Starry Wisdom, the Dying Earth, and Toy Soldiers: An Interview with Simon Berman

Up in Seattle, there's a rather curious and interesting fellow I've known for some years now who passes through the waking world as Simon Berman. Our paths intersect in surprising ways, not the least of which being a love of books, forbidden knowledge, games, and the Cthulhu Mythos. Because of his work with Privateer Press, I became acquainted with their Warmachine Game, among other projects. One of those happens to be his ambitious Book of Starry Wisdom that came about from his desire to hold a book of H.P. Lovecraft's works that felt as ominous as the storied Necronomicon. 

When he approached me about the possibility of being a contributor, I said yes without hesitation because I know he "gets it" as much as this subject can be "gotten". 

In any case, between both of our harried schedules and any number of unusual mishaps, bizarre circumstances and anomolies warping time, space and mere reality, we finally had a chance to discuss his path and influences, and I found myself even more excited than ever to work with him. Be sure to check out his blog at A Love Letter To Atrocity, and do consider backing The Book of Starry Wisdom. 

You always have so many projects going on at once. What are your top three at the moment you're really excited about?

 Right now, The Book of Starry Wisdom is obviously the center of my world. After that, it's an ongoing project that I've been helping to manage for almost two years now, Eliza Gauger's Problem Glyphs. As for a third, well it's for my day job at Privateer Press and I can't talk about it publicly right now!


How do you describe your job to your family?

"I get paid to Tweet about toy soldiers."


You're involved in many parts of science fiction and fantasy, but particularly with the works of H.P. Lovecraft. How did you first get introduced to his work? And what's your favorite H.P. Lovecraft story?

I actually first encountered Lovecraft in a somewhat roundabout way. It would have been somewhere around 1993 when I was a very enthusiastic Metallica fan. I had listened to all their music at that point, so I had already encountered their songs "The Call of Ktulu" and "The Thing That Should Not Be," but I didn't understand what they were about. I ended up reading a biography of the band which devoted a paragraph or so to their fascination with Lovcraft's stories. Being a certain breed of heavy metal and roleplaying game nerd, it more or less ensured that the next book I picked up was a Del Rey collection of Lovecraft's stories, one of the ones with the amazing Michael Whelan covers, and I was hooked right there.

As for my favorite Lovecraft story, it has got to be The Dunwich Horror. It has all the elements that I love in his work; remote villages, degenerate families, ancient books, people turning into monsters, alien gods, and cosmic peril. Lovecraft wrote more effective stories and explored those ideas in greater depth elsewhere, but for me, The Dunwich Horror is the whole package.


Who do you consider some of your personal literary role models? Who would you consider your strangest influence?

Lovecraft goes without saying, but this is a tough one. My mother is from England and I grew up reading a lot of British fiction. My parents didn't really bother to curate the books available to me by age appropriateness which I think benefited me in a lot of ways.

I'd read all of George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman novels by the time I was twelve, and that love of history and black humor made a huge impact. Fraser brought history to life in those books like no one else and I'd kill to have a faction of his ability. Gerald Durrel's memoirs are a touchstone for me, and were a real force multiplier on my love of natural history as a child.

As for more contemporary writers, I'd be remiss not to mention Alan Moore and Michel Houllebecq. Houllebecq's The Possibility of an Island is some of the best contemporary not-quite-science fiction I've read, which also reminds me that I should mention my recent love of Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy. But then I feel like I'm doing Michael Moorcock a disservice for not mentioned dozens of his novels, and also Jack Vance's Dying Earth, and I could go on, is what I'm saying.


Are there any specific writers at the moment you feel we underappreciate? 

Well, now that you mention it and I already mentioned him, Jack Vance. Vance laid so much groundwork for modern science fiction and fantasy and outside of roleplaying game circles he's just not very well known. One of these days someone at HBO or AMC is going to find his Dying Earth or Lyonesse stories and he'll get the appreciation he's due, I hope.

After nearly a century, there's still an ongoing fascination with the work of H.P. Lovecraft. But are we coming close to exhausting the directions we can go with his work and the Cthulhu Mythos?

I don't think so. There are some tropes that are getting really tired by this point but I think the nature of his work is going to lend itself to dramatic reinterpretations for as long as people are telling stories.

The virtue of having so many "indescribable" horrors and so forth means that every creator gets to put their own stamp on them. I could do without seeing another ripped muscle man with a squid head, but I think as long as people are examining, deconstructing, and engaging with his stories and themes we're going to keep getting exciting new takes on the Mythos.


What's your advice for a beginner who is interested in getting involved with writing?

Write for pleasure. Write whenever you can. Get a job that isn't writing for a while and it will make you appreciate the writing that you do in your spare time all the more. There's a lot to be said for writing for a living but don't jump in the deep end on that, I've seen so many people turned bitter at the craft itself because they were struggling to get by on the sad rates that are just the reality for a starting writer.

