True Detective, KIY, and me

The popularity of Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow is suddenly on the rise due to HBO’s stunning True Detective (a long-held cinematic fantasy of mine come true!). Am I delighted? You bet I am. Hell, I’m happy-dancin’-‘round-the-room giddy. Creator and writer, Nic Pizzolatto, is working cinematic magic with True Detective.  Here’s someone who loves Chambers and gets it, and he’s got the perfect forum to deliver this important work of weird fiction to the masses. I’m also thrilled to see Nic deliver the KIY by framing it in noir, something I‘ve doing in my work for years now; most notably, according to HPL scholar and critic, S.T. Joshi, in my “Carl Lee & Cassilda” trilogy and “The Last Few Nights in a Life of Frost”.

Many of you know what a rabid advocate of Chambers’ KIY work I’ve been these 15 years, talking about it to anyone who would listen. It was a longstanding dream of mine to assemble an anthology of all new KIY stories by some of today’s leading weird fiction writers and it was with great delight that I edited the acclaimed A SEASON IN CARCOSA (Miskatonic River Press; 2012), which featured talents like Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, Richard Gavin, Joel Lane, Ally Bird, and Gemma Files.

And next up, I’m editing CASSILDA’S SONG, another anthology of all new tales based upon RWC’s KIY. This time, all the stories will be written by women. CASSILDA’s SONG will appear next spring.

With so many now probing the KIY and wondering what and where and who, and hungry for more, I looked through my files and made a list of my (published) KIY works.

(from BLOOD WILL HAVE ITS SEASON)
Choosing
Carl Lee & Cassilda
A Line of Questions
An American Tango Ending in Madness
The Songs Cassilda Shall Sing, Where Flap the Tatters of the King
Chasing Shadows
An Engagement of Hearts
A Spider In the Distance
Under the Mask Another Mask
Yvrain’s Black Dancers
Hello Is a Yellow Kiss
The Faces of She

(from SIN & ASHES)
In This Desert Even the Air Burns
Long-Stemmed Ghost words
Last Year in Carcosa
Perfect Grace
Mother Stands For Comfort
Saint Nicholas Hall
The Last Few Nights in a Life of Frost
Epilogue For Two Voices
The Last Twenty Miles of Wandering Again

(from PORTRAITS OF RUIN)
A Hand At the Door
Memories Can Wait
Marks and Scars and Flags
Tark Left Santiago
My Mirage

(from A SEASON IN CARCOSA)
Not Enough Hope

(from STAINED TRANSLATIONS – forthcoming)
A (~BIG~) Fishy Menu
On a Faraway Beach
One Window, Two Hearts
A Cold Yellow Moon (w/ Ed Morris)

(from THE PROTOCOLS OF UGLINESS – forthcoming)
less… light

(and Cassilda only knows what I’ve forgotten…)