The Canon of Cthulhu

I recently discovered I have my own official reference code, WT10, when people are citing my short story, "What Hides, What Returns," in the Cthulhu Mythos in Wikipedia. Yes, that and a cup of coffee get you a cup of coffee, but it's nice to know my work -is- seriously considered part of the mythos.

I hope it won't be too long before the contributions to the Mythos found in DEMONSTRA get cataloged. There I introduced the Laotian Great Old Ones like Gop Nyai, the Frog Who Devours Moons, and Nyar Thep, an avatar of Nyarlathotep. Other elements include the text of the Ktulu Jataka, and the Tao Yaomo Ching, and Phra Bok, who brings doom to New Sarnath. But we'll see where it all goes. In the meantime, I'm happy enough people felt the work in "What Hides, What returns," merited a reference code throughout Wikipedia. WT10 it is!

She Walks In Shadows fully funded!

Coming out of Innsmouth Free Press, it's an all-woman anthology of stores reframing many of the classic women and entities from the Cthulhu Mythos. Officially funded, they're now in stretch goal mode. Their hope is to raise an additional $1,000 to cover interior art for the various stories being presented for this collection.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/she-walks-in-shadows/x/1363039

Among the writers I'll be particularly watching out for in this collection are: Carrie Cuinn, who will be writing Anna Tilton from “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” and Benjanun Sriduangkaew who is writing Pth'thya-l'yi. Ann. K Schwader is contributing poetry using Ammutseba, an original Mythos entity she contributed to the canon years ago.

I'm also keeping an eye out for Molly Tanzer, who is writing a story with Asenath Waite from "The Thing on the Doorstep" and Cynthia Ward, who is writing Mother Hydra, an entity appearing in many classic stories including "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "Dagon." There are several others also committed to the project well worth checking out.

Every little bit helps, but don't let that stop you from chipping in big bits, too. Or Great Old Bits, as the case may be here.

She Walks in Shadows: All-woman anthology inspired by H.P. Lovecraft

I had the distinct honor of being the first person to donate this exceptional crowdfunding campaign for an all-new anthology of stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, She Walks In Shadows.  This anthology will be produced by Innsmouth Free Press, maker of bizarre books, (including my latest book DEMONSTRA) and delivered in the fall of 2015.

As the editors explain: "Do girls just not like to play with squids? That's the question an editor asked on Facebook. What followed was a long discussion on Lovecraftian fiction and women. And the need for an answer. 

 The answer: Women do write Lovecraftian fiction. We aim to prove it with your support. More than a dozen female authors have gathered to write original Lovecraftiana and place it in a single volume under the title She Walks In Shadows."

Already, they've secured some amazing women writers for the project who will be writing stories based on various women established within the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and many writers since. They also have a number of wondrous perks and rewards for those who back the project at higher levels, such as a custom ukulele from the talented Karina Melendez:

But long story short: This is a great project that will break some amazing ground by the time it's all done and over, but they need to raise $8K to really do it right. If we can throw over $200,000 for a board game based on the Cthulhu Mythos, $8K really shouldn't be impossible to clear.

Let's make it happen for them! They have until March 13th to raise the funds.

[DEMONSTRA] The Terror in Teak

One of my favorite short stories that I wrote for Innsmouth Free Press was "What Hides, What Returns," which appeared in their anthology, Historical Lovecraft in 2011. 

In that short story, I introduced the character of Saeng, who was a bit of a Lao rascal and raconteur, a professional guide who accompanied different groups of colonials on various expeditions while living on the outskirts of Luang Prabang. 

The central premise was that there was an unorthodox copy of a famous Lao epic that was more detailed, yet more mad, than other texts covering that famous story. If read carefully it could lead to a long-forgotten temple built by ancient beings. It was an homage to many of the classic Lovecraftian tales I'd grown up with, and an experiment in how well those themes could mesh with a Southeast Asian perspective and our traditional beliefs.

From a poet's perspective, I was also curious if a prose poem could work with a similar premise, and the primary experiment in which this was implemented in DEMONSTRA is the poem "The Terror In Teak," the eighth poem in the collection.

"The Terror in Teak" would primarily be an examination of Lovecraft's short story, "The Call of Cthulhu," and a number of his other short stories, and those of other writers who worked within Lovecraft's strange cosmology.There are certainly great questions, like "How does a landlocked nation far from the oceans address tales of such a being?"

As with many of Lovecraft's works, this necessitated using a first-person perspective. Which isn't particularly my favorite, but it made sense in this case.

Set in the modern day, "The Terror in Teak" mentions a real French fort, Fort Carnot, and several other real texts and locations. It also provided me an opportunity to address some concerns such as the environment and the role of anthropology abroad to make sense of things.

This is the first poem to make an effort to transliterate the name of the Cthulhu cult in Lao. There will doubtless be other suggestions and corrections, but one of the nice things about working with this subject is that there's really no right way to spell Cthulhu anyway, especially among those who'd worship such a horrific entity in Southeast Asia.