Do what you have to do to keep yourself from hating it and, if you're determined to improve your work, willing to make connections, and a little bit lucky, success of some sort will likely follow.


When are you most excited with a project?

The immediate answer I had was"at the beginning," but on second thought it's when I start to really pull the project together. When it's at a point where it's coalesced enough and I'm confident enough in it that I can start talking about it with people in my inner circle. Most of my projects never get to that point.

I tend to hoard ideas for a while, what Warren Ellis calls the "compost bin" method. You think deeply on the idea for a little while, a few days, a week, make notes, obsess over it, and then you put it away. Don't think about it for a month. When you come back to it you see if the refuse has turned into fertilizer. If it does, I start work in earnest. That's when I get excited.


What's a personal rule you set for yourself as a writer?

Don't talk about things you haven't written yet. It's easy to spout a half-baked idea to your friends online and get distracted by the excitement instead of actually writing the god damn thing.



Check out The Book of Starry Wisdom at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aeeth/the-book-of-starry-wisdom-apocrypha-of-lovecrafts/ The campaign ends November 1st!

Necro-Sapien Notions: An interview with Justin White

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is almost upon us and we caught up with one of returning artists joining us for the festival this year, Justin White of Necro-Sapien Press!

So what have you been up to since the last H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival?

The past year has been great. I had a lot of success at Wonder-Con Anaheim and some of the other big shows but I've also been spreading out to some less traditional venues. For example a couple if months ago I had a booth at a roller derby bout and that was great. It was a cool experience to show my art to a lot if people who otherwise might never have seen it. Another exiting thing that recently happened was I formed a coalition of artists in my area and we held our first group show this past August and it was a huge success. The group is called Artrocity and you can expect some really amazing things coming up in the near future!

What have been some of your most popular items, and what are you looking forward to presenting this year at the festival?
Probably my most popular item from last year was my "Crawling Chaos Tavern" print, which will be returning this year. The biggest surprise, sales wise, was how popular my "Imperial Metal" pieces were. They are a set of three prints that combine various characters from a certain Sci-Fi movie series with Heavy Metal album art from the 80's. Those were a big hit.

This year I will have several new prints including a piece I am finishing up right now just for this years festival. It's titled "Offshore" and it very much channels this years theme. I'm am also working with a very cool company called Blackbird Bows to put some of my art work on to new products and merchandise.

What's been inspiring you lately?
Personally my biggest inspiration this year has been my family. Last October my wife and I became permanent legal guardians of my 12 year old niece and we also have a two year old daughter. I really want them to see that if you work hard and believe in yourself you can spend your life doing what you love. And that you should never give up and never listen to those who just want to raise themselves by knocking you down.


What's the toughest part of making a truly Lovecraftian piece?
The toughest part about making a successful Lovecraftian (one of my favorite words by the way) piece is mood. I think I mentioned this last time we talked but what I love about H.P.'s work is his ability to create the most foreboding atmosphere and then completely submerge you in it. His sense of horror isn't about a knife wielding maniac or a psychopath in a clown costume. It's about your own fear eating away at your sanity. The monsters in his works have already defeated you long before you see them. I try to capture that in my Lovecraft themed pieces. I don't think I fully have yet but that's ok it's just motivation to keep trying.

When are you most satisfied with one of your creations?

Honestly I am rarely satisfied with a piece I'm working on. The hardest lesson for me as a professional artist was knowing when to be finished with a project. Sometimes the more you push for perfection on a single piece the further from it you are in the end. My biggest sense of satisfaction is seeing fans reactions to a piece they love. When a stranger is as excited to see a piece of art as I was to create it now that is truly satisfying.

What's the strangest dream you've had lately?

For whatever reason I rarely remember my dreams. The last one I do remember was a couple of weeks ago. In my dream I was sitting down for a haircut (I haven't had a haircut in 5 years or so). So there I am in the barbers chair and the second he makes the first cut I realize it's a huge mistake and I jump up in a panic and run out. I woke up sweating and my heart pounding. Needless to say I won't be cutting my hair any time soon.

This year's theme is "Shadow Over Innsmouth". What's the big lesson of that story for you?
The main lesson I always take away from "Innsmouth" is you can not run from what you are. You can use it, channel it, but the more you hide from it the more devastating the result will be when it finally catches up to you.

History, Horror and H.P. Lovecraft: Checking in with the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society!

One of the perennial festival favorites of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles is the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, who've been the madbeings behind the first Call of Cthulhu movie, adaptations of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," "The Whisperer in Darkness," and more. We got a chance to ask them a few questions before they arrived:

So what's the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society been up to for the last 12 months?

It was a very Witchy year for us at HPLHS. We produced the music video for "No Turning Back," one of the songs from "Dreams in the Witch House," the Lovecraftian Rock Opera from our friend and colleague Mike Dalager and his very talented international team of musicians and performers. Our fantastic cinematographer David Robertson took time out of his busy TV schedule to shoot the video here at HPLHS headquarters in February, with some elaborate miniatures built with the assistance of Fred Manchento and Jason Voss shot in March, and Dave edited the video as well. We were delighted to bring the video to the HPL Film Festival in Portland. We're screening the video in San Pedro, and the miniature house will be on exhibit in the lobby.

