Ki Longfellow
Ki Longfellow | |
---|---|
Staten Island, New York , United States | |
Died | June 12, 2022 | (aged 77)
Occupation |
|
Nationality | Dual US & UK |
Period | 1980s to present |
Genre | Fiction |
Subject | Varied |
Spouse | |
Website | |
www |
Ki Longfellow (born Baby Kelly, formerly Pamela Kelly; December 9, 1944 – June 12, 2022) was an American novelist, playwright, theatrical producer, theatre director and entrepreneur with dual citizenship in Britain. She is best known in the United States for her novel
The first of her novels to be published, China Blues (1989) and Chasing Women (1993) are mysteries and thrillers. In April 2013, the first of her Sam Russo Mysteries was published, part of a noir series set in and around New York City in the late 1940s.[1] The fourth in the Sam Russo Mysteries was published in 2015. Walks Away Woman, about a neglected Arizona housewife walking out into the Sonoran Desert to die, was published in December 2013.[2] On January 26, 2018, Longfellow's memoir of her husband,[3]The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, a Fairytale of Grimm Art, illustrated by Ben Wickey, was published.
Early life and education
Longfellow was born as Baby Kelly on December 9, 1944, on
Within two years Kelly, briefly assuming care of her child, left New York to resettle in Marin County, California, near her older married sister, Rosemarie Anderson. In Marin, Anderson cared for Pamela, until she left for Samoa, then to Texas with her own child and new husband, recently returned from World War II. She turned the girl back to her mother.[5]
Kelly met and married a
Longfellow graduated from
At nineteen, Longfellow had a dramatic experience which she now considers an occurrence of
Children, marriages, family and early work
On June 21, 1963, at age eighteen, Longfellow gave birth to her first child, daughter Sydney Longfellow (who became a
Back in New York City, Longfellow worked for the promoter Bill Graham in his Millard Booking Agency. In 1972, she met Robin Gee, the manager of the English folk band Fairport Convention, and moved with him to England. They were together for five years and she became a British citizen. During this period, Longfellow wrote occasionally for English music magazines.
A year before her mother died suddenly at the age of 44 from an embolism, Kelly told Longfellow, then 27 years old, for the first time about her biological father; he was a Native American of Iroquois ancestry. Kelly had met him at art school but never told Pamela his name or that of the school. Longfellow never met him nor could she find him.[5] Longfellow returned to California in 1975 and stayed there for a time.
In 1977, she flew back to England. There she met
Music and plays
Longfellow and Stanshall wrote
In late 1982, Longfellow discovered
In 1985, Stanshall and Longfellow wrote, produced, and staged their
In 1986, Longfellow and Stanshall closed the theatre and moved into the Bristol home of their friend, actor David Rappaport.
Writing career
Longfellow began writing in earnest. Her first novel was China Blues (1989), a historical
Longfellow's second book Chasing Women (1993) was a comedy
From mid-1990, when she was very ill with pneumonia, until the death of her husband in March 1995, Longfellow divided her time between a small farm in Brattleboro, Vermont and Stanshall's flat in Muswell Hill, London. She and their daughter Silky hoped that Stanshall would end his destructive habits and they could reunite as a family.
After Stanshall's accidental death in a fire in 1995, Longfellow stopped writing for a time. When she slowly got back to work, she found a new "voice" very different from the one expressed in her earlier works. As a widow, her work has grappled with loss of her husband, her difficult childhood, and spiritual yearning. She has claimed to have realised that her experience at age 19 was an event of gnosis.[13][14]
Since being widowed, Longfellow has published by the first name of "Ki" (pronounced as in "sky"), a name which Stanshall had given her from a vivid dream he'd had while living on the Searchlight. Based on her novel, The Secret Magdalene, she was invited to contribute to Dan Burstein's non-fiction book Secrets of Mary Magdalene (2006).
Her novel, The Secret Magdalene (2005) has been translated into Spanish, Czech,
Longfellow's novel, Flow Down Like Silver, (Hypatia of Alexandria) (2009), is about the 4th/5th-century mathematician and philosopher who lived in Egypt.[16] It is the second volume in her trilogy on the Divine Feminine or Shakti. As of 2020 it has been translated into French.
She rewrote the script for Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera, to be staged in Bristol, England, cutting it to two hours. Peter Moss served as musical director. (At the same time she was working on her first
A Stinkfoot Showcase played the Thekla in Bristol on July 20, 21, 22nd and 24, 2010. This was a concert showcase of Stinkfoot's songs backed by a full band and selected cast members (including
The concert was to be adapted as an animated film, entitled The Last Showboat (in pre-production as of 2013), based on the history of the Old Profanity Showboat and the Stanshalls. (As of 2020 this has not been completed.)
Longfellow published Houdini Heart (2011), a horror/psychological thriller.[19] In 2012 the Horror Writers Association announced that Houdini Heart was on the shortlist for the Bram Stoker Award for "Outstanding Achievement in a Novel", 2011.[20]
In February 2012, Eio Books redesigned and reissued Longfellow's first published novel, China Blues.[21] It was optioned in the fall of 2013 as either a television series or a mini-series.[22] In 2018, its 2013 option expired, it was optioned again as a "high end' mini-series by the production team behind Faraway Films.
