Belloq was Right

Different people recall different portions of favorite films. I tend to remember snippets of dialogue. This actually evolved into something of a game with the Kidette, then a shorthand way of speaking, relating films to daily life. So, if someone tries to do the same old thing, but differently: "He's just changing the dog's name." Or if someone claims to be a good guy: "There are no good guys, there are no bad guys; there's just a bunch of guys." So, while some might take away from Raiders of the Lost Ark the image of the adroit swordsman being shot or an inattentive Nazi being sliced and diced by a flying wing's propeller, I tend to remember what Belloq, the evil French archaeologist, said about his pocket watch:

 "You know it's worthless. Ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless... like the Ark. Men will kill for it. Men like you and me."

Belloq was right, you know. Let anything acquire a patina of age and it becomes valuable. I often wonder what future archaeologists, whether evolved Cockroaches or visiting scientists from Altair IV, will make of the room where I do all my writing. A book shrine? An ancient library? A temple dedicated to the triune god Asimov-Bradbury-Clarke? And what if my remains are there, my skeleton sitting at a typewriter or laptop? The last Archivist? The Priest of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler? Divine Being? Maybe I'll end up in an alien museum. I do like museums.

However, we need not wait so long to see our things become valuable. Recently, I was book-searching on the internet, curious about some of the Lovecraftian publications from Necronomicon Press. The results were quite startling.

The three booklets pictured contain prose and poetry written by HP Lovecraft that had not been previously collected for publication. Mostly, they consist of amateur writings from HPL's Amateur Press Association days; poetry and essays from what we would now call "fanzines;" poems, essays and vignettes culled from his corpus of letters; and discarded drafts of later stories. When published, they each cost $4.95 in the late 70s, early 80s, so I spent about $15 for all three, plus a modicum of postage. I figured they had probably increased a bit in value over the years, driven by collector demand and the increasing worthlessness of the US dollar. However, I was not prepared to find a listing offering the three booklets for $224.95+$8.95 s&h. I also found six reproductions of Lovecraft's articles from The Californian offered for $350 and a two-volume set of HPL's letters to Robert Bloch for $225. The HPL Christmas Book sold for $1.50, but I found listings of it for $41.25+s&h. The History of the Necronomicon (1992 @  $1.50) is available for $84. Even Lovecraft Studies #7, Necronomicon Press' scholarly periodical which contained my article "The Old Man and the Sea," is available on Amazon for $35, quite a bit more than the original.

I don't plan on getting rid of those booklets anytime soon, but it did set me wondering about some of my own Small Press efforts, both the Sherlock Holmes stories published by Gryphon Publications and my own modest chapbooks that I published under the imprint of Running Dinosaur Press. Was it possible that either had gathered enough of a time-worn patina to become valuable or (dare I suggest?) respectable? Well, as it turned out, they had acquired much more value than I suspected.

The first book I looked at was Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Ancient Gods. The story was first published in the Trek fanzine "Holmesian Federation." I've already written about the genesis of the story, so won't go into it here, except to say that it does have some significance amongst Holmes/Lovecraft pastiches because it was the very first story to combine the two literary universes, beating the excellent Pulptime by a few years. When Gary Lovisi republished the story as a chapbook, the price was $5. I thought it a little steep at the time, but I knew that specialty publications were often priced in advance of trade-published books. In a recent listing, I found it priced at $45+$4.95 s&h. Of course, I have in the past seen it listed at $60 or so, and, once, for $112 on Amazon by a rare books dealer. 

The sort-of sequel to the book, Sherlock Holmes in The Dreaming Detective, also published by Gary Lovisi's Gryphon Books was listed recently for $25+$5 s&h. That is more in line with what I would expect for a specialty book now out of print (for the time being), but I have seen other listings in the past asking upwards of $100 for a "Fine to Very Fine" reading copy.

I have to admit that neither listing (Necronomicon Press nor Gryphon Books) really shocked me all that much. After all, the quality was very high, the books were unique and not available elsewhere, and both presses were (and are) highly regarded by scholars, fans and collectors. The shock came when I looked up some of my own Running Dinosaur Press publications.

I have to admit that Running Dinosaur Press was never more than a hobby for me, a creative outlet for myself and others. Despite being a paying market for stories, poems and illustrations, I never made a penny on any booklet. Press runs were meager. When I was invited to sit on a Small Press panel at the 1991 World Fantasy Convention, I represented more the Micro Press than Small Press. And I purposely kept prices at a minimum, just enough to cover production and postage. I truly thought that the chapbooks would never be of interest to anyone but those whose names appeared within.

A Walk in the Dark had a horror/dark fantasy theme. I asked for poems about what scared people and received several hundred submissions, out of which I chose 49. It included such notables as Janet Fox, Steve Rasnic Tem, Duane Rimel, t. Winter-Damon, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Scott Green, and a contribution from Randall Jarrell (posthumously) via his publisher. The cover was light blue, as were all RDP covers, and the price was just $2.35, which included mailing. So I was more than a little surprised when I found a listing offering it for $26.25+$4 s&h.