We also released two episodes of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, "Herbert West -- Reanimator" and "The Dreams in the Witch House." It was very interesting to give "Witch House" two very different adaptations, each telling the story in its own way.

And we were happy to contribute the foreword to a new book that's just out from Writer's Digest Books, Writing Monsters: How to Craft Believably Terrifying Creatures to Enhance your Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans.

What can we look forward to at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival this year from the HPLHS?

We have another new episode of Dark Adventure nearly ready for release: "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs." And we're also working hard on a new addition to our series of monographs from Miskatonic University Press. It's about the curious sea shanties of Innsmouth, Mass., and in addition to a fascinating and scholarly booklet on the subject, it will come with a recording of 14 actual Innsmouth sea songs as performed by the Miskatonic Men's Chorus. Also look for more Dark Adventure, new prop replica items, and maybe another book project!

What were some of the popular items you had from last year? Did the attendees surprise you with what they liked?

We've attended the festival in San Pedro every year. We love the crowds that come to the Warner Grand, and they enjoyed the CD and collector vinyl editions of the rock opera "Dreams in the Witch House." Mike brought Alaine Kashian, who stars as Keziah Mason, and other members of his team. I can't say we were surprised they were popular, however, because they're great!

Next year will mark ten years since the release of your classic, Call of Cthulhu. Will we see any special celebrations or re-releases in 2015?

We're talking about doing something along those lines, but haven't nailed down the details of any such plan. It's amazing to think that it's been ten years, I'll tell you that much.



Visit the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society at: http://www.cthulhulives.org/

Pickles, Fhtagn and Portals: An interview with James Knouse!

James Knouse wheres many hats including being involved with the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and unleashing the madness that is "Cthulhu Pickles". We had a chance to talk with him about his inspirations, deep ones, and more.

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get inspired to present Cthulhu Pickles? What was one of the hardest things for you to learn about the process?

I grow peppers in my spare time here in Lompoc, California. Growing peppers and other "wicked plants" is a sorta stress release from my daily jobs of running my Media Production company Walking Kind of Bird and organizing the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

I had at one time about 60 different varieties of peppers growing and as you can imagine when harvest time comes I am swimming in peppers. So my wife suggested that we make pickles using one of her recipes. So we did and Wicked Pickles was born. Being an organizer of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in LA and recognizing the serious need for pickles I created Cthulhu Pickles.

What's your favorite H.P. Lovecraft story?

"Memory." It is the most perfect short story ever. Although I am very partial to "Herbert West the Re-Animator." Something about WW1 and the dead coming back.

Will we see even more Lovecraftian pickle or pepper options in the future?

Yes you will. Right now I am working on the "Deep Ones Sea Salts" as well as mixed drink options for Cthulhu Pickles. When you are at the Whale and Ale or Grand Vision for the Prayer Breakfast ask for a "Bloody Cthulhu with Extra Deluxe Tentacle Spears" in it.

What’s the biggest challenge for artists interested in creating a truly Lovecraftian work?

That is a tough one... Since I am a movie guy I will stick with movies... Artists should always stick with the basics of film making first and have a good script. After that focus on your skills as a film maker. Making a good film first is key and if you are true to Lovecraft, Lovecraft will come through in the end I think.

What's a project you really hope to take on in the next few years? Where do you hope to go from here?

Making the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Los Angeles the best of it's kind anywhere. LA has more to offer than any other city on earth. Also the weather is nice :)

Where else can we find you throughout the year?

You can find me running my production company in Lompoc. I specialize in launching businesses digitally online so spend my time photographing, and making commercials.

This year’s theme is “Shadows Over Innsmouth.” Why do you think this story touches so many people almost a century later?

Everything that washes up on the beach has a story.

I wanted to pick “Shadows Over Innsmouth” as a theme because of the idea of being trapped in an unknown place with people unknown. San Pedro is a cool oceanside town and the first time I visited I thought of the Shadow Over Innsmouth... Every street in San Pedro led to somewhere new and strange. I thought visiting folks would dig that idea as much as me.

Catching Up With Arkham Bazaar: Cinema, Cthulhu, Cults and Dreams

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon is returning to Los Angeles on September 26-28th! One of the vendors making their eldritch return is Arkham Bazaar, which specializes in Lovecraftian film and audio, Cthulhu gifts, T-shirts, Uncanny art and sculpture, and other Oddities. Their wares run the gamut of Weird tale authors like H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Clark Ashton-Smith, Robert W. Chambers, and Robert E. Howard.

We had a chance to talk with Gwen Callahan about what's in store this year!

