Mantichore 19

Mantichore 5, No 4 (Whole Number 19). ****Edited by Leigh Blackmore for the SSWFT (Oct 31, 2010/39th mailing), & Esoteric Order of Dagon (Oct 31, 2010/ 152nd mailing) Amateur Press Associations. ***78 Rowland Ave, Wollongong, NSW 2500. Australia.***

MANTICHORE 19 19 Leigh Blackmore Contact [email protected] Official Website: Blackmausoleum – http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/ Latest SSWFT news at: http://sswftapa.blogspot.com/ LB at Australian Horror Writers Association: http://www.australianhorror.com/member_pages.php?page=86 LB’s library : http://www.librarything.com/profile/666777

Contents This Issue

Mantic Notes……………….………………..2 Re: Russian Lovecraft translations………..4

Left: Leigh Blackmore & Margi Curtis at Aussiecon. Photo: Danny Lovecraft

Mantic Notes (Pronunciation:'man-tik. Etymology: Greek mantikos, from mantis: of, relating to the faculty of divination; prophetic).

This issue’s cover is an old piece by Kurt Stone, (involved in Terror Australis magazine years ago(. Never been published elsewhere to my knowledge. Thanks Kurt!//Most of my time for several months has involved editing Midnight Echo 5 for the Australian Horror Writers Association. Somewhat delayed from its October release date due to the intervening World SF Convention in Melbourne (Aussiecon 4), the ME issue should be out late November or early December. //Aussiecon 4 was quite an experience. I haven’t had much time blog about it, though my brief report about meeting critic John Clute here: http://sswftapa.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-meet-one-ofmy-critical-heroes-at.html. Margi and I both enjoyed the con, but saw little of Melbourne outside of the con itself. We did have dinner one night with some of our Reclaiming witch friends who live there. My main experiences in meeting admired authors included meeting Charles Stross (who turned out extremely odd in person). I also met John Clute, as mentioned – a definite highlight – and China Mieville Left:An overawed Leigh Blackmore with critic John Clute in Melbourne.

(though didn’t get to spend any actual time with him apart from having books signed) and Robert Silverberg and his wife Karen Haber (likewise), as well as locals like editor/writer Paul Collins. Mostly, I enjoyed spending time with local horror fans whom I hadn’t seen for too long – Steve Paulsen and Aaron Sterns. There were a couple of occasions through the very busy con where Margi and I got to hang out with them over coffee. Danny Lovecraft was also there and we managed to promote the new printing of my poetry volume Spores from Sharnoth & Other Madnesses quite well – a dealer called Of Science and Swords took copies of all Danny’s publications for his table. The only panel in which I participated was called “In Search of the Necronomicon”. It went really well. Unfortunately American scholar Faye Ringel was unable to attend the con as she had injured her elbow. Some reports of the panel from the points of view of others can be found on the web at: http://joffrehorlor.com/Articles/AussieCon4/01_DayOn e.php and also at: http://taliehelene.livejournal.com/195944.html.

Below, L-R: Talie Helene, Danny Lovecraft, Leigh Blackmore. (Chuck McKenzie had already run away…)(Photo: Margi Curtis)

Significantly, at Aussiecon I was elected the new President of the Australian Horror Writers Association. In that capacity I got to chat to Rocky Wood, fellow Australian writer who is now President of the Horror Writers Association based in the USA; this should prove a fruitful contact. Being the new Pres of AHWA is involving me in lots of duties of reorganising the way the committee functions. I hope I can help grow the association in productive ways for Australian writers.//I also met Peter Watts, who won the Hugo Award while at the con. It was a particular pleasure, for it was no less than he who wrote of my novella “Uncharted” – “Blew me away! The story gets kudos for prose style alone!” //The Nightmare Ball, organised by Kyla Ward, was a great part of the con. Some pics from it can be seen here: http://garykemblenews.blogspot.com/2010/09/inpictures-nightmare-ball.html Left: Leigh Blackmore with songwriter, guitarist & producer Todd Rundgren in Sydney. (Photo: Danny Lovecraft) In October I got to witness a dream-of-a lifetime live concert from Todd Rundgren, the legendary performer whose music I have loved for thirty-five years, at the Basement in Sydney. I was with Margi and Graham, and Danny Lovecraft also attended. Won’t waste space on it here, but you can check here for my review of the brilliant gig: http://sswftapa.blogspot.com/2010/10/todd-rundgrenis-still-officially-godd.html// Radio 2SER in Sydney interviewed me, and featured writer Kyla Ward (reading from one of her stories from the massive new Australian horror anthology Macabre), during October. I was suffering a horrendous ‘flu when I did the phone interview, but it came reasonably OK. You can listen to the podcast by going here: http://finaldraft.podomatic.com/entry/201010-18T22_33_00-07_00. My bit comes around the 5:00 min mark. My Holmesian horror story “The Arcana of Death” was not accepted for Gaslight Arcanum, to my disappointment. (That of my colleague Chris Sequeira, who had also been in a previous volume of the series, was also not accepted). So that tale is looking for a new home…//My collaborative poem with Richard L. Tierney, “Twilight of the Mage”, will be in Midnight Echo 5. I will also have a poem, “The Golden Goblet”, in STJ’s new journal, Weird Fiction Annual No 1, due out later this year from Centipede Press. //I supplied

Robert Bloch’s daughter with some recordings of her father which she had not heard. That was a big thrill! Will Hart (www.cthulhuwho.com) has also been putting up a plethora of Bloch and Leiber audio files from various conventions. Check ‘em out if you haven’t already!//Due to my need to finish editing Midnight Echo, I’m going to again beg off providing interesting original material in this issue. Instead, I’m reproducing some correspondence I had back in 1993 with Kubin Literary Agency, who helped produce various translations of Lovecraft into Russian around that time. The items listed in the bibliography supplied by Fiodor Eremeyev are detailed in STJ’s H.P. Lovecraft: A Comprehensive Bibliography in the Russian translations section which starts at p. 276, though not with the Cyrillic alphabet. It may interest some hardcore HPL fans to see this correspondence, with its Cyrillic spellings of the Russian Lovecraft titles. // I believe Graeme Phillips’ special issue devoted to Australian writer and Lovecraftian Vol Molesworth will be out shortly. James Doig and I lent Graeme assistance with this project and it should be quite a large number of Cyaegha. The cartoon left is by Phillip Cornell, drawn many years ago for Terror Australis magazine but from memory, not actually used there.

The cartoon above was drawn by Alex Macdonald, lead singer of Surprise, a band with whom my old 1980’s band Worm Technology often used to gig. He drew it after concluding from my story “The Infestation” that all my horror writing was about physically repulsive occurrences!