In many ways "The Terror in Teak" was also composed as a way of starting a conversation about some of the unusual messianic legends and rumors that were running rampant in the early 20th century, especially among those living in the mountains and hills, where people were more free to build such beliefs. I wanted to ask what happened if we took such beliefs to an extreme, where people emerged who would invite the inhuman into their lives because things had deteriorated to such a point that pacts with the inhuman made as much sense as maintaining the status quo.

From a poetry point of view, the challenge was to create the work in such a way that it can only really be best experienced as a poem, and not as a short story, a film, or a comic book, although I would not rule out an experiment in graphopoetics for this piece in another project.

In narrative, there is a significant pressure to create logic, consistency, a coherent story that can be followed. With poetry, there is the same but the rules are also somewhat fluid. I get to try and tell you a "story" in a way that's not a story. We see how far language can and can't take us. 

Much like a work by Picasso and other modern artists, any use of language, particularly in an intercultural context, is an exercise in abstraction and certain social agreements. So the interesting question for artists and thinking humans is, how far can we take things to still express ideas for which all human language is presently insufficient to express?

"The Terror in Teak" is far from the last word on this matter, but it is a foray, one I hope my readers found enjoyable.

5 Flavors debuts at Expanded Horizons

My poem "5 Flavors" has officially debuted at Expanded Horizons this week, along with "Molting Season" by the poet Anne Carly Abad, who writes poetry and stories when she’s not training Muay Thai. Her story, ‘Sage’s Reckoning’ recently earned an honorable mention in Q3 of The Writers of the Future Contest (2013). Her work has appeared or will appear in Magma Poetry, Dreams & Nightmares, and Strange Horizons. Find out more about her at the-sword-that-speaks.blogspot.com.

Additionally, the short stories "Swallowing Saturday" by Catherine Batac Walder and "Daughters of the Air" by Gail Labovitz are included in this issue.

Maria Mitchell also provides a great interpretation of my poem "The Robo Sutra" that appeared earlier this year at Expanded Horizons. A writer and illustrator, she wrote the short stories "The Mermaid Promise" at Flashes in the Dark, "Song of the Catherine Clark" in Cthulhurotica, "The Kadath Angle" in Future Lovecraft and "Second Coming" at Dead Man’s Tome. Her poems have been published in the gothic anthology Candle in the Attic Window, The Absent Willow Review, Yester Year Fiction, Sage Woman #80 and the horror anthology Ugly Babies Vol. 1. She illustrated her poem, "The Last Son of Circe," in Ugly Babies Vol. 1 and is the columnist of Slicing Score at Innsmouth Free Press. My poem, "The Robo Sutra," is the first poem by another writer Maria has illustrated, so I'm honored by that. She’s also an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Because I think it can be handy for poets to give a little behind the scenes glimpse at their poems:

"5 Flavors" is a meditation on the phi of Laos, much in the same vein as "No Such Phi" forthcoming in Lakeside Circus later this month. This particular poem also takes into consideration the classical Lao principles of cooking, and five key flavors that a chef endeavors to balance and experiment with: Sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty. These principles are also found throughout other parts of Southeast Asian cuisine.

The poem originally came up from a question over why so many Southeast Asian ghosts and spirits seem determined to take it up a notch from Western ghosts. When you compare mythologies, it seems the spirits of the region are far more likely to try and eat you than those in the U.S. or Europe. There, you have banshees, poltergeists, and largely intangible entities who linger. They may scream, they may throw things around, they may try to frighten you, but eating you in part or in whole is a pretty rare occurrence. On the other hand, in Laos and Southeast Asia, you're relieved if banging things around is the worst they do.

As I did my research for my book DEMONSTRA from Innsmouth Free Press, there were an interesting number of phi who were considered female spirits, and whose particular modus operandi involved food, viscera, consumption, etcetera. And so, "5 Flavors" began to coalesce into its present form you see at Expanded Horizons.

"5 Flavors" takes place at an actual Lao restaurant in Sacramento, the Sabaidee Thai Grille, which is tucked away on 8055 Elk Grove-Florin Road. If you get a chance to, stop by and see the owners. They have a particularly extensive collection of contemporary artwork by the Lao American artist Sompaseuth Chounlanmany, who is also from Vientiane, where both the artist Vongduane Manivong and I were born.

"5 Flavors" also makes reference to the traditional Lao buddhist rite of Boun Khao Padab Din. Observed in September, the festival comes from a belief that the guardians of Hell (Nalok) let the souls of at least the human dead to return to earth for a day. They're famished, so the living are obliged to lay packets of hot rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. The spirits, however, can only eat the vapors. They then proceed to visit various family members and friends until they're called back to the underworld. For some families who lost a relative in the previous year, remains are often exhumed, cleansed then cremated, with gifts presented to the monks who chanted the funerary rites for the deceased. A relatively readable scholarly article on the subject can be found in Patrice Ladwig's "Feeding the dead: ghosts, materiality and merit in a Lao Buddhist festival for the deceased."

But take a look, and see what you think.

Lao Village: Muang Nhiam, 1885

An engraving of the Lao village of Muang Nhiam printed in 1885. Images lie this helped to inspire my story "What Hides, What Returns," for Innsmouth Free Press' Historical Lovecraft.