In Alternate Lives, I gave authors the difficult task of exploring alternate histories, timelines and universes via poems and fiction of 100-200 words. There are a few anthologies that explore the theme, my favorite being Worlds of Maybe, but, let's face it, it's a daunting task to create a new history or timeline, put some characters in it and tell a story in anything shorter than a novel. And, yet, about thirty people accepted the challenge and did a very good job. The price on this booklet was only $1.25 (again, including postage), but I found a listing that offered a copy for $30+$5 s&h.

The last publication I want to look at is HP Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth, his famous sonnet sequence, permission for which I obtained from Arkham House. I wanted to publish this for a hew reasons. I believe there is a story told in the course of the sonnets, and argued that in an issue of Robert Price's Crypt of Cthulhu, and continued that argument in this booklet.  Though a few Lovecraftian scholars agree, most do not, so over the years it has become a bit of a tempest in a Lovecraftian teacup. The second reason is that I wanted to illustrate the sonnets, in which I was joined by my good friend Nick Petrosino, who is an accomplished artist and designed much of the armor used in the film Army of Darkness. The third reason...well, what HPL fan does not want to become part of the author's mythos? Anyway, again I charged the minimum I could to cover expenses (yes, Nick was paid, I insisted) and postage, only $2.50. I found several listings in my search, but they were all around $50+s&h. I have to admit this surprised the least, as I know first hand how popular anything connected with HPL is.

So, yes, Belloq was indeed correct. Let enough time pass and almost anything, even me, can become respectable and valued. Who knows? Maybe I will end up in that alien museum after all. As a bonus, let me leave you with one of Nick's illustrations, the one he did for "Antarktos," one of the sonnets.

Deep in my dream the great bird whispered queerly

Of the black cone amid the polar waste;

Pushing above the ice-sheet lone and drearly,

By storm-crazed aeons battered and defaced.

Hither no living earth-shapes take their courses,

And only pale auroras and faint suns

Glow on that pitted rock, whose primal sources

Are guessed at dimly by the Elder Ones.

If men should glimpse it, they would merely wonder

What tricky mound of Nature’s build they spied;

But the bird told of vaster parts, that under

The mile-deep ice-shroud crouch and brood and bide.

God help the dreamer whose mad visions shew

Those dead eyes set in crystal gulfs below!

--H.P. Lovecraft 

More than a Thousand Words

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen told us late in the 19th Century, "A thousand words does not leave the same deep impression as one good deed." Today, thanks to the San Antonio Light hawking its pictorial coverage of the Great War in 1918, we have the phrase as "a picture is worth a thousand words." Fiction magazines used to illustrate stories with drawings, paintings and even lithographs, but these days, with fiction magazines all but gone, the relationship between story and art is mostly limited to the book cover, which may or may not actually illustrate some aspect of the story. Usually, it's more along the lines of "inspired by" or "suggested by" rather than actually illustrating; in the case of the great Richard Powers, it was more "I captured the spirit of the book" or "The book is really weird and so is my painting."

We usually think of the story creating the art, but it can also flow the other way, the art inspiring the words. This is what happened when Edwin Markham saw French artist Jean-François Millet's painting L'homme à la houe and wrote the powerful poem "The Man with the Hoe." When I took a creative writing class at Castle Park High School (it was the first of its kind in the district, strictly experimental) we used a book called Pictures for Writing. This approach was particularly helpful for class members who could write well, but had problems finding inspiration. There were a few other books in the series. The problem that some had with the technique, however, was that they could not get beyond whatever they saw in the picture. Others did quite well transferring the old journalist's mantra of "5W's & an H" (Who, What, Where, When, Why & How) to discover the hidden story. My only problem was that every picture inspired me to write a science fiction or fantasy story; these days, however, it would have been a mystery/suspense story. There were times when I almost felt sorry for Mr Ligon (our teacher) when he read my story, looked at the assigned photo and shook his head in dismay and confusion. 

Back in the 80's and 90's, I was very active in the small press movement, a kind of counter-traditional publishing that evolved in the later part of the 19th Century. It often took the form of publishing one's own work, but small or "craft" presses also came into being. Until the 60's, when specialized paperbacks took over from the pulps and traditional publishers discovered a new market, science fiction and fantasy novels were published by the likes of Shasta Press and Gnome Books, after first being serialized in genre magazines. Alas, the small press is no more, for which I blame the Internet and Amazon, my usual Black Hats for things that cannot be blamed on the Usual Suspects...fans of The Lone Gunmen will understand. Most of that involvement on my part was as author and publisher, but I also sometimes snuck in as an artist.