It's been a year since we last checked in with Arkham Bazaar. What have been some of the highlights for you from the previous year?
This year has been pretty exciting! In October, we did a Best of The HPLFF night at the Hollywood Theatre, and in April we put on the 19th Annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon here in Portland. We marched in Portland's rose festival Starlight Parade dressed as cultists, and heard a few people shouting, "ia! ia!" along the parade route! Throughout the year we have been busy creating new products - like our Vintage style tin signs, new t-shirt and work shirt designs, a limited edition book of Dreams in The Witch House, which we partnered with Mike Dalager to include a full cd of the DITWH Rock Opera with it. We just finished up San Diego Comic Con where Mike joined us to help promote the album, and GenCon where we got to see a lot of amazing mythos themed games being released.

You're returning to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles. What were some of the popular items you had from last year Did the attendees surprise you with what they liked?

It's always a bit of a whirlwind at the festival, but people always seem to like the work shirts that we do with our Lovecraftian designs, and the limited edition glassware that we have made with our designs on them. We have a fantastic glass artisan who etched each glass by hand. We are particularly excited because we have some new designs and glasses for this year's festival!

What can we look forward to this year from Arkham Bazaar?

We will continue to create new designs to put on shirts, posters, and other wearables, and find unique items to put on the website. One of our missions is to create and find unique Lovecraftian items to bring to the fans. The thing we are most excited about for 2015 is the 20th Anniversary of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon in Portland. We already have a few fantastic guests lined up for that!

What's been some of the Mythos news exciting you lately?

There are a ton of great new books coming out. We were particularly pleased that the IndieGoGo campaign for She Walks In Shadows (the all-woman anthology of HPL inspired stories) was funded. Huan Vu and Jan Roth - the filmmakers responsible for the amazing "Die Farbe" successfully raised funds to make their next film, "The Dreamlands," which is already in production and looks amazing! We are beyond excited that this is going to happen, and can't wait to see it!

What do you see as some of the toughest challenges in bringing forth a Lovecraftian vision from the Cthulhu Mythos?

There are so many great things being produced across all genres - film, fiction, games, art, apparel - I think the greatest challenge is keeping things fresh and original. How do you build on Lovecraft's foundation without just copying or mimicking?

What's the strangest dream you've had lately?

Brian dreamt that we were doing a Cultist ritual at DragonCon, but everything was going wrong. We forgot the robes and no one knew the chant! I am pretty sure that this stems from the anxiety of putting on two film programs in the next month! We are doing another "Best of the HPLFF" night on Oct 4, and Zompire: The Undead Film Festival Oct 11-12. I know that they will both be fantastic, but there is a lot of work leading up to it.

This year, the theme is Shadows Over Innsmouth. What was the big takeaway lesson from that story for you?

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" explores themes that were quite pervasive in Lovecraft's fiction. The concept of the "other" tying in with xenophobia, the idea that there are things we can't see or understand just below the surface, that we are not necessarily in control of our own destinies, and that ultimately, our biggest fear might not only be the intrusion of the other into our own being, but that we might also embrace the change from our familiar self towards the other, as does the main character of Innsmouth.

Be sure to visit Arkham Bazaar at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival or go online at: http://arkhambazaar.com/

Catching Up With Rick Kitigawa! Deep Ones, Neckties and Strange Dreams

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is warping into Los Angeles soon! Among those coming to the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, California from September 26-28th will be artist Rick Kitigawa, returning again from San Francisco.

His work delighted and horrified the festival attendees who discovered him lurking in the depths of the Warner Grand Theatre the last time. Unnaturally, we caught up with him to see what's been happening to him since...

It's been a year since we last checked in. What have been some of the highlights for you from the previous year?

Lots of fun stuff happened since last year! Besides starting up a small art education company (www.liftoff-art.com), I've also started teaching business for artists at the Academy of Art University here in San Francisco and have loved it thus far! I also self-published a collection of my short horror fiction and my paintings called "From the Darkness Creeps". It was a pretty crazy yet fun process and you can pick up your copy at the fest or under the "Publications" section of my online store at www.rickkitagawa.com.

You're returning to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles. What were some of the popular items you had from last year? Did the attendees surprise you with what they liked?

I think the big seller for me was my brand-new-at-the-time Cthulhu screen printed necktie (which wasn't a huge surprise). It will definitely make it's return this year, and I'm experimenting with a glow-in-the-dark version, but it's still early to make a call on whether it'll be viable or if it'll just end up causing those seeing it to go utterly mad.

What can we look forward to this year from you?

This year I hope to have that glow tie, but I'll have my new book "From the Darkness Creeps," as well as hopefully a new print or two. I'm also working on a new monster tie design or two, which will most definitely be inspired by the mythos, if not a direct reference to it. I also have this neat new screen print I plan on bringing down of a creepy queen bee.

Who's been inspiring you lately?

