To quote Pink Floyd: Is there anybody out there? Three days from now will mark six full months since my last Teeming Brain post. Experienced readers of this blog might well surmise that my conflicted relationship with the Internet has been gaining more and more distance over time. These readers would be correct.
A number of updates seem in order.
I didn’t win the World Fantasy Award for Born to Fear last fall, but I did get to be present at the award ceremony in Saratoga Springs, New York, when David Hartwell dropped the bomb that, beginning next year, the “Howie” Lovecraft statuette by Gahan Wilson that has served as the World Fantasy Award trophy since the inception of these awards in 1975 will be retired for something else. Given that this is obviously a move in response to ongoing conflict and controversy in the speculative fiction world over Lovecraft’s racism as measured against his Titan status in the field, the announcement was the equivalent of dropping a hydrogen bomb on this particular subculture. The shockwaves continue to ripple across the landscape these three months later. So that alone was worth the money and effort to make the trek out east.
On the publication front, work on my previously announced encyclopedia of horror literature is now furiously underway. Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories That Speak to Our Deepest Fears will be published next year by ABC-CLIO. It will have more than 400 entries, and its structure and approach will make it a unique reference work among others of its kind. More than 60 authors and scholars have signed on to contribute to the project. You would probably recognize many of their names. I’ll have more to say about this in the future.
Additionally, my long-delayed fiction collection To Rouse Leviathan is now officially back on track with Hippocampus Press. I’ll have more to say about this, too.
I now return to the real world, although you can rest assured that I’ll resurface again here before another six months have passed.
Attacks on Lovecraft over his racism in the way of giving an award should not be tolerated. Confederation Poets of Canada were also attacked over a range of issues to do with colonial legacy and for that people no longer read those authors. It’s of paramount importance for the sake of people reading Lovecraft now and in the future that Lovecraft’s merits be recognized and championed.
I agree with Daniel. This revision of the World Fantasy Award is bound to spread PCness elsewhere. What’s next? Replace Poe’s likeness on the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, because of his addictions and sexuality? Delete Hemingway’s name from the PEN award because he killed himself? Scrape Shirley Jackson’s name from the SJA due to her heavy use of tobacco and prescription drugs?
In other news—-this website, and your work, are exceptional. Thanks for all you put into it.
I should emphasize that following Confederation poets getting blasted by some critics over racism or whatever, it also decimated readership of Canadian writing and history of that period completely. Kids mostly read american authors now. so it was quite a dramatic shift.
Huan Vu is a Vietnamese director who made an amazing Lovecraft film. It’s possible for people to be influenced by Lovecraft and make something that fans of Lovecraft can enjoy, despite Lovecraft’s racism
though I agree that racism underpins a lot of his philosophy , it’s a philosophy of horror and disgust about – everything . Lovecraft wasn’t just a racist but anti-life . If you take his writing as kind of satirical, he was the ultimate anti-racist. His hatred is also a love of those things and preoccupation or obsession about those things .
Matt,
Good to see you up & about. Hope Charles Brockden Brown isn’t omitted from the Encyclopedia!
I find Lovecraft far more an orientalist than a racist . His works have a cosmopolitanism
Matt!!!! it’s so good to see you online again. I’ll look forward to your new work.
Take care and enjoy the real world while it lasts. 😀
your friend,
pamela
Happy to hear you have risen from your dark lair, if only momentarily. We who are still stuck in the web miss your missives, but are very happy to hear about your works-in-progress.