Kickstarter

From Kyle Cassidy

I'm a professional photographer who works a lot with writers. When I first read an advance readers copy of Caitlin Kiernan's "The Drowning Girl: A Memoir" I was knocked down by how visual it was -- scenes, images, and people sprung up, fully formed in my head and I wanted to bring them out. I know that the time and resources to actually make the movie of it that I see in my head don't exist, but I can do something else -- which is to create a series of still images from that movie, and along the way, make a book trailer that will bring some of those images to life. Together Caitlin and I have cast actors and found locations and begun some of the work, but we need money to pay our cast and to get everyone in the same location.

We've already done a few images which you can see in the video.

From Caitlin R. Kiernan

In March 2012, Roc (an imprint of the Penguin Group [USA] Inc.) will release my ninth novel, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Of all my novels, this was, without a doubt, the most difficult to write and the most personal, but also the book of which I am the most proud. The writing of the novel took almost two full years, from conception to completion of the manuscript, which was submitted to my editor in March of this year.

Novelest Peter Straub (Ghost Story, A Dark Matter) has written of the book, “With The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, Caitlin R. Kiernan moves firmly into the new vanguard, still being formed, of our best and most artful authors of the gothic and fantastic – those capable of writing fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness. This subtle dark in-folded novel, through which flickers a weird insistent genius, is like nothing I've ever read before. The Drowning Girl: A Memoir is a stunning work of literature, and if I may be so blunt, Caitlin R. Kiernan's masterpiece.”

And Holly Black writes, “Caitlín Keirnan is a master of dark fantasy and this may be her finest work.  Incisive, beautiful and as perfectly crafted as a puzzle-box, The Drowning Girl took my breath away.

In all honesty, I love this novel as I have never loved any other in my nineteen-year career as a novelist. And I want to see it reach more readers than any of my books have previously. Unfortuantely, my publisher’s budget for promotion of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir is rather meager, and so I’m hoping, with the assistance of other talented artists, to give it a boost.

In April, acclaimed photographer Kyle Cassidy (Who Killed Amanda Palmer, Echoes of Life, Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes, Leaving Dakota, etc. ) read the manuscript and was captivated. Immediately, he conceived of a series of photographs based on the book, which he’s described as “stills from a film never made.” I loved the idea, and we set to work casting models/actors for the three major roles. As we talked about the project, our plans became more ambitious. Enlisting the aid of cameraman Brian Siano, we began scripting a trailer for the novel, which almost seems to have grown into a very short film, to be shot in and around Boston, Massachusetts late this month. The money we hope to raise via Kickstarter will be used to offset travel expenses and other expenses for the models and crew, whatever props and costumes are needed, to pay our models/actors (one model is coming from as far away as Washington, D.C., Klye’s coming from Philadephia, and I’ll be traveling from Providence, RI), and to cover having a musician provide a score for the trailer.

The “book trailer” will be made available across the internet, and Kyle and I have discussed multi-media exhibitions – using the still photographs, the trailer, and readings/signings – at several locations in the Northeast. But for the most part we’re in this for the fun and satisfaction of creating collaborative art related to The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, and the funds raised would, primarily, allow us to do that without going into debt in the process. Received wisdom is that book trailers suck; we won’t to make one that doesn’t, that qualifies as art in its own right.