However, I never tried to pass myself off as an "artist;" I usually told myself I was just an illustrator, an interpreter of someone else's talent. I read the stories and tried to give the author's words life, choosing just that particular moment that would emphasize the action or distill the essence of the story into vivid graphics. It was just a hobby and I was flattered that people asked me to help them out with their projects. I hope I succeeded more often that I failed. Here are a few of my efforts from published stories:

A Plant-man from a re-issue
 of one of ERB's Barsoom stories.

A sorcerer brings doom upon a city

Pirates attack in this space opera.

A strange cloaked figure wanders through a Celtic land.

Sometimes, I drew illustrations that I would use as a basis for a story, or sometimes I gave them to friends who mined them for stories and poems. However, most of those drawings and paintings I no longer have. This was back in the day before computers and scanners were part of my life. I sent out originals of the works, which were gifts to friends (other small press writers and publishers), whether of not they used them. I do still have a few, though:

For one reason or another, some of them dealing with trauma, others with the more mundane issues of life and and time and events beyond control (and not a little ennui, admittedly), I put away the pens and pencils and papers for a long time. I suppose if there is one thing that can be said with absolute certainty, it's that nothing remains the same, that everything changes. Everything that goes away comes around again, which is why I try to never throw anything away. So, in 2020, I got the drawing bug again. The difference is that, with the demise of the small press, there went my social life. With just a couple of exceptions, everyone I knew from my small press decades have either moved on to other endeavors or passed away. So, now, if the new drawings are to inspire new stories, it will all be up to me...unless others volunteer. 

She haunts the bayou, lingering in the moist darkness
as she watches isolated points of light, the tiny lanterns
of those whose shacks are far from civilization.
And she waits...

The Canvyrn leads an unhappy life, enslaved and
mistreated by its arrogant and foppish rider;
one day there will surely be a reckoning...

The Davyn and its rider lead caravans across the shifting sands
of the Great Sand Sea. Though the Davyn has a 360 range of
view and wears goggles to keep his vision clear, the desert is
a dangerous place, full of perils, from savage marauders
to ancient evils...

My Friend in the Desert

During the 80s and 90s I was quite active in the Small Press, a period I've written about previously in this blog. For those not in the know, Small Press was collectively all the little books, journals, magazines and newsletters that proliferated in the shadows cast by giants. Where Doubleday might consider a low press run as 100,000 a Small Press book publisher might consider 250 a very high press run; where general circulation magazines might aim for millions of subscribers, Small Press editors were happy to get fifty, not counting relatives.

I entered the Small Press first as a writer, then an editor/publisher. It was quite an exciting time. One of the things that made it so enjoyable was the ability to meet people who had similar interests and goals. Most of these acquaintances were epistolary, but a few did result in actual encounters. One of the most memorable was t. winter-damon, a writer of fantastic tales who lived in the midst of a vast desert. In Tucson, to be exact.

Me & Damon -- circa March, 1989

If you look up t. winter-damon, you'll be told that it's the pen name of Timothy Winter Damon, but he always had me call him Damon, and his wife resolutely called him Tim. After more than thirty years, it's difficult to the exact details of our first encounter or precisely how it came about, but it started with a letter about writing and publishing, then a random remark on my part about an upcoming journey, followed by an invitation by Damon.

In those days I was wont to take occasional journeys into the wastelands, as I always referred to the desert areas to the East. The trips were partly meditative, partly restorative. After dwelling among the swarms of humanity, there is something curative in solitude. The aesthetic hermits and monks of old knew the value of "getting away from it all." Besides, I liked to visit Indian ruins, ghost towns and odd places along the byways of the Southwest, whereas my family considered it a form of torture.

Damon lived in Tucson, in the midst of the Wastelands, and was a regular contributor to many of my Small Press projects. He was possessed of a soaring imagination, a flair for expressing himself, and a boundless zeal for self-promotion. When I attended the World Fantasy Convention as a panelist in the early 90s, I found myself sitting at a table with Damon and his wife during one of the get-togethers. Abruptly, we found ourselves sans Damon. Occasionally I glimpsed him as he zoomed around the room, seating himself at one table after another -- he made a busy, busy bee look very lazy. When I mentioned this to Diane she laughed and said: "Tim is a master of self-promotion. He'll come back with at least a dozen contracts or agreements. He sells himself better than a two-dollar-hooker at a Shriners convention."

Most writers who have to interact with editors have to step out of some kind of a comfort zone to do so. Speaking for myself, my comfort zone is about the size of an old-style phone booth...maybe a little smaller. Damon's comfort zone was, apparently, as far as the eye could see, and then some.

Damon's interests were likewise wide ranging, but a large percentage of his writing was in horror fiction, especially in the genre then known as splatterpunk. It was a very visceral form of writing, very blood and gore, and was very big in the 80s, not so much later on, and rarely referred to now. My interest in horror writing was less...squishy, more philosophical and idea-driven, though, of course, I was not above ripping out the occasional heart, as long as it was in as good cause.

