Where can you go, if you’re an author, to celebrate the weirdness that inspired your own work?
Try a literary festival based on a horror writer with issues: the notorious NecronomiCon conference/convention in Providence, Rhode Island. My hubby and I went this summer, and it more than lived up to its rep.
Yes, we travelled into the U.S. With the tariff wars escalating again, I guess it’s become ‘elbows up’ time once more, but we enjoyed the brief opportunity to visit our neighbour country after a hiatus. No issues crossing the border, and everyone we met was absolutely lovely (except for one miserable front desk clerk at the Howard Johnson in Mystic, CT, who should probably consider a different career). Many asked us about visiting our home turf of Ontario, and no one mentioned anything political.
NecronomiCon is named after the legendary fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) invented by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft for his horror stories. Lovecraft first mentioned the dark, mysterious tome in his 1924 short story “The Hound”.
In order to give you an idea of the zaniness of this conference, let me give you a little background.
Lovecraft wrote a short ‘history’ of the Necronomicon, using a literary device called pseudobiblia: an imaginary document made out to be real, using fictional citations. Pseudobiblia was often used by the different writers for Weird Tales, the horror pulp magazine that Lovecraft submitted his own stories to.
According to Lovecraft, the Necronomicon was written by a ‘mad Arab’, Abdul Alhazred. Abdul was a worshipper of the cosmic entities Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth (two of the Old Ones, the strange pantheon of cosmic monster-deities Lovecraft created for his stories after a lifetime of being tormented by terrifying dreams). Abdul spent years travelling through the Middle East, but settled in Damascus, where he set down his forbidden knowledge before one day uttering a single word wrong in a spell and being “seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses”.
Well, you know what they say about playing with fire. According to Lovecraft’s “History”, the Necronomicon contained forbidden history and dark rituals to summon the ancient cosmic entities that lurk in the dark spaces of the world. Even studying the text of the Necronomicon was dangerous, as those who tried to master its arcane knowledge generally met terrible ends. Only a few rare copies survive, closely guarded in institutional libraries like Miskatonic University in the town of Arkham.
Lovecraft felt that a well-written weird story should be believable, as convincing as a good hoax. His spurious history convinced quite a few people, who’ve created their own versions in real life and published them (most notably the “Simon” edition published in 1977, which you can buy on Amazon).
He experienced some guilt, though, when he heard of fans searching libraries for real-life copies, egged on by pranksters who’d occasionally list the Necronomicon for in library card catalogues. Apparently even the Vatican gets requests for it from those who believe their Library holds a copy.
For a writer of speculative fiction, the ultimate compliment may be when readers believe that some of what you’ve written might really be true.
To give you an idea of the strangeness of Lovecraft’s mind, here’s part of a description of the Old Ones:
“By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; … They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness.…”
H.P. Lovecraft spent most of his life in Providence, although the house he lived in has no marker about his presence. His writings inspired many contemporary writers to expand on the world he created, and many subsequent writers and filmmakers. In 2011, the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council was founded to officially recognize the city’s weird ‘son’, and have been running NecronomiCon every other year (more or less) since 2013.
As soon as I found out about this event several years ago, I wanted to attend. After I published my trilogy, I hoped to be one of the vendors, but in the current trade climate, trying to sell in the U.S. was far too problematic. So hubby and I went just to enjoy ourselves.
I was amused to watch my husband absorb the wonderful weirdness.
The daily sessions contained some very scholarly and erudite discussions about not only Lovecraft but other authors of ‘weird fiction’, a blend of science fiction, fantasy and horror that I write myself, as well as the permutations and influences of such fiction in modern times. If you’re interested, you can study up yourself on the Lovecraft Archive.
However, the general atmosphere of the conference fully taps into the author’s imaginings. And that’s the best thing about it – anything goes. The fans showed up at all adult ages and in all forms, and they were having a fantastic time!
The vendor hall was a hoot – of course I came home with a small statue of the terrible Cthulhu, and even my hubby bought two t-shirts.
But the best part of all was the Eldritch Ball.
The name is self-explanatory. We brought easily-packed costumes with us, attending as dark cultists.
The Ball was semi-formal, so either in fancy dress or cocktail style, but to a person, everyone opted for some form of costume. A few people leaned into the overall Egyptian theme, with special mascot Nyarlathotep, aka The Crawling Chaos, an ancient and malign deity who wanders the Earth to gather followers, sometimes manifesting in the form of an Egyptian pharaoh, sometimes with a weird slightly amorphous tentacle-shaped head.
The Ball was held in the Biltmore Ballroom in the Graduate Hotel across the street from the main conference location at the Omni Hotel. The Graduate opened in 1922 as the Providence Biltmore Hotel, and has retained much of its original spectacular 1920s architecture. The Ballroom was the perfect venue, looking like just the place for a bunch of cultists in Lovecraft’s era. And the night was a rollicking adventure – a couple became officially ‘bound’ to each other in front of the assemblage, and several excellent performers, from a belly-dancer to an Bast-themed (Egyptian cat goddess) burlesque artist took the stage. In between, a great DJ spun slightly creepy tunes that kept the dance floor full.
We had one fellow stop by our table, worrying about his lack of dancing skills, to which I commented, “In this crowd, I don’t think you need to worry about that”, and indeed, there was such an atmosphere of freedom to let your ‘weirdo’ hair down and have fun. A conga line broke out at one point, and when the DJ played “Tainted Love”, the entire ballroom sang along. Truly, it was like attending the best Halloween party ever, and we had an absolute blast!
The next morning we got up early for the “Infamous Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast” in the same ballroom, hosted by Most Exalted Hierophant Cody Goodfellow, with a lobster on the front of his mitre. The Amorphous Choir led us in several ‘hymns’, and various prayers were uttered to the Old Ones. I had to wonder what the hotel staff servers were thinking as they cleared plates amid all the silliness.
There were gaming sessions, walking tours, theatrical events and various film screenings throughout the weekend. The conference wrapped up with a raucous viewing outdoors of one of the hallmark Lovecraft movies, The Dunwich Horror from 1970. Slightly cheesy but with great atmosphere, the movie starred Sandra Dee as a student at Miskatonic University who gets mixed up with Wilbur Whateley, the weird son of the strangest family around. He’s trying to get his hands on the Necronomicon so he can bring Yog-Sothoth into the world. As an additional fillip, all manner of costumed Lovecraftian beasties wandered through the crowd, while a stand-in Wilbur showed up to encourage all of us to chant as needed.
So that was our grand excursion to Lovecraft country. I was amazed at how many devotees there still are to the writer’s works – his world of eldritch monsters has had a resurgence in popularity in recent years. Perhaps the imagined monsters distract from so many real ones, or give us a way to process our anxieties. At any rate, it was delightful to see what an impact one of my most influential writers continues to have.