I recently got to meet some of the creative minds behind Zerofriends (Alex Pardee, Dave Correia, and Jon Way$hak) down at Comic-Con this year, and while they've always been artistic inspirations, seeing how cool they are as people was also pretty inspiring. Otherwise, I've sort of been fueling my creative inspiration from my co-workers (who are badass printmakers) at the silkscreen shop I run.

What do you see as some of the toughest challenges in bringing forth a Lovecraftian vision from the Cthulhu Mythos?

I think the biggest challenges in keeping the Lovecraftian vibe as a visual artist is holding back on just painting tons of creepy monsters. While they're an integral part of the mythos, I always think that Lovecraft was more about implied cosmic horror and it's always challenging to try and build that atmosphere of fear and terror without going too nuts with the monsters.

When are you most satisfied with a piece?

A successful piece for me means that regardless of it's commercial appeal I'm super stoked for painting it. Usually this comes when I sort of tap into the muse and just improvise something - when I plan stuff out too much I think I end up borrowing too much from other artists and it ends up diluting the process of creating.

What's the strangest dream you've had lately?

I usually don't remember my dreams, but recently I dreamed that I was competing on a Korean variety show that I watch called "Running Man," but I was competing against these ten-foot-tall hulking monsters with jet black skin and no faces. Perhaps the stars are coming into alignment...

This year, the theme is Shadows Over Innsmouth. What was the big takeaway lesson from that story for you?

The big lesson for me from the story is that if you just go mad from encountering Lovecraft's world, you're probably pretty lucky. It's a lot better to be human and go crazy then find that your part of the mythos.

The idea of an inescapable lineage is one that totally fascinates me (my other favorite story is "Rats in the Walls"), even though I totally do not believe that we're tied to our genetic history. Maybe it's because I don't agree with it in real life that the idea that one's bloodline can be so epically horrific and life-changing is so fascinating in fiction.

Visit Rick at: http://www.rickkitagawa.com

2014 HP Lovecraft Film Festival Kickstarter Wants You!

 The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Los Angeles is in the wind-down phase of their kickstarter campaign. They're successfully funded and now working on meeting their stretch goals. They are returning for the fifth year at the exquisite art deco Warner Grand Theatre in historic San Pedro on September 26, 27, and 28, 2014. This year's theme is Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Among the activities they're planning is a rare screening of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and numerous shorts from emerging and established short film makers around the world. Special guests will include the authors John Shirley, Nancy Holder, Gary C. Myers, Leslie S. Klinger, Cody Goodfellow, Ross E. Lockhart, and the poets Michael Tice and Scott Virtes.

The first stretch goal has been met, raising funds to commission an artist to paint a mural commemorating the festival and its ties to San Pedro. Skinner's previous work  can be found in Portland, Oregon, where they have a particular love for the Great Old Ones, clearly.

They have some amazing rewards for those who will be attending in person and those who must attend virtually. Be sure to check them out! The kickstarter campaign concludes at 9:40PM on Monday, August 25th. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/906612014/2014-los-angeles-hp-lovecraft-film-festival-and-ct

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.

[Asian Apocrypha] The Tao Yaomo Jing

In DEMONSTRA there is a rumored text of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu referred to as the Dao Yaomo Jing: 道 妖魔 經. Literally, the Path/Way Demon Classic/Text or more figuratively, the Classic of the Demon Way. It only appears once in DEMONSTRA, mentioned in the poem "Laonomicon." This almost makes it a hapax legomenon. It emerged from questions of how a Chinese philosopher might interact with the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and other 20th century writers.

Of course, this is where I must explicitly assert that no such text 'exists' any more than the Necronomicon or the Golden Goblin Press editions of various occult texts such as Nameless Cults or the Revelations of Hali. The idea that it exists is as preposterous as a surviving copy of Aristotle's supposed lost treatise on comedy, or the lost manuscripts of Bruno Schulz, Were such a text to exist, we can only hope they would be preserved in a remote, well-secured library or archive of some note, awaiting discovery by one destined to make good use of such forbidden knowledge.

But WERE any aspect of the horrendous Dao Yaomo Jing to have survived into Lao Tzu's more well-known Taoist text, the Dao De Jing, or more commonly, the Tao Te Ching, perhaps the most concrete hint is found in Chapter 25. In the common, albeit controversial translation of Gia-fu Feng and Jane English the chapter is typically presented as:

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Being great, it flows.
It flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.

Therefore, "Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great.
"These are the four great powers of the universe,
And the king is one of them.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.

For reference, Chapter 25's original Chinese is typically written as:

有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，獨立不改，

周行而不殆，可以為天下母。吾不知其名，字之曰道，強為之名曰大。

大曰逝，逝曰遠，遠曰反。

故道大，天大，地大，王亦大。域中有四大，

而王居其一焉。人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。

Scholars of the Lovecraftian and the Cthulhu cult doubtless need no further remarks. Religious scholars understand the name Lao Tzu or Laozi is occasionally translated into "Old/Venerable Master," and was worshiped as "Supreme Old Lord," or given the title "Supremely Mysterious and Primordial Emperor" in at least one dynasty. This is not to suggest connections to the rumored Great Old Ones or Elder Things, of course.