Despite our different approaches, we collaborated on several stories. Our usual mode of writing was the "round robin" method. That's where one writer pens a section, then passes it to another for the next. We wrote each other into corners, then dared the other to break out. Since his strengths were atmosphere and insanity, and mine were action and dialogue, we ended up with some very strange and wonderful stories that sometimes he was able to sell to an editor, sometimes not. As Damon said to me: "When the Splatterpunk Elvis Dark Fairy story doesn't sell to the Splatterpunk Elvis Dark Fairy anthology, what are you going to do with it?"

I treasure my memories of Damon's friendship. Even when I stopped traveling about so much after my auto accident, we still traded letters and stories. When I think of him, I think of the stories we wrote -- castles made from human bones, zeppelin battles over the Mountains of Madness, civilization-destroying powers locked in the ancient vaults of a dead planet, sail-billowing ships on sapphire seas beneath strange constellations, or lost souls trying to survive in terror-ridden cities.

I also recall the biography he wrote about me for Shoggoth, a Lovecraft-themed Small Press magazine published in Australia. I didn't understand at the time why he was asking so many questions about me, my life and my writing, but it all became clear when the magazine appeared in my mailbox and I read, with mounting dread, "Ralph E Vaughan: Visionary of the Dreamlands." It also contained Damon's review of my then-newest story, The Dreaming Detective, a tale of Sherlock Holmes in HPL's Dreamlands. It was as embarrassing as it was flattering.

Sadly, Damon is no longer with us. Our correspondence tapered off after the start of the millennium, There was no argument, no disagreement, no falling out of any kind, as so often happens in fannish friendships. It was just an evolution. If I had to pick some reason, I might look to the rise of e-publishing and the decline of the Small Press, which had always been a paper-based phenomena. Lacking a focus, we drifted It's like those high school friendships. You're BFFs, then infrequent lunch companions, and finally Christmas card exchangers; then, one day, you realize you forgot to send a card, and didn't get one either.

It was toward the beginning of 2009 that I learned of Damon's death a few months earlier. He passed on 28 November 2008, about six months shy of his sixtieth birthday. He left behind an enduring body of fiction that will probably never be completely catalogued -- a drawback of the Small Press, where issues often never made it outside its small circle of subscribers. I will always remember him, will ever miss his wit, intellect and humor. My friend -- the Wizard of the Wastelands, the Master Scribe of the Eastern Desert.

Back in the Day...

It's a phrase that's become something of an eye-roller..."back in the day." As soon as some character in a film, television episode or book says it, the viewer or reader knows what's coming, a double-barreled blast of nostalgia and condemnation. The speaker waxes a little teary-eyed at some activity or object in the ancient past (or so today's young swine think of it), lamenting its loss, then damning the present age and castigating those who played a role (or simply stood by) in the loss of whatever is being lamented.  The phrase seems to have replaced "Back in my day..." and for obvious reasons. By substituting the impersonal "the" for "my" we no longer make a personal claim to the time being remembered, no longer explicitly admit to be old(er), and it's something even a thirty-something girl can say when viewing the results of unfettered progress. I have to admit, I rarely say it when I look at the state of the world, for the future always brings change and all change is bad, but it occasionally slips out when I consider small press publishing.

Back in the day...

I had always written on the fringe of the small press, even when I first tried to interest editors in my short stories, though, back then they were listed in Writer's Market and The Writer's Handbook as "little" or "literary" magazines. I tried the big magazines as well, but I thought I might stand a better chance with the smaller markets. Mostly, no matter the circulation of the magazine, I garnered rejection slips, but the sting was often lessened by a personal note or a suggestion for improvement by an editor. Most things improve over time, and I put my writing in that category, for I was not so willful or arrogant to think my writing then was as good as it was every going to get. Unlike some starting writers, I was under no illusion that I was God's gift to literature. I took everything to heart, sometimes too much so, for an editor is only human (something I did not fully realize until I became one), but I did manage to improve, one story at a time.

I wrote a few novels in the Seventies and Eighties, but, fortunately, none of them ever saw print. Besides, I was much more at home with the short story format, enjoyed reading short stories, and could write one in a reasonable amount of time. When I came upon the Small Press as a thriving cottage industry in the Eighties I mostly put away the big writers market books and picked up smaller monthly publications like Scavenger's Newsletter, Gila Queen's Guide to Markets and Factsheet Five. The first two publications were very much oriented to the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, though sometimes an odd mystery magazine would sneak through the door. It was with Factsheet Five, however, I learned that genre publications were only the tip of the iceberg in the "zine" universe, that there were zines for every kind of writing, interest and outlook. Up to that time, I had written a short story every week or two, and though I continued to do that for another twenty years, I now had more zines than ever to submit to, more than I could ever hope to write for. I was a frequent patron of the post office, which was right across the street from us; I gave a large portion of my earnings back to the USPS, which should have endeared me to them, but I think that after a while they came to dread my visits almost as much as the mailman dreaded delivering my mail...it was quite heavy

As you might have surmised by now, it was all print and snail mail. No computers back then, no email or digital magazines, no electronic submissions. I went through reams of paper, cartons of envelopes and rolls of stamps. It may sound now like an expensive nightmare, but at the time it was an expensive dream, and a quite rewarding one, though of course not rewarding in any way that would put food on the table. There was a thrill in getting a magazine with my story in it, when the editor remembered to send it. Sometimes it was a very narrow window of publication, as with magazines that small and short funded, the first issue could easily be the last, and often was. In the Small Press, a magazine that published more once was the literary equivalent of an Old China Hand.

