W. H. Pugmire

Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire (born William Harry Pugmire; May 3, 1951 – March 26, 2019), was a writer of weird fiction and horror fiction based in Seattle, Washington.

His works typically were published as W. H. Pugmire (his adopted middle name derives from the story of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe).

He was heavily influenced by Lovecraftian horror as well as the writing style of Lovecraft himself. S. T. Joshi described Pugmire in 2011 as "the prose-poet of the horror/fantasy field; he may be the best prose-poet we have," and "perhaps the leading Lovecraftian author writing today."

Pugmire's stories were published in anthologies and magazines such as The Year's Best Horror Stories, Weird Tales, Year's Best Weird Fiction, and many more. The Tangled Muse and An Ecstasy of Fear, major retrospectives of his work, were published in 2010 and 2019, respectively.

Works by Pugmire

Publications

• Tales of Sesqua Valley (1997, Necropolitan Press)
• Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror (1999, Mythos Books, ISBN 978-0-9659433-4-5)
• Songs of Sesqua Valley (2000, Imelod Publications; collection of sonnets)
• Tales of Love and Death (2001, Delirium Books, ISBN 978-1-929653-15-7)
• A Clicking in the Shadows and Other Tales (2002, Undaunted Press; with Chad Hensley)
• Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts (2003, Delirium Books; 2008 Mythos Books paperback reprint contains three new stories)
• The Fungal Stain and Other Dreams (2006, Hippocampus Press, ISBN 978-0-9771734-3-3)
• Weird Inhabitants of Sesqua Valley (2009, Terradan Works, ISBN 978-1-4486-9954-4)
• The Tangled Muse (2010, Centipede Press, ISBN 978-1-933618-78-4)
• Gathered Dust and Others (2011, Dark Regions Press, ISBN 978-1937128098)
• Some Unknown Gulf of Night (2011, Arcane Wisdom Press, ISBN 978-1935006114)
• The Strange Dark One: Tales of Nyarlathotep (2012, Miskatonic River Press, ISBN 978-0-9821818-9-8)
• Uncommon Places: A Collection of Exquisites (2012, Hippocampus Press, ISBN 978-1-61498-023-0; prose-poetry collection)
• Encounters with Enoch Coffin (2013, Dark Regions Press, ISBN 978-1-62641-000-8; with Jeffrey Thomas)
• Bohemians of Sesqua Valley (2013, Arcane Wisdom Press)
• The Revenant of Rebecca Pascal (2014, Dark Renaissance Books, ISBN 978-1-937128-83-8; novel; with David Barker)
• These Black Winged Ones (2014, Myth Ink Books)
• In the Gulfs of Dreams and Other Lovecraftian Tales (2015, Dark Renaissance Books, ISBN 978-1-937128-49-4; with David Barker)
• Monstrous Aftermath: Stories in the Lovecraftian Tradition (2015, Hippocampus Press, ISBN 978-1-61498-133-6)
• Witches in Dreamland (2018, Hippocampus Press, ISBN 978-1-614982-30-2; novel; with David Barker)
• An Ecstasy of Fear (2019, Centipede Press, ISBN 978-1-61347-085-5)
• An Imp of Aether (2019, Hippocampus Press, ISBN 978-1-61498-276-0)

Selected anthology and magazine appearances

• "Whispering Wires", Space and Time (#20, September 1973; as "Bill Pugmire"; first sold story)
• "Pale Trembling Youth" (with Jessica Amanda Salmonson), Cutting Edge (1986, Doubleday); reprinted in The Year's Best Horror Stories XV (1987, DAW Books) and Horrrorstory Vol. V (1989, Underwood-Miller)
• "O, Christmas Tree" (with Jessica Amanda Salmonson), Tales by Moonlight II (1989, Tor Books)
• "The Boy with the Bloodstained Mouth", The Year's Best Horror Stories XVIII (1990, DAW Books)
• "Delicious Antique Whore", Love in Vein (1994, HarperCollins; 2000, Eos; 2005, Harper Voyager)
• "The Night City" (with Chad Hensley), The Darker Side: Generations of Horror (2002, Roc Books)
• "The Serenade of Starlight", The Children of Cthulhu (2002, Del Rey Books / Ballantine Books)
• "The House of Idiot Children" (with M. K. Snyder), Weird Tales (#348, January / February 2008)
• "Inhabitants of Wraithwood", Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror (2010, PS Publishing; reprinted as Black Wings of Cthulhu, 2012, Titan Books)
• "Some Buried Memory", The Book of Cthulhu (2011, Night Shade Books)
• "The Fungal Stain", New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird (2011, Prime Books)
• "The Hands that Reek and Smoke", The Book of Cthulhu II (2012, Night Shade Books)
• "A Quest of Dream", Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume One (2014, Undertow Publications)
• "Half Lost in Shadow", Black Wings IV (2015, PS Publishing; 2016, Titan Books)
• "Old Time Entombed", That Is Not Dead: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Through the Centuries (2015, PS Publishing)
• "They Smell of Thunder", New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird (2015, Prime Books)
• "Into Ye Smoke-Wreath'd World of Dream", Cthulhu Fhtagn! (2015, Word Horde)
• "The Imps of Innsmouth", Innsmouth Nightmares (2015, PS Publishing)
• "A Shadow of Thine Own Design", The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu (2016, Robinson / Running Press)
• "In Blackness Etched, My Name", Black Wings V (2016, PS Publishing; 2018, Titan Books)
• "The Barrier Between", Nightmare's Realm: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic (2017, Dark Regions Press)
• "To Move Beneath Autumnal Oaks", Black Wings VI (2017, PS Publishing; 2018, Titan Books)
• "An Implement of Ice", Weirdbook (#38, 2018)