Of minor interest to scholars who dabble in such matters, there are numerous Taoist myths that purport Lao Tzu's conception was the result of a "falling star" his mother gazed upon. He was born a fully grown man after 62 years in his mother's womb, imbued with physical characteristics typically associated with wisdom and almost unnaturally long life. This account is, of course, rejected by reasonable and rational souls as patently absurd. It is no more plausible than some giant, bat-winged octopus-dragon falling from the stars to slumber in some sunken city of impossible geometry until celestial bodies are in some arbitrary alignment.

There are additional legends that claim Lao Tzu was eventually reborn 13 times, and in the last incarnation lived 930 years, traveling to reveal the Tao. Naturally, this, too, is impossible within a conventional understanding of historical time and space.

Let it also be firmly noted that it is quite unlikely Lao Tzu conversed with any denizens of Innsmouth, Im Boca, or similar cities and villages, despite his rumored nigh-immortality. Researchers are advised to treat any rumors of an actual copy of the 道 妖魔 經 with great skepticism as it will most likely not be labeled as such by those preserving it for whatever particular purpose they may have. One is more likely to find an intact copy of the 7 Cryptical Books of Hsan. But do with this information what you will.

[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.

[Art] Lisu elephant mask

A Lisu elephant mask. The colors are fading but you can get a sense of how vibrant everything was originally. This particular example was found in Burma, but the Lisu can been found throughout Southeast Asia, along with many other cultures such as the Akha, Lahu, Lue, Khmu, Tai Dam, Ta Oy, etc. in the region some consider Zomia, although it's never been formally called or organized as such.

Lisu history is passed on from one generation to the next through song, and it reputedly can take an entire night to sing the whole history of the Lisu now. Some scholar believe they had roots in Tibet, migrating into Yunnan and then into Southeast Asia. 

There are approximately 58 Lisu clans, with many historically practicing a form of animism and shamanism, but Christianity is currently in the process of attempting to convert the majority of Lisu wherever they are found. They have had less success in Thailand, at the moment. In Thailand, the most prominent group of Lisu are the Flowery Lisu, who often receive tourist visitors who come to gawk at them as part of a guided hill-tribe trek.

The Catullus Conundrum

Catullus was an ancient Roman poet whose life holds significant lessons, ok, warnings, for other poets.

While he enjoys a significant readership after death, he lasted into the modern world of letters not so much as an outcome of intentional effort but undignified happenstance. The legendary account, which may or may not be true, as always seems to be the case with poets, is that his work was discovered as a stopper in a barrel of wine in some medieval basement. Egad.

There are no reports over whether it was a particularly good barrel of wine, at that.

Bear in mind, there are plenty of Roman poets whose beloved words were deliberately kept intact by appreciative audiences, scholarly and otherwise. But I keep the legend of Catullus in my mind that we can never be truly certain our work will survive into the next age. Nor can we be certain how it will be discovered. This can be both dreadful and reassuring, the chaos of the poet's calling.

Some people get a bit manic and testy, saying as a writer, you shouldn't be concerned about the longevity of your work. They argue it hamstrings you, it takes you out of the present and you lose a certain dynamic and value to your voice if you're just trying to become famous and widely-read. Every writer treads a line between quality and the mercenary, trying to keep one's self and family fed without gauche pandering and compromise.

If you're a writer, and one with a very finite lifetime, you should be taking your craft seriously enough to be of use and entertainment to others, even as you appreciate that fate is arbitrary and whimsical. Obviously, looking at my own body of work, that's not a belief that all of your subjects are supposed to be serious, but when you write comedically, you need to be writing the best comedy you can.

For all of your accolades and honors, it is entirely possible within a century, and even more so in the centuries beyond, that if you do survive, it will only be a fraction of your output, and what future generations find compelling may well be that which you least expect.

You may find your work in the H.P. Lovecraft scenario, where no one gave his work much attention while living.  Consider the issue of Weird Tales where his classic, "The Call of Cthulhu" appears first. The editors thought Elliot O'Donnell's "Ghost Table" would be the one that moves copies that month. Lovecraft wasn't among the ones editors expected to have a great readership years or even nearly a century since his death. I guess you could call it "The Last Laugh of Cthulhu."

My best advice on this is to write as well as you can, whenever possible, because you don't want to be that writer where you have a body of amazing, soul-searing work, but the only example that survives into the next century is your "Ode to a Skanky Possum."

There's another tale that in the old days, a Roman general had a servant constantly whispering in his ear, "Memento Mori." Even on the days of his greatest triumphs, he was constantly reminded he was mortal and could be brought down by anything in the world. Catullus, on the other hand, reminds us as poets that in our art, anyone can survive, both the high and the low. So try to leave a good body of work behind.

Or at least make friends with people who keep cellars filled with barrels of wine for centuries. Something.

