W. H. Pugmire Explained

Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire
Birth Date:May 3, 1951
Birth Place:United States
Death Place:Seattle, Washington
Occupation:Short story writer
Genre:Weird fiction, horror fiction
Movement:Cosmicism
Signature:WHPugmireSignature.jpg

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) and his fiction often paid homage to the lore of Lovecraftian horror.[1] [2] Lovecraft scholar and biographer S. T. Joshi described Pugmire as "the prose-poet of the horror/fantasy field; he may be the best prose-poet we have"[3] and as one of the genre's leading Lovecraftian authors.[4]

Pugmire's stories have been published in numerous fanzines, book collections, anthologies and magazines including The Year's Best Horror Stories, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu, Weird Tales, Year's Best Weird Fiction, and many more. In addition, two major retrospectives of his work, The Tangled Muse and An Ecstasy of Fear, were published in 2010 and 2019.

Life

Pugmire was born on May 3, 1951, to a father active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Jewish mother. Pugmire grew up in Seattle.[5]

Pugmire attended Franklin High School, where he said he was "a wimpy wee fag" who got beaten up a lot.[6] To escape what he called a rough childhood, Pugmire embraced "weird, creepy sci-fi stories" like The Twilight Zone TV show.[6] During this time he also began playing the role of the vampire 'Count Pugsly' at Jones' Fantastic Museum in Seattle.[7] The character was based on the look of Lon Chaney's vampire in London After Midnight and Pugmire played the role into the 1970s.[8] [9] Issue #69 of Forrest J Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland featured a dedication to Pugmire in his 'Count Pugsly' guise. In the documentary film The AckerMonster Chronicles!, Pugmire described how he was influenced by Ackerman's magazine and showed the audience the issue in which his photo appeared.[10]

Following one year in college,[11] he served as a Mormon missionary in Omagh, Northern Ireland for eighteen months, where he corresponded with horror writer Robert Bloch and first began writing fiction.[12] It was also in Northern Ireland that Pugmire discovered a paperback of Lovecraft's stories and was immediately captivated.[13]

After returning from his Mormon mission in 1973, Pugmire came out as gay to the church, was given psychiatric treatment, and requested excommunication, which lasted for about 25 years.[14] In the early 2000s, he reconnected with the church and was rebaptized, telling the church's leadership that he would be a "totally queer Mormon, but celibate."[15]

For many years Pugmire worked various jobs in cafés owned by old-time punk rockers, who would let him "dress in my Boy George makeup and mini-skirts as I bussed tables and washed dishes."[16] In March 1995, Pugmire's long-time lover, Todd, died in his arms from a heroin overdose.[17] In the early 2000s he became the live-in caregiver for his mother, who was an invalid due to epilepsy and dementia.[16]

Pugmire described himself as an eccentric recluse, "the Queen of Eldritch Horror," and a "punk rock queen and street transvestite".[18] [16]

In 2011, Pugmire nearly died from congestive heart failure.[16] While Pugmire recovered after being hospitalized, these medical issues slowed down his writing. He continued to suffer from heart issues in the following years and, after treatment in a cardiac unit, died in his home in Seattle on March 26, 2019,[19] [13] prompting numerous eulogies and career retrospectives.[20] [21] [22] [23] [24]

Writing

Pugmire first began writing fiction during his Mormon mission in Northern Ireland, but grew discouraged with his work and stopped until the mid-80s.[25] Returning to Seattle, he became a figure in the local punk rock scene and launched an influential zine, Punk Lust, in April 1981.[16] [7] [26] [27] Called "one of the more interesting characters in the history of early 1980s punk," Pugmire filled the zine with his own gothic and grotesque drawings.[6] His zine also published letters, including a number of them written by Mark Arm.[6]

"Punk has shown me that I should be angry," Pugmire later wrote, "and that I can express my anger in the way I look, as well as the way I think."[6]

Pugmire's time in Ireland led him to discover the works of H. P. Lovecraft, and eventually Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and Lovecraft would become his strongest literary influences.[28] Many of Pugmire's stories directly reference "Lovecraftian" elements (especially Nyarlathotep).[29] A self-described "obsessed writer of Lovecraft horror",[30] his stated goal was to "dwell forevermore within Lovecraft's titan shadow",[31] claiming that "being Lovecraftian is my identity as an artist". Pugmire was quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as saying that his writing was "a form of personal exorcism".[32] [33]

When Pugmire visited Lovecraft's birthplace of Providence, Rhode Island, "he walked the streets from College Hill to Federal Hill with a diary in hand, scratching impressions as he went." Pugmire used these notes in his book Bohemians of Sesqua Valley.[34]

Pugmire set many of his stories in the Sesqua Valley, a fictional location in the Pacific Northwest of the United States which for him served the same purpose as the fictional Arkham / Dunwich / Innsmouth nexus did for Lovecraft, or the Severn Valley for Ramsey Campbell.[35]

Critical response

Pugmire's writings have been described as a "love letter to Lovecraft" around which he constructed his own universe.[36] Pugmire's fiction has also been described as embracing the gothic with a modern sensibility,[37] not as a look or a style but as "an idea that cut against the naive American faith that the past was absolutely past."[6]

Editor and scholar Scott Connors has written that, stylistically, Pugmire "owes as much to Oscar Wilde and Henry James as to HPL and Poe, creating a truly unholy fusion that defies academic boundaries between 'mainstream' and 'genre' fiction."[38] Writing for Weird Fiction Review, Bobby Derie stated that Pugmire "wrote Lovecraftian fiction without the formulaic trappings of the mythos, wrapped in a sensuous prose and characters with easy, fluid sexuality".[39] Issue 28 of The Lovecraft eZine was devoted to Pugmire—"one of our greatest Lovecraftian writers"—with tributes from S. T. Joshi, Joseph S. Pulver Sr., and others; in it, Lovecraftian author and editor Robert M. Price described Pugmire as "the Oscar Wilde of our time ... the most revered and beloved figure in the Lovecraftian movement today." Author Laird Barron listed him as one of "the best contemporary horror/weird fiction" small-press authors,[40] and a writer who "puts forth a new baroque masterpiece every other year".[41] Nick Mamatas, in a 2009 interview, stated that Pugmire and Thomas Ligotti were "the best Lovecraftians today". Lovecraftian writers Mike Davis and Will Hart both called Pugmire "the world's greatest living Lovecraftian writer."[42] Silvia Moreno-Garcia, in a Washington Post review article, spoke of Pugmire's "decadent, lush prose".[43]

S. T. Joshi described Pugmire's writing style as "richly evocative",[44] writing in his scholarly analysis of Cthulhu Mythos fiction, The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, that Pugmire's work contains "some of the richest veins of neo