"Go Ask Ogre" is a dark, funny, and touching collection of letters that an 80s goth teen named Jolene Siana wrote to Nivek Ogre (Kevin Ogilvie), the frontman of industrial band Skinny Puppy. Ogre kept the hundreds of letters and, three years ago, shipped them all back to Siana in a single box. The resulting collection is the first publication from Process Media, a new company launched by Feral House publisher Adam Parfrey and Dilettante Press co-founder Jodi Wille. From a Los Angeles Times article about "Go Ask Ogre: Letters From A Deathrock Cutter":
Written on Valentine's Day, 1987, that first letter wasn't the usual sort of fawning fan mail. There was one reference to liking the way Ogre looked; the rest was about herself. Penned, in part, during a ceramics class, the letter introduced Siana as a "senior at an extremely boring high school." She told him she was so bored she wanted to scream. She said she hated school and that her mother hated her. She told him that her grandparents died and that her stomach hurt. She said she wanted to be a journalist and travel to England, that she liked art and looking "really gothic and artsy." It was, in a word, rambling, but the letter was also pure, lucid and engaging.Without receiving any response, Siana wrote Ogre again 12 days later, and again the day after that, and two days after that, and so on. He wrote her back only once — two months to the day after she wrote her first letter.
What he wrote isn't included in the book, per Ogre's request, but a journal entry indicates he wanted to meet her. A month later, they met backstage at a Skinny Puppy show, where Ogre told Siana her letters were "fascinating and very creative" and encouraged her to "keep 'em coming."
And so she continued writing letters that were increasingly personal, suicidal and oftentimes decorated with drawings made from her blood, using a calligraphy pen she dipped in her wounds.
Link to LA Times article, Link to Go Ask Ogre site (Thanks, Alan Rapp!)
UPDATE: Jolene Siana's blog is here. (Thanks, Demian Ginther!)