Everything has changed since then. Monthly market newsletters have gone the way of the magazines and journals they used to publicize. Trees are mostly safe from the actions of editors and prolific writers since magazines and anthologies are aimed at the burgeoning Kindle/Nook market, though sometimes a POD print edition is produced for contributors, No editor wants anything to come through the mail anymore. Small e-zine editors want everything via e-mail now and even the big fiction magazines (now almost as rare as dodos) have their own systems for electronic submissions. No waiting for the mailman...excuse me, letter carrier any more, just a little notice via Yahoo or Gmail...Dear Author, Thanks but no thanks...

Writers don't even need editors anymore, or even publications in which to hone their talents. Now they can go to places like Kindle Direct Publishing, SmashWords or Google Play, publish their unedited and unpolished prose, and really believe they are indeed God's gift to literature, no matter what others may say. I've been told that things are a lot better now because publishing has been fully democratized and millions of trees are no longer being sacrificed on the altar of the writer's craft. All that may be true, that much has been gained, but I think much more has been lost.

After all, back in the day...

Stories Told Around the Campfire

Beneath Strange Stars, a collection of tales from
40+ years of writing, presenting stories in
various genres, in both print & e-book editions
Click the highlighted text for links

Recently I gathered together more than two dozen (out of 300) short stories into a collection titled Beneath Strange Stars: A Collection of Tales. A couple of the stories had their start in the late Sixties and early Seventies, a few of much more recent vintage, but most hailed from the Eighties, Nineties and Naughts, when I went through a creative period where I was finishing a short story, many in various series, every few days. Here is my introduction to that collection:

Concerning Stories Told Around the Campfire

It’s all about the stories.

And the characters who live in them.

And the readers who live through them.

Regardless of cultural conventions and popular sayings, the job of Storyteller has to be at least the third oldest profession. First came the Hunter who tracked and slew Dinner, then the Cook who made Dinner palatable and something to look forward to; then, as the tribe sat around the campfire digesting Dinner, the Storyteller rose and told of spirit animals, great heroes, and beings who danced upon the mountaintops with footfalls of thunder.

On the other hand, it may have been the Hunters would not go out until the story of the Great Hunt had been painted upon the cave walls, which would make Storyteller the oldest profession, the Hunter second. And the third oldest profession? That would be the unsuccessful hunter who returned to the cave and chucked a spear into the Storyteller’s chest – the first Critic.

Telling stories is somewhat less dangerous these days as we sit around the campfire that is our sun, though, of course, one must still be wary of Critics, dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous reviews. Most writers seek fame and/or fortune but find neither, and almost all fall by the wayside, disappointed or burnt-out. Only two kinds of writers continue to write year after year – those who prosper and achieve a kind of fame, even if only as a frog in a small pond, and those who persevere simply because they cannot stop writing.

I am not the first kind of writer.

And I’ve not been the first kind of writer for a long time,

Some kids played baseball or basketball; I told stories, much to the chagrin of parents and consternation of teachers. Even before I learned to read, which I did at an early age (Uncle Bob was well-intentioned but his reading aloud of comic books left much to be desired), I told stories, which meant convincing other kids that a monster lived under the woodpile, or that a dinosaur had wandered down Seventeenth Street in National City at midnight, or that the Victorian house we all passed twice daily to and from Highland Elementary was haunted.

The first story I remember writing, where I made a conscious effort to employ such literary devices as plot, characterization and dialogue was “The Mouse in the Haunted House,” written in first  grade, a standard haunted house tale with all the usual weird goings on, but told from the viewpoint of the mouse who dwelt therein.

I thought it was a pretty good story. Mrs Hamilton, my teacher, was not so sure, and thus began trips to the school psychologist (all the rage in the Fifties for the misunderstood youth of America). Well, I did call her “Horrible Hamilton,” so, looking back, maybe I would have ended up in that office anyway.

Valiant Defenders Fighting Horrible Hamilton
AKA me in First Grade

       My next foray into fiction, a much more serious attempt, was a couple of years later, as part of a class assignment. Mrs Decker (we had no pejorative terms for her because she was a wonderful teacher) showed a series of photographs and asked us to choose one and write a short story.

The photo that impressed me was of a pure white bird with bright red eyes. As soon as I saw it, the plot for a story flashed into my mind, and the result was “The White Raven.” Yes, ravens are black, I know it now just as I did then, but the story was about a white raven, and the plot not only revealed why he was white and had red eyes, but also explained that shadowy building seen in the background – yes, another haunted house.