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. 

Dates announced for the next H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

The 2014 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Los Angeles will occur September 26-28 at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro. Aaron Vanek will be jointly running it with James Knouse and Miguel Rodriguez.

Thanks to them, everyone will only go partially insane and not totally insane next fall! James did the 2013 HPLFF-LA social media (a few posts reached 46K hits) and makes Cthulhu Pickles, and Miguel runs the Horrible Imaginings Horror Film Festival of San Diego. It's a good crew, and I look forward to working with all of them to make the next year even bigger than this last one!

Personally, I think it might have to be a year where we see a big focus on the games of Cthulhu, as well, because a number of Cthulhu-centered games supported by Kickstarter and other methods are anticipated to be coming out for that year. 

From a  poet's perspective, it's also the 100th anniversary since the publication of Lovecraft's poems "Ad Criticos," "On a Modern Lothario," "The End of the Jackson," "To the Members of the Pin-Feathers on the Merits of Their Organisation, and of Their New Publication, The Pinfeather," "To the Rev. James Pyke: On His Unpublished Verse," "To General Villa," "To the Rev. James Pyke," and "New England". Which weren't exactly all time classics of his we really read any more, but they're also among his earliest forays into published writing. But 20 years later, in 1934 he'll be publishing poem like "Dreams of Yith" with Duane Rimel.

2014 will also be 80 years since Lovecraft first published the short story "From Beyond," in 1934 and 90 years since he published his classic short stories "The Rats in the Walls," and "The Hound," which has his very first mention of the dreaded tome The Necronomicon. I'd also take note that in that year he wrote "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" with Harry Houdini. Several of these have been adapted to short films and feature films.

Cinematically, it's 20 years since Full Moon Pictures' adaptation of "The Lurking Fear," although I'm not quite a fan of that version, nor Cornerstone Films' 1989 adaptation, "Dark Heritage: The Final Descendant," which would be celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Barring some non-Euclidian calamity, for the next year's festival, I'll also have copies of DEMONSTRA on hand in 2014, and will be doing interviews again with many of our featured guests who are participating.

So start dusting off your scripts, finishing up your films and pondering what will happen when the stars are right, because 2014 is going to be a fantastic experience!

DEMONSTRA: The Deep Ones, an overview

We're counting down the days until my new book DEMONSTRA starts shipping, clocking in at nearly 170 pages of Lao American speculative poetry from Innsmouth Free Press. So, as promised, one thing I'm doing until January 1st is discussing the different poems and their inspiration, including some of the images and sources that went into composing the poem.

"The Deep Ones" is one of my more frequently republished poems, first appearing in Illumen in 2007, and my book On The Other Side Of The Eye (Sam's Dot Publishing, 2007) in that same year. It was also included in two editions of Future Lovecraft from Innsmouth Free Press (2011) and Prime Books (2012).

I decided to include "The Deep Ones" in DEMONSTRA because it fits in thematically with the other poems, and because  On The Other Side Of The Eye is harder and harder to come by even on the reseller's market. I think it is a particular key to adding an extra dimesnion to some of the other poems in the collection, including "The Dream Highway of Ms. Mannivongsa."

 Interestingly, Asian American poet Beau Sia had a poem, "I'm So Deep," that made the rounds on Russel Simmons' Def Poetry Jam a few years back, but I hadn't run into it in the years leading up to "The Deep Ones," which I would say had been in development for a few years, most likely between 2004-2006, based on the notes I've found.

We can argue "The Deep Ones" has its foremost roots in the first time I read "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and when I began playing the old Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. This would have been around 1987, because I'd started with Chaosium's 3rd edition (1986) and Del Rey's 1987 collection The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.

Formally, H.P. Lovecraft described them in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" by writing: 

"I think their predominant color was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked ... They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design - living and horrible."

I've mentioned before that I have a particular dislike for frogs and toads, so the horror of these entities resonate with me. You can see one cinematic interpretation of the Deep Ones in Brian Yuzna and Stuart Gordon's Dagon. 

In some ways, "The Deep Ones" takes a big cue from my 2001-2002 short story, "The True Tale of Yer," which debuted in the Minnesota Historical Society's Bamboo Among the Oaks. The key device being inverting the antagonist to reconsider things from the perspective of The Other. It also has some influences from the poems I'd been writing like "Before Going Feral," inspired by H.G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau. 