In early April 2013, Longfellow published her first three titles in a series of murder mysteries featuring Sam Russo, a Private Eye in 1940s Staten Island, New York. These are in the noir tradition. In 2015, her fourth Sam Russo book came out.[23][24]
In December 2013, Longfellow published Walks Away Woman, a novel she had written in 2002 when she was living in
In the mid-1990s an Australian team of producers optioned Chasing Women for a feature film. After working for over two years on the screenplay, this project was abandoned. In late 2017, one half of the team (now part of a production company called Faraway Films) sought out Chasing Women again, having never forgotten it. In the process of optioning this book for the second time, Faraway Films discovered three other novels by Longfellow (China Blues, Walks Away Woman and Houdini Heart) and asked for and was granted a four-book deal. All four books are now[when?] in active pre-production.
On January 26, 2018, Longfellow's long-awaited memoir/biography/art book about her husband, Vivian Stanshall, was published by Eio Books: The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, a Fairytale of Grimm Art, illustrated by Ben Wickey.[3]
Books
- 1989 – China Blues (as Pamela Longfellow) – HarperCollins (Britain) ISBN 978-0-385-26048-0
- 1993 – Chasing Women (as Pamela Longfellow) – HarperCollins (Britain) ISBN 978-0-246-13677-0
- 2003 – ISBN 978-90-75342-13-0
- 2005 – ISBN 978-0-9759255-3-9
- 2006 – ISBN 1-59315-205-1
- 2007 – The Secret Magdalene – ISBN 978-0-307-34666-7
- 2009 – Flow Down Like Silver, ISBN 978-0-9759255-9-1
- 2011 – Houdini Heart, (ISBN 978-0-9759255-1-5
- 2012 – China Blues, a reissue by ( (being developed as a television series.)
- 2013 – Shadow Roll, a Sam Russo Mystery (Case 1) – Eio Books (worldwide) ISBN 978-1937819002[21]
- 2013 – Good Dog, Bad Dog, a Sam Russo Mystery (Case 2) – Eio Books (worldwide) ISBN 978-1937819040[21]
- 2013 – The Girl in the Next Room, a Sam Russo Mystery (Case 3) – Eio Books (worldwide) ISBN 978-1937819057[21]
- 2013 – Walks Away Woman – Eio Books (worldwide) ISBN 978-1937819903[21]
- 2014 - The Last Great Pulp Fiction Writer - North Beach Girl/Scandal on the Sand (contributing writer) Stark House Press ISBN 978-1933586557[26]
- 2015 - Dead on the Rocks (Case 4) - Eio Books (worldwide) ISBN 978-1937819125[21]
- 2018 - The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, a Fairytale of Grimm Art - Eio Books (worldwide) ISBN 978-0975925584[21]
Movies
- 1965 – Once a Thief, actress[citation needed]
- 1978 – Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, Charisma Films, screenwriter[citation needed]
- 2007 – The Secret Magdalene, (optioned in 2014)[15]
- 2010 – Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera, playwright, (pre-production in 2012)
- 2017 - Chasing Women was optioned by Faraway Films based in both Australia and Los Angeles
- 2018 - China Blues, Walks Away Woman and Houdini Heart have also been optioned by Faraway Films
Theatre
- Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera, staged in Bristol, England and London, England, (revived in concert version in 2010)
References
- ^ "Sam Russo Mysteries". Eiobooks.com. Retrieved 2013-08-02.
- ^ "Walks Away Woman". Eiobooks.com. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
- ^ a b "The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall". www.theillustratedvivianstanshall.com.
- ^ "Ki Longfellow", The Bristolian, May 1988
- ^ a b c d e f "Interview with Ki Longfellow", Discovery, Radio Two (England), n.d. 1990
- ^ a b "Interview with Ki Longfellow"], Woman's Hour, English radio show, 1993
- ^ "» Death Noted: ZEKIAL MARKO, aka JOHN TRINIAN". mysteryfile.com.
- ^ The Stanshalls on the Thames Archived June 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- BBCproduced a documentary program about it, aired in September 1983 as The Bristol Showboat Saga.
- ^ "Ginger Geezer : Stinkfoot - Reviews". gingergeezer.net.
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall & Ki Longfellow-Stanshall – Stinkfoot - Sea Urchin Editions". www.sea-urchin.net.
- ^ Longfellow's first two novels
- ^ "Longfellow's change of direction". ibrattleboro.com.
- ^ Recognition of gnosis Archived September 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b "Director Nancy Savoca a cowgirl in cinema's Wild West", Toronto.com Archived June 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ki Longfellow, Flow Down Like Silver (Hypatia of Alexandria) (9780975925591), Eio Books, 2009, Amazon
- ^ "Interview with Longfellow", Barnes & Noble reading, San Francisco, November 2008, no publisher
- ^ Stinkfoot concert on the Thekla Archived August 12, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 978-0975925515.
- ^ "Horror Writers Association Blog |". Horror.org. Retrieved 2013-08-02.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Eio Books". Eio Books. Archived from the original on June 18, 2013. Retrieved 2013-08-02.
- ^ "China Blues". Eio Books. January 15, 2017. Archived from the original on June 18, 2013.
- ^ "Sam Russo Mysteries". eiobooks.com.
- ^ Third Sam Russo Archived October 8, 2013, at archive.today
- ^ "Walks Away Woman". www.eiobooks.com.
- ^ "STARK HOUSE PRESS". starkhousepress.com.
External links
- Ki Longfellow’s official site Archived 2020-08-03 at the Wayback Machine