Mrs Hamilton would have sent me to the school shrink, or sent a note home to my mother, or both, but Mrs Decker was a much more perspicacious person. She entered the short story into a district writing contest and it won first prize.

Using photos and art as sources of inspiration is a technique I’ve turned to many times in the six decades since I saw “The White Raven,” either photographs and paintings by others, or drawings of my own. I often sketch characters and scenes and keep them near me while I write. In high school, this visual technique was adopted by Mr Phil Ligon, my journalism, photography and creative writing teacher, and we used Pictures for Writing by David A. Sohn as an unofficial textbook.

  

During high school, also, I wrote a story called “On the Moor,” about a publisher motoring through the misty wilds of Scotland who comes to a bad end. The story is not important (and it’s probably a good thing that it is mostly lost) except in that it started a chain of events that affects me even now. I had typed it on my Remington Quietwriter and was reading it in homeroom class one day. Mr Robert Vigil noticed I was not frantically trying to finish homework assignments from the day before (yes, I was one of those students) and he asked to read what I had written.

I was hesitant. I am at heart very shy, a trait most writers seek to overcome. A few years ago, I attended a social gathering at the San Diego Public Library for local authors. It was very crowded and you could not go anywhere without bumping into either an author or his ego. A few were my age or older, but most were younger, adept at networking and socializing, both on- and off-line. The way they aggressively worked the room, trying to hustle copies of their own books and forge relationships, you would have thought the room was filled with editors and publishers rather than desperate writers.

My experience is that most writers are extroverts, and those who are not Big Names are often driven by a kind of desperation that will make them buttonhole and glad-hand any possibly useful stranger not fast enough to get away. When I attended the World Fantasy Convention in Tucson (1991), I had the great pleasure of seeing the room worked by a master of the art, my friend, the late t. Winter-Damon, with whom I worked on a few projects. No editor, publisher or writer could escape him. When I remarked on his outgoing nature to his wife, Diane, she laughed and said: “Yeah, Tim can work a room like a two-dollar hooker at a Shriner’s convention. You can bet he’s going to end up with at least a half-dozen contracts.” It’s an enviable skill.

But I digress. At the time Mr Vigil asked to see the story, my private writing was still a private matter. But he was a pleasant person and asked nicely, and I did not feel he would ridicule me, which is every young teen’s second greatest fear. So I let him read it. When he saw me the next day, he handed the story back, said he had liked it very much, and asked me, “Have you ever heard of a writer named H.P. Lovecraft?”

I had not, but I soon would, and that long-dead fantasy writer would eventually loom large in my life and writing. Through high school and college, and on into adulthood, I read and re-read Lovecraft’s stories, eventually branching out to the other writers of his era, as well as modern writers also under his spell.

About that time Mr Vigil asked to see “On the Moor,” I was encouraged to apply to the local paper, the Chula Vista Star-News, as a book reviewer. Publisher Lowell Blankfort was looking for a hip student’s point of view at a time when the counter-culture was in full swing, but what he got instead was me. I sent him some sample reviews, he liked what he read, and I was hired. Well, “hired” is a relative term since there was no pay, but I did get to keep the books.

Publication in the Star-News brought a kind of notoriety, and people who had overlooked me started to notice I was alive. But I kept writing the reviews anyway. Back in those days, newspapers were still very big, especially community newspapers like the Star-News. Everyone in Chula Vista subscribed, if only to keep up to date with high school sports.  The Star-News (founded 1882) is still around, but, sadly, time has not been kinder to it than any other local paper, though it manages to maintain a kind of faded glory. Because of my book reviews, I was asked to work on the Trojan Trumpet, the school newspaper, which led to formal journalism training, photography and creative writing.

All those activities taught me about writing, but even more about publishing.  I started submitting stories to science fiction and mystery magazines I had been reading for years, but not with much success, though I was able to place articles and poems with smaller journals. There were more than four dozen major digest magazines publishing science fiction, fantasy, mystery, horror and detective stories, and many dozens more little and literary magazines. Of course, that was then, for now there are three science fiction magazines and two mystery magazines, and even they are not what they once were.

Even in the waning years of fiction (I didn’t know it then, but I do now) I published regularly, even though mostly in magazines familiar to just a handful of people. While publications like The Writer, Writers’ Digest and Writers’ Marketplace played a big role in submissions, smaller publications like File 550, the Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets, and, most especially, Scavenger’s Newsletter played an even bigger role.

  

Scavenger’s Newsletter was founded, published and edited by Janet Fox (1940 – 2009) a wonderful writer of fantasy and horror who also excelled as a teacher and poet. Though we never actually met, I almost feel as if I had known her.

If it had not been for Janet dutifully publishing market lists month after month, many of the stories in this book might never have been published. As with other aspects of the writer’s life, the marketzine has been overtaken by the digital age, and though such lists come at us now with the speed of electrons rather than the pace of a trudging mailman, it’s just not the same.

