A MerMay Conversation With Morgan Dante

 The final day of MerMay has arrived- and we hope you had as much fun as we did! We’re going to keep on reading merfolk books all summer long- of course, with an emphasis on those with LGBTQ+ themes. But to close out the May festivities, we have our final interview- a conversation with Morgan Dante (they/ them) about their book Providence Girls. This book is a sapphic Lovecraftian horror-romance, so… basically everything both Caitlyn and Remy adore.

VQ: Why do you think we collectively keep coming back to the Lovecraftian stories?

Morgan: Lovecraft generally was good at creating atmospheric works; he very much entrenched many of his works in a bleary New England setting that I personally enjoy. More than that, I think his works, such as “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, offer enough fascinating mythological details while also making an imaginative reader curious: What is it like thinking of the ocean as a place where, far below, there are ancient cities with beings we cannot truly fathom? What really lies deep in the ocean and in outer space?

VQ: Why the women? What made you want to look at the women of his stories- to build off what he created and to reshape them? And a part 2 to this question- Why those women? Were there other female characters of his that you considered exploring?

Morgan: I was interested in the parallels between Lavinia Whateley and Asenath Waite. Both have occultist fathers who exploit them. Both are doomed. I imagined what it would be like if they were in a room together because I am always very intrigued by character parallels. I was also curious about the implications that Asenath was part-Deep One and therefore would have started changing if she didn't die. Lovecraft didn’t write many women. Despite being a deeply bigoted person, he was less outright misogynistic and more chauvinistic, but he also was uncomfortable with trying to write a woman's mindset, seeing it as out of his depth. That said, despite the highly racist themes of the story, I am very interested in a character in “Medusa’s Coil” called Marceline, a cult leader who ends up in a love triangle with an artist and his best friend. However, while I am not opposed to having her involved in a story or exploring her character, a crucial part of her identity is that she is a white-passing Black woman who pretends to be white and suffers violence from her white husband, and I think there are probably authors more well-equipped to capture her perspective and all the nuances necessary there.

VQ: Why make it a love story, specifically a sapphic love story?

Morgan: I can't remember when I decided to make it sapphic. I think I have always been highly inclined toward stories that mix horror and romance, despite Lovecraft himself being disinterested in romance and sex. I have also been interested in mixing queerness and Lovecraft because I always feel like there are ways to read into it despite his violent homophobia: Randolph Carter and his trauma over losing his best friend in “The Statement of Randolph Carter”; Nyarlathotep’s fixation on winning against Randolph Carter but ultimately always being outwitted by him; the ecstacy the narrator feels at the end of The Shadow Over Innsmouth over realizing that he is part-Deep One after denying it for so long. Traditionally, I think Lovecraft and romance are seen as very oil and water. After all, cosmic horror isn't meant to concern itself with the insignificant relationships of humans. Understandably, this is an irreconcilable combo for some. But for me, I think the connections we form are ways we can combat the cynicism and horror of what we cannot control. It doesn't make the world less scary, but it makes it less lonely.

To learn more about Morgan’s work, visit their website or follow them on Instagram!

To stay up to date on our work, follow us on Instagram! We are absolutely running this event again next year, but we also have plenty of fun stuff planned in the other eleven months!