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Cthulhu Cymraeg - An Interview With Mark Howard Jones
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Mark: I came up with the idea for the anthology more-or-less out of necessity. Given the huge influence of Welsh author Arthur Machen on Lovecraft's work, combined with the fact that there has been an explosion in Cthulhu Mythos-themed books over the last few decades, I felt sure that a book like Cthulhu Cymraeg must already exist; one where Welsh authors returned the compliment paid to Machen by Lovecraft by writing in a Lovecraftian manner. Completing the circle, so to speak.
But after months of searching for this book that gave a uniquely Welsh twist to the Cthulhu Mythos, I gave up, forced to admit that no Welsh publisher had yet been down that road. That was when I approached Steve Upham, who upon hearing of the idea was keen that his Cardiff-based company, Screaming Dreams, should take on the project.
So I suppose you could say I produced the book because I wanted to read it!
AmeriCymru: What can you tell us about your contribution to the collection:- 'Pilgrimage'?
Mark: I took something that many people in south Wales will be familiar with - the hour's rail journey between Cardiff and Swansea - and made it even stranger than it usually is!
The story nearly didn't happen, in fact. I'm always critical of writers who edit an anthology and include one of their own stories. It seems like cheating somehow.
But in this instance I'm merely being hypocritical. As one of the few Welsh authors who had already written a series of Lovecraftian stories, the publisher persuaded me that on this occasion I really needed to put my money where my mouth was.
AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about the other contributors?
Mark: All the contributors were either born in Wales or have lived here for some time, so hopefully a uniquely Welsh point of view comes through in the writing. It'd be unfair to pick out individual contributors but all of them have a track record of writing tales of the fantastic and macabre; some have even won prestigious awards for their work.
The publisher, Steve Upham, and I agreed that we didn't simply want writers who were 'holidaying in horror' but rather authors who had an already proven commitment to the genre. And I think that shows through in the stories.
And there are more writers in Wales today creating tales of the fantastic than ever before. So there is a solid foundation for a Welsh School Of The Weird - maybe this book is its first manifesto, who knows.
I should also mention that we were very fortunate in that S T Joshi, Lovecraft's biographer and one of the world's foremost Lovecraft experts, agreed to write a foreword to the anthology. It speaks volumes about Machen's influence on Lovecraft in just a few pages. We were very grateful that he was generous enough to do that as he is always incredibly busy.
AmeriCymru: How much does this collection owe to, and celebrate, the legacy of Arthur Machen ?
Mark: Gwilym Games, of the Friends Of Arthur Machen ,often gives talks on the author's influence on Lovecraft. I've heard him say on several occasions "Without Machen there would have been no Lovecraft". I think that sums things up very well. And, by extension, without Machen there would have been no 'Cthulhu Cymraeg'. So you could say that the anthology forms a small part of his legacy.
AmeriCymru: In your opinion, how much of an influence did Machen have on Lovecraft's writing?
Mark: An enormous influence. Without him, Lovecraft's work would have been very different. If he hadn't discovered Machen's tales, the Anglophile New Englander would probably have been far more influenced by Lord Dunsany or Algernon Blackwood and perhaps his writing would have had far less impact than it has had.
In his 1927 essay 'Supernatural Horror In Literature', Lovecraft says about Machen: “Of living creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few if any can hope to equal the versatile Arthur Machen.” He also praised Machen's story 'The White People' as one of the greatest examples of weird literature ever written.
And of course the influence of Machen's celebrated 1894 novella 'The Great God Pan' can be seen quite clearly in one of Lovecraft's best-known tales, 'The Dunwich Horror', which seems to have been partly written as an homage to the Welsh author.
AmeriCymru: How prominently does Welsh folklore feature in these tales?
Mark: One or two of the stories do touch on elements of Welsh folklore, although that was never really a major intention of the anthology.
But in the introduction I do suggest that Lovecraft's inter-dimensional beings are distorted versions of the Welsh myth of the Tylwyth Teg (or 'Fair Family'). Machen used these supernatural beings, who were said to dwell underground or below water, in his own work (most notably in 'The White People', 'The Novel Of The Black Seal' and 'The Children Of The Pool'), making them even more terrifying than their already unsettling reputation. Perhaps Lovecraft was impressed by these creatures' reputed ability to use water as an occult gateway between their own realm and ours, echoing this in his own creations' thankfully unsuccessful attempts to create their own gateways between the arcane and the mundane.
So it could be that Lovecraft himself was unconsciously influenced by Welsh folklore, transforming it (Oz-like) into something even more fantastical than the original.
Mark: My background is in journalism. I spent a decade-and-a-half working for Welsh newspapers (including the South Wales Echo in Cardiff and the South Wales Evening Post in Swansea) and the BBC before moving to a marketing and PR role in higher education.
I decided at the age of nine that I wanted to be a writer. I finally succeeded in getting into print at the age of 39!
My novella 'The Garden Of Doubt On the Island Of Shadows' was published in 2006. It was largely written as a response to my father's death two years earlier.
By a strange co-incidence it was read by the great American author Ray Bradbury, who was kind enough to comment favourably on it. This meant a lot to me as I am a great admirer of his work, which I discovered in my early teens.
My 2010 book 'Songs From Spider Street' is structured so it can be read as either a portmanteau novel or a short story collection, depending on your mood and how much time you have. It contains a mixture of magic realism, science fiction, existential horror and surrealism.
While the follow-up collection, 2013's 'Brightest Black', has a darker tone overall and is more traditional.
At the moment I'm working on a new collection for an American publisher. But as I'm quite a slow writer I can't say when that'll see the light of day.
My stories also pop up from time-to-time in anthologies and magazines when you least expect them.
AmeriCymru: What have you been reading lately? Any recommendations?
Mark: I've just finished re-reading Juan Rulfo's 'Pedro Paramo'. And I'm also dipping into a beautiful-looking book by Colorado's Centipede Press called 'A Mountain Walked: Great Stories Of The Cthulhu Mythos'. There is some wonderful work in there and, in terms of its size and weight, it reminds me of an old Welsh family Bible.
As for recommendations - well, Machen and Lovecraft of course. Any short story by Dino Buzzati. 'Invisible Cities' by Italo Calvino, which is endlessly inventive and great to dip in and out of. Christopher Priest's wonderful novel 'The Glamour'.
I can't choose a single piece by Thomas Ligotti, so I'll just content myself with saying that anything by him is well worth reading (even his shopping list, probably).
AmeriCymru: What's next for Mark Howard Jones?
Mark: Early next year a collection called 'Dreamglass Days' is due out, which collects together all the stories I've had published in the Manchester-based literary magazine Sein und Werden over the last eight years.
And there are plans for a second volume of 'Cthulhu Cymraeg'. The anthology had almost universally good reviews but the one thing people did say was that it simply wasn't long enough. So this time we'll probably be concentrating on publishing longer stories and even novella-length pieces.
AmeriCymru: Where can our readers go to purchase 'Cthulhu Cymraeg' online?
Mark: It's available through Amazon both in the U.S. and the U.K. They can also simply click on the ad in the Welsh-American Bookstore. >
If anyone wants more information about the book they can visit www.screamingdreams.com/cthulhucymraeg.html .
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?
Mark: Why not read 'Cthulhu Cymraeg' to your loved ones by the fireside on these cold winter nights.