Because of the influence of Lovecraft, I wrote lots of Cthulhu Mythos stories, some slavishly chained to Lovecraft’s archaic and formal style, others in my own developing voice. The Mythos story that finally made a splash was actually a hybrid tale, “The Adventure of the Ancient Gods,” which appeared in a fanzine called Holmesian Federation. Other tales mixed Sherlock Holmes with Star Trek, but mine brought Holmes into contact with Lovecraft’s alien gods. Since the background of that story has been explained in other venues (Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories and Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures), I won’t go into it or its sequels here. One outcome of the story and its sequels was that I was profiled in “Ralph E. Vaughan: Visionary of the Dreamlands,” written for Shoggoth by t. Winter-Damon.

  

Where HP Lovecraft of Providence
first met Mr Sherlock Holmes of 221b Baker Street, London

My friend t. winter-damon actually made me seem
interesting in his interview of me and review of  "The
Dreaming Detective."

It is often harder to sell a second story to an editor than the first, but usually easier to sell the third, even though in the small press world “sell” does not always equal money, and finding a little magazine that actually makes it to the third issue can be difficult. The profile in Shoggoth was a huge ego-boost, but it also caused some editors to look at my stories a little differently when they sailed over the transom. It was never easy submitting a story, but in some cases it became not as difficult.

Just as my drawings revolve around themes and archetypical characters, so do my short stories. In themes, we have alienation, alternate history, ancient cultures, religion, fear, corruption and the feeling of being lost. For my characters, I created Mitsuko, a young woman running from a warlord in an alternate Japan; Kira, a bronze-clad warrior living at the end of the Bronze Age; Tawa of the Sky Clan, a paleo-Indian maiden taken from her home by raiders; and a bevy of loners dwelling on a dead Earth at the end of time.

Before you head off into the stories, let me tell you a tale about Kira, who was my favorite. I started writing about her back in the early 80’s, a tall, muscular woman clad in black leather and bronze armor, a follower of the Triple Goddess, a holder-on to old ways even as the world changed around her, bronze giving way to the new metal iron. Her world was based solidly in the Bronze Age, but was also touched by magick and the gods. With her, I traveled to the edge of the known world and beyond, to America, Australia, Africa, the Orient, the vast necropolis of Nordhelm, and even to the far future. She was a popular character, and I drew many drawings of her in leather skirt and armor based on Mycenaean designs, with her  boots and her weapons historically accurate. I thought we would be together for a very long time, for I had written a score of stories and had ideas for many more, including several novels.

Then Kira went away.

I had suspected the end was coming, for I had seen signs, but it was still shocking when it finally happened. Editors began rejecting the stories. Finally, I received a note from an editor with whom I had never worked, and I knew the end was at hand: 

   

Dear Mr Von: Not a bad story but you can

do better than copy Xena: Warrior Princess,

can’t you?

I was annoyed at the way Xena knocked my Kira series for a loop,
but I got over it...and, no, I did not sue. Seriously?

 

     I did not submit any further Kira stories after that. Kira could prevail against any foe, human or supernatural, but not against the power of  television.

******************

The only thing to add to what's written above is that shortly after I posted a link to the e-book edition on my high school class' Facebook page, one of my former classmates provided me with Mr Vigil's phone number. Shortly afterwards, the Wife and I had a nice, long visit with him. His house is filled with books, as is fitting for a man who has loved literature and reading all his life (it's my excuse too), but I am glad his house had room for one more book, the autographed copy I gave him. I think he was please to see it and very surprised that he had had such a great affect upon my writing life, especially since he only had me for homeroom. I think all teachers hope to have a positive effect on their students' lives, but, quite often, they never know exactly what the effect was or how significant it turned out to be, for time severs us from those we knew in our youth, and seeds planted sometimes require years to bloom. I'm extremely grateful I had the chance to let Mr Vigil know his efforts had not been in vain; I regret, however, that I was not able to tell Mr Ligon the same thing, for he passed away some years ago.

The Afterlife of HP Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft
(20 August 1890 - 15 March 1937)

During his lifetime, fantasy and science fiction writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft often averred that he believed in nothing, in no form of afterlife, neither the Heaven (or Hell) of his Puritan forebears nor the reincarnations of the Eastern religions. At death, he held, there was merely oblivion, a nothingness, a state he thought much more bearable than life, as there were no wants or desires, no pain or anguish. Before our births, he said, there was nothingness, so why make a big fuss about returning to it at the end? But when Lovecraft died of cancer in 1937, was that really the end for him? Perhaps personally, if his beliefs were correct, but not for his name, his stories, or his ideas. It may not be reincarnation in the tradition of our Hindu brethren, but HP Lovecraft continues to touch minds and change lives 115 years after his birth.

