Race and Horror: Resources and a Free Live Event About the True Monsters of Lovecraft Country

To end the week I wanted to let everyone know about a free event I am a part of that you can register for right now. Please read this entire post because after the ad for the program itself, I provide resources you can use to prepare to participate, even without  reading or watching Lovecraft Country itself.

From Library Journal:

This virtual roundtable will cap off our Twitter series #LJReads presents Lovecraft Fridays, during which every Friday in October we explor different horror literary themes in both the show and novel. This roundtable will highlight more literary works and premises that can be linked to Lovecraft Country. It will also serve as a critical lens to view both the novel and the show through.
 

In this free, two-hour Zoom event, we will not only go in depth over the themes discussed during the Lovecraft Friday’s series but new ones such as: 

• The true monsters of Lovecraft Country and what makes them scary.

• What it means to be “Othered” and the ramifications of being labeled as such.

• The importance of telling a Black American story both in literature and on screen in a genre they were largely ignored in.

• Generational trauma and it’s lasting impact on a person’s character and decision making.

• H.P. Lovecraft’s legacy, from his racist views to the creation of a whole new sub-genre Cosmic Horror.

• Modern adaptations of Lovecraft’s work, reimaging his stories to critique him.

Speakers:

• Becky Spratford is a readers’ advisory (RA) specialist in northern Illinois and the author of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror (2d ed., ALA). She runs the popular blogs raforall.blogspot.com and raforallhorror.blogspot.com
• Alexandria Brown is a queer Black librarian, local historian, writer, and author. She writes about speculative fiction and young adult literature for Tor.com, as well as on her blog. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and access set the foundation of everything she does.
• Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, journalist, and book reviewer living in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Coyote Songs, Zero Saints (both from Broken River Books), and Gutmouth (Eraserhead Press).
• Matt Ruff is the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning novels 88 Names, Lovecraft Country, Bad Monkeys, The Mirage, Set This House in Order, Fool on the Hill, and Sewer, and Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy.
• Mary SanGiovanni is an award-winning American horror and thriller writer of over a dozen novels, including The Hollower trilogy, Thrall, Chaos, The Kathy Ryan series, and others, as well as numerous novellas, short stories, and non-fiction.
• Steffan Triplett is nonfiction writer and has been published in Longreads, Vulture, Essay Daily, Electric Literature, Nat. Brut, Slate, and elsewhere, and is anthologized in the forthcoming Sweeter Voices Still: An LGTBQ Anthology from Middle America(Belt 2020).

For those of you who have not watched the show or read the book, I think this conversation will still be very relevant to your work. The very real horrors of the current Black Horror renaissance is extremely important to discuss.

For a little more background on that topic please see this article by horror author and Black Horror professor Tananarive Due or this piece from CNN, "Black Writers and Filmmakers Are Bringing New Scares to the Horror Genre." These pieces as well as my fellow panelist, Alexandra Brown's recaps of the show on Tor.com will be enough for you to learn from this conversation.

I hope to see some of you there.