Name: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Author of: “Flash Frame”
Age: Unspeakable. Sorry!
Geographic Location: Vancouver, Canada
Original Hometown, if different: Mexico
Twitter: @silviamg
Website: http://silviamoreno-garcia.com
Past publications: Fantasy Magazine, Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic Science Fiction, Tesseracts 13, Futurismic, Shimmer and lots, lots more
What’s your favorite H.P. Lovecraft story or other Mythos story? “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” ( that’s probably why I am one of the founders of Innsmouth Free Press) and “The Colour Out of Space.” There’s something about evil- glowing meteorites that makes my heart go a bit faster. Non-Lovecraft, I think “Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner is very scary. It just creeped the hell out of me and I don’t even understand why. Something about the bizarre constructions made out of twigs.
What comes to mind when you think “Lovecraft” + “Erotica”? Um … tentacles? I am actually very afraid of Cthulhu mixed with erotica, and I’m note quite sure what to expect when I crack open my contributor’s copy, but I think I ended up overcoming my fears because I had an idea that just wouldn’t let go. I’m not sure if the final result is erotic, though. I think of it as deeply paranoid and confused. In a good way.
How did you hear about Cthulhurotica? Through the magic of Twitter.
What inspired your story? Several things. I was remembering what it was like being a journalist in Mexico City. I am a third-generation communications gal. My grandfather was a radio announcer during the Golden Age of radio, my parents both worked in radio, I worked at a newspaper and I married someone who studied journalism. This is a genetic ailment. But it does tend to give me lots of background on different time periods and how journalists worked in those times. For “Flash Frame,” my direct inspiration was a conversation I had in the 90s. I was meeting a friend who was a freelancer at the time, and he asked me if we could stop to pick up his paycheck for a story he had done for a magazine. The magazine we picked up (and I think his story) was about the cheapest prostitute in Mexico City. We ended talking about a large porno cinema, Cine Teresa, which had been a high-class “ladies” cinema back in the 50s. You know, one of those luxury movie palaces. I love old movie theatres and I kept thinking about journalists and movie theatres, and our conversation about the Teresa. Around this time, I also had a bizarre dream about a “yellow woman” and I decided to use her.
What music or movies helped you to write this story? I don’t listen to much music, to be terribly honest. I am very unhip, in that sense. But I did have a movie in mind. Caligula, to be specific. The bizarre film that gets screened in my story was inspired by that movie, and also some of the sword-and-sandals flicks I watched when I was a kid. There was always something sexy about those movies, even if the production codes of the time didn’t allow them to show too much. It was a way to get past the censors. I mean, Hedy Lamarr is sooo awesome in Samson and Delilah. We don’t give a crap about the good girl. We want Hedy to dance in her pseudo-Arabian Nights outfits and seduce Samson, damn it!
How many rewrites did you do before submitting? I don’t rewrite. Does that sound awful? I fix things as I go along, which sometimes makes it a longer process. I also felt if I thought too much about this story, I’d chicken out and never write it.
What is your favorite bit? I like the opening line:
The sound is yellow.