The challenge with this and other poems in this vein is that I want to be true and consistent with the source material, while expanding our sense of it. At the same time I was intrigued to see if we could create a great poem where someone can come into it without any familiarity with the work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Would "The Deep Ones" in such a context simply be read as an abbreviated version of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men"? In the writing process, I often considered Eliot's hoary line "We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men. Leaning together. Headpiece filled with straw," which was alluded to in the climax to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Is there value in connecting the Lao experience to that of Lovecraft's fictional Deep Ones? Should we question this process? Many Americans and others have no conception of Laos yet. Arguably, there's no prevailing idiom or turn of phrase they can readily connect Lao to, the way they might connect communities like the Vietnamese to the term "Boat People" or the Cambodians to "The Killing Fields." It would be quite a stretch, considering the Deep Ones are fearsome oceanic beings, while Laotians come from a landlocked-nation. If someone seriously considered Lao the Deep Ones of Southeast Asia, well, I think there are other problems in place with thought ought to be dealt with. But for an idle thought exercise, I think it's an interesting argument, and hopefully will prod other Lao writers and artists to keep pushing the metaphors that might more aptly apply to our community.

At the heart of it all, I hope our language stretches, our imaginations take us to places we might not have previously thought we'd be, whether it's a Nak at the supermarket, a Lao on the moon, or a Deep One in a Vientiane guest house.

In the aftermath of our wars that left more Lao living outside of Laos than within it, I think, from an artist's perspective, we have more than enough impetus to say all bets are off, but who do we become, mingling with so many other cultures, so many other ways of being.

Horror Tales of Lovecraft Have Wide Appeal: Author Joshi

Acclaimed Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi is interviewed in the India Times this week with some great thoughts on the enduring legacy of H.P. Lovecraft, the significance of the Cthulhu Mythos and why horror matters in our modern world, and how it connects us to our past. Worth checking out. And it's short.

HP Lovecraft Film Festival Photos online

Everyone Question has a gallery up of photos from the LA Lovecraft fest last weekend: http://everyonequestion.com/h-p-lovecraft-film-festival-gallery

Be sure to check them out!

Bringing Lovecraft to Life, Re-animated and otherwise: An interview with Brian Yuzna

For our final interview before the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon wraps its tendrils around Los Angeles, we had a chance to talk with Brian Yuzna, who's been behind many of my favorite films including Re-Animator, Dagon, and From Beyond. 

A director, writer and producer , Brian Yuzna was born in the Philippines, but grew up in Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Panama before moving to the United States in the 1980s. Most of Yuzna's film work is in the horror genre, though he has also ventured into science fiction.

Like his friend and fellow filmmaker Stuart Gordon, Yuzna is a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft and has adapted several Lovecraft stories for the screen. With Julio Fernandez, Yuzna started Fantastic Factory, a label under Barcelona film company Filmax. Yuzna's goal for Fantastic Factory is produce "modestly budgeted genre (horror, sci-fi, fantasy) films for the international market (shot in English language) using genre talent from all around the world and to develop local talent."

You can visit Brian Yuzna at http://www.re-animatorfilms.com

You're a legend in the H.P. Lovecraft community. But how did you get started on all of this? What was one of the hardest things for you to learn?

I got started in the movies out of pure dumb ambition - ambition to make a movie even though I had no training whatsoever. And this was in the early '80s, before there were tons of dvd extras and 'making of's' telling us how to do it. I just wanted to make horror movies so I moved out to LA.

I got started with Lovecraft because the guy I put all my chips on to make my first movie was Stuart Gordon, and he had the idea to make a Lovecraft TV show based on Herbert West. He already had a script and within a year of meeting him the script was developed into a feature film and we began shooting.

Once I got Re-Animator done I thought that Dagon would be the sequel. I thought we would use the same actors and make a series of Lovecraft movies. We did make From Beyond pretty quickly, but then it was twenty years before we finally made Dagon. In the meantime I developed a number of other Lovecraft projects, most of which didn't ever get into production, but one that did was Necromomicon. By that time I had read just about every Lovecraft story and was a serious fan.

What's your favorite H.P. Lovecraft story?

That's kind of impossible to say.

Most people say At the Mountains of Madness - and that's a great one. Shadow Over Innsmouth is quite a complete story. I love Cthulhu because of the epic nature of it. But I must say that The Dunwich Horror appeals to me in a big way. The weakness of it is that the final resolution is just a magic spell - a bit of a letdown. Charles Dexter Ward - that's a great story. I guess I like the ones that have a mystery at the core.


What has been an unexpected surprise you've found when making horror films?

How hard it is to make something scary.

At least for me.

Although I love scary movies, somehow when I am making a horror movie I find myself reveling so much in the 'weird' aspects that I often drop the ball on the scares.


What's your advice to emerging film-makers considering taking on the Cthulhu mythos?

Don't think that using dialog and voice over from the original stories that somehow you will be true to the world of Lovecraft. Adapting a written story to a movie is a difficult thing to do - especially if you want to both be true to the source material as well as create a satisfying film.

I think that one of the best adaptations of a Lovecraft story to a movie is the job the screenwriters of Re-Animator did. Read that story carefully and then watch the movie. It is a good example of a successful adaptation.


What's a project you really hope to take on in the next few years?

Necronauts.


What's your favorite music to listen to as you create your art?

I like to listen to Italian horror soundtracks from the 1970's.


Be sure to join all of us at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival September 27-29th at the Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro!