Robert M. Price, one of the keynote speakers at the convocation held last week at Providence’s First Baptist Church that marked the opening of NecronomiCon 2015, made some offhand remarks regarding terrorism and violence that rekindled the controversy over the racism of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, the anniversary of whose birth 125 years earlier was being celebrated that day. Comments on social media accused Price of racism. Price avers that he said nothing wrong. As Lovecraft’s fame has grown, his racism has received increased scrutiny, as Philip Eil notes in his recent Atlantic article, “The Unlikely Reanimation of H.P. Lovecraft.”
Notwithstanding this debate, some 2,000 Lovecraft fans gathered for the convention, up from the 1,200 who attended the previous convention in 2013. Many came from abroad, including Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and the U.K., according to Niels-Viggo Hobbs, arch-director of the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council, which recently opened a Lovecraft visitor center and bookstore in the historic Arcade in downtown Providence.
The following day, the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council bestowed the Robert Bloch Award—named for the author of Psycho who as a teenage fan corresponded with Lovecraft—on Price, one of the guests of honor, whose many accomplishments include editing 108 issues of the zine Crypt of Cthulhu between 1981 and 2001.
Other guests of honor included British editor Stephen Jones (Shadows Over Innsmouth), British horror author Ramsey Campbell (The Face That Must Die), Leslie S. Klinger (compiler of The New Annotated Lovecraft published by W.W. Norton in October 2014), and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a native of Mexico now resident of Canada, who was edited several anthologies, including the upcoming all-woman Lovecraft volume titled She Walks in Shadows.
Among the panelists discussing Lovecraft's life and work over the course of the weekend were such notable experts as S.T. Joshi, Steven J. Mariconda, Jason C. Eckhardt, Robert Waugh, Alex Houston, and Paul Di Filippo. Among those giving readings and presentations were two sets of children’s book authors and artists: Kenneth Hite and illustrator Christina Rodriguez (Goodnight Azathoth, a parody of Goodnight Moon); and Jason Ciaramella and illustrator Greg Murphy (C Is for Cthulhu, an alphabet book for the very young).
