Thursday 25 March 2010

I'm all tied up now...

... packing for the World Horror Convention this weekend. At least I've decided which stories I'll be reading from on Saturday night.

Gosh, this is like two halves of my brain in collision. If you know anything about the small, proud, insular world of horror-writing you'll know that they hate with being regarded as illiterate rubbish by the mainstream literary establishment. Innovative and passionate, they know they don't deserve the contempt in which the wider reading public holds them. But wait - there is one genre which Horror gets to look down upon and sneer! One even more despised than themselves!

Yes, you guessed: it's Erotica...

So I'm a bit nervous about sticking my smutwriter head over the parapet, but here goes. I'll be back here on the blog on Monday.



Bondage picture with rats is one of the illustrations Harry Clarke (1889-1931) did for Poe's collected short stories. This one is The Pit and the Pendulum, of course. Clarke's style followed that of Beardsley, only with less sex and more horror. I was going to post his illustration for The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, but I didn't want to put you all off your tea. It's very appropriate for one of the excerpts I'm going to be reading this weekend, though!

8 comments:

Kat Black said...

Fortune favours the bold, Janine. Best of luck for a truly horrible weekend.

Jo said...

She writes kinky horror! Get the tar and feathers!

Dark Enchantments came in the post today!! The Persephone myth retelling was just ... perfection!

Chris said...

Tar and feathers? She'd probably enjoy it.

Good luck Janine, and have fun.

x

Erobintica said...

have fun - and that illustration was to die for ;-)
(of course I clicked it)

Fulani said...

Hope it goes well - at one point I was hoping to make it there myself but deadlines and family illnesses conspired to stop it happening.

Sekrit Shoppa said...

Ooh, sex and horror meet at the seaside - that sounds like my kind of party. You have to let us know how it goes - have fun!

Janine Ashbless said...

I will! Thank you all (esp Jo!)

ta ta for now...

Emerald said...

Have a fabulous reading, Janine!