Though it's not going to get an advance like Bruce Springsteen's purported autobiography, Decemberists' frontman Colin Meloy is collaborating on a children's book with his wife, artist Carson Ellis. Ellis -- who has provided the artwork for all of the Decemberists music releases -- will illustrate the project, while Colin will provide the words for the upcoming effort, which they're calling 'The Unfortunate Demise of Whitley Rackham.'

In a blog post on Thursday, Meloy elaborated about the book, which was first promised in 2007 and is finally near completion. "[It] owes its existence to a (admittedly pretty nerdy) Halloween party that was thrown by a friend in, like, 2002," Meloy revealed. "Everyone was instructed to write a ghost story to read at the party. My humble contribution was this story about Whitley Rackham, a veteran of the Great War (2002 was a big year for WWI in my brain) and the ghosts (literally and figuratively) that followed him home."

If news of that limited-edition, letterpress-printed project -- courtesy of the folks at Portland's Stumptown Printers -- isn't enough, Meloy announced that the couple has another unnamed book about "a talking cat in 1920s Butte, Montana" in the works. The Decemberists' brainchild promises that "this book is finally having its day at bat (sorry, sports fans, for the improper brandishing of sports-metaphor) and Carson is working on the story-boarding as we speak."

Meloy also informs fans that they should "expect to see more such projects from Carson and I in the future."