Award-nominated as part of a full cast of narrators for Best Original Work, Nevertheless We Persisted, performing two pieces-one of which she authored. She is a proud member of the Audio Publishers Association, and a lifelong bookworm. Paul Woodson has won SOVAS and AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has recorded close to 350 audiobooks in many different genres-including romance, fiction, history, biography, and mystery-and received his BFA in acting from Boston University. In his theater days, he worked in many NYC shows, toured the USA and Europe, and played the title role as Vincent van Gogh in the sung-through, OOBR Award-winning musical Vincent. He enjoys backpacking the Appalachian Trail and visiting National Parks in his spare time. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA. Xe Sands has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art. She has received several honors, including many AudioFile Earphones Awards and a coveted Audie Award, and she was named Favorite Debut Romance Narrator of 2011 in the Romance Audiobooks poll.
Neil Hellegers is a narrator, actor, and educator who lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, son, and orange mutt. His voice work can be heard during various commercials, sundry video games, and in numerous audiobooks. Neil has appeared in films, TV shows, and commercials, and has performed and taught Shakespeare to students of all ages. He has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in theater arts and psychology, and a MFA in acting from Trinity Rep Conservatory. Chelsea Stephens is an experienced narrator and actress who enjoys unfolding characters and bringing listeners into new worlds. With experience in acting, singing, and voiceover, she has a talent for mystery, fantasy, and young-adult novels. Natasha Soudek was raised in the South, speaks native German, lived in Berlin and Vienna, and finally settled in the Lower East Side of New York City. After honing her stage presence by studying acting and playing hundreds of live music shows (singing and playing bass), she moved to LA to record with Channel/DreamWorks and act on TV. Her voice is as distinct and memorable as the range of characters she's played on-screen.
Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.
"A fave among audiobook listeners" (Buzzfeed), Natalie Naudus is one of the most popular audiobook narrators working today. She has won an Audie award and nine Earphones awards, and maintains a robust social media following. She lives with her family on a mountain in Virginia. Gay the Pray Away is her debut novel.
Review :
"Sinister and beguiling in equal measure, tracing the border between fear and obsession and asking powerful questions about desire along the way."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
"The twenty-eight stories...explore the human and inhuman conditions in all their filthy glory, and bravely wallow in the effluvia of mythology, murder, and depravity...Her many fans will be overjoyed to have these works collected."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
