Tag: ifp

New Interview with Innsmouth Free Press

Our editor, Carrie Cuinn, was interviewed by IFP over at their site:

IFP: In your introduction to this book, you say, “Readers expecting a collection of monster sex stories might, after all, be disappointed.” What do you mean?

CC: I think it’s fair to say that there are people who find tentacle porn arousing. As I learned when I started reading submissions for this anthology, there are also people who want to see humans being sexually abused by each and every one of the monsters in the Mythos universe. Because of the title, I still get informed that my book is “clearly” about “something disgusting” by people who haven’t read it yet. I wanted to say at the very beginning that this isn’t the kind of book we put together. There are only a few stories that actually show monsters in a sexual way. It simply isn’t the focus of the collection.

The writers whose work I chose for Cthulhurotica wanted to use the Cthulhu Mythos to explore the very human feelings of fear, desire, need, anger, domination, or jealousy…In this way, they’re carrying on the work started by H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote weird tales about space and monsters, in order to talk about the human condition. While these stories are undoubtedly sexual, and in most cases extremely erotic, at their core, each is about what it means to be a person living in Lovecraft’s world.

Read the rest at Innsmouth Free Press now!

Were you at the Innsmouth Cthulhurotica launch party? IFP was there …

Innsmouth Free Press, your source for news for the Innsmouth / Arkham area, was on hand for the Cthulhurotica launch party* on Halloween night, and had this to say about the event:

 

“Innsmouth, MA – The Pickman Art Galley was lit up last night in an eerie, green glow to herald the arrival ofCthulhurotica, the debut title from independent publisher Dagan Books. In attendance were several cast members of Heir of Dracula, but the most surprising – and photographed – guest was millionaire and head of Cerulean Skies, Alex Visser, who popped by to get an autographed copy of Cthulhurotica.

“It’s a unique concept,” Visser said, as he posed next to two “brides” of Cthulhu, who were dressed in what could be described as very creative mermaid costumes.The glistening scales running down the back of them looked absolutely realistic.

Cthulhurotica combines the work of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft with the sensual. Aside from the fiction offerings, it provides the reader with a look at original art and non-fiction essays inspired by Lovecraft’s Mythos.

Lovecraft is a well-known name around Innsmouth: he used it as the location of one his stories. “Oh, I think we’ve all read some Lovecraft story at one point or another, but this seems quite different. It’s fun! I mean, it seems like there were a lot of suppressed desires in Lovecraft’s tales,” said Pickman art gallery curator Victoria Carr.

Other guests agreed. Enthusiastic teaching assistant Molly Kelly said, with a wink, “Cthulhu can’t spend all that time dreaming, can he? Something else most be going on”.

Guests sipped crimson martinis, called “ritual offerings”, and munched on sushi and crackers shaped like little people. A gigantic squid-cake, complete with a marzipan “victim” in its grasp, completed the ensemble.

Outside the gallery – with his trusty sign reading “Flee the Abominations” next to him – was local resident Caleb McHenry.

“Well, someone has to intervene. This has gone on far enough. There’s cultists running around town and now this? Cthulhurotica? The name itself makes me shiver!”

The staff of Dagan Books, sadly, could not attend, but deeply wish that we could have been there.

 

*of course, this was a fictional party in a fictional art gallery celebrating the book’s connection to the fictional town of Innsmouth, MA, but wouldn’t you have been there if you could?