More than forty years ago (though sometimes it seems like a thousand), I sat in a high school homeroom class before the start of the actual learning day. It was a time used by my fellow students to do the homework they were supposed to have done the night before or to gossip about who was doing what with whom or to sit sullen-eyed and brood about the unfair vicissitudes of their lives. My homework, however, was completed, as usual, I didn't have any gossipy friends (hardly any friends at all, really), and though I was prone to brooding it was not usually a public activity for me...people just thought me one of the "quiet ones." On this particular day, I was doing what I did every day -- committing to paper stories about people who had never lived in lands that had never existed. As I neared the end of a story about a man foolish enough to venture upon the mist-laden moor alone I felt a dark presence looming over me. My heart froze and my gaze darted frantically to my left. Yes, Mr Vigil, my homeroom teacher, was standing next to me. He asked me what I was doing, I admitted my deed in a barely audible voice, and he asked if he could read it. I have often wondered what my life, or at least my writing life, would have been like if I had bucked authority (as was the fashion in the 60s) and said, "No way, man!" But I didn't, and he did read it, and I sat all sullen-eyed and brooded about the unfair vicissitudes of my life, and interfering teachers; toward the end of class, he handed back "The Moor" and said, surprisingly: "It was really good, and I'd like to read it when it's finished." And then he asked the question: "Have you ever read HP Lovecraft?" As it happened, I had not, but all that was about to change and my writing life take a big left turn.

Back in those days, bookstores were everywhere. Even a tiny burg like Chula Vista (pop approx 20K) had two, and that was not counting the two newsstands and the three department stores that had book departments. Downtown San Diego had more than thirty bookstores. But, as it happened, the day after Mr Vigil asked the question, my parents had to go to the Lemon Grove Shopping Center for some reason or another, and I found myself walking the aisles of the late and once great Pickwick Bookstore; one clerk eyed me suspiciously when I asked for Lovecraft (probably thought it was one of Dr David Reuben's books) but a more knowledgeable clerk knew exactly what I needed, and I left with several of the outre-covered editions published by Beagle...money actually being worth something back then, I was able to buy all the titles they had with my yard-work allowance, and get change back. I read them, and was amazed at Lovecraft's cosmic themes and soaring flights of imagination, at his sheer genius in stringing the right words together to invoke myriad moods. And I marveled at his ability to challenge even my vocabulary.

It was not long before I started seeking out other editions of Lovecraft's work. I suppose I could make a rational argument for acquiring the hardcovers published by Arkham House (collector's value, durable editions, and all that) but I think I would be at a loss to explain why I have multiple paperback editions of the same story collections. Thank goodness publishers later edited the stories by theme for I could then quite truthfully (yet truly mendaciously) claim I did not have the book in my library. I cannot even claim I was replacing worn and discarded books, for I still have the paperbacks I bought at Pickwick's and "discard" seems to be the one word never to have made it to my working vocabulary.

 Of course, if you get collecting Lovecraft, you don't just stop with his writings. You also collect things written about him and even stories that other people wrote based upon his writings. Eventually, if you become a full-fledged citizen of Lovecraft-land, you also start writing about him and write stories based on his ideas, and there was no time better for that activity than the pre-millennium decades, when print fanzines, chapbooks and booklets were rife, and the small press was a cottage industry engaged in by thousands of people, dozens of whom became my correspondents and sometimes my collaborators in fiction.

Lovecraft Studies 7
"The Old Man & the Sea"
by Ralph E Vaughan

Crypt of Cthulhu 1992
Cover by Nick Petrosino
"Lovecraft & Antarctica"
by Ralph E Vaughan

"The Adventure of the Ancient Gods" by Ralph E Vaughan
First story ever published with Sherlock Holmes & HP Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft in the Comics
by Ralph E Vaughan
A complete survey of comic book adaptations,
one of the rarest of Lovecraft-related books.

In addition to The Adventure of the
Ancient Gods, this collection from 2015
featured other Lovecraftian themed
Sherlock Holmes stories.

"The Quest for the Dreaming Detective" by Ralph E Vaughan
First story of Sherlock Holmes in HPL's Dreamlands

Even in the stories and books I've written that do not overtly evoke the shade of Lovecraft and his ideas, he always seems to be in the back of my mind, pointing out shadows even when more than one sun illumines the land, reminding me that even the most bucolic landscape is but a thin veneer over ancient secrets, that the reality we see is but a pale manifestation of the of the reality hidden from our severely limited senses.

I've thought of writing this little homage to HP Lovecraft for quite awhile, and I've hinted of my debt to him in other posts, but the time never seemed quite right. But it is today, the 115th anniversary of his birth. He lived less than 47 years, and if his beliefs were correct he entered oblivion on 15 March 1937, but, at the same time, the most important aspects of his life survived the demise of his mortal shell, perpetuated by the work of every writer, artist, filmmaker and reader whose life he touched, and, to a writer, that may be the best kind of afterlife for which to hope.

Subscribe to our mailing list and join the Best Readers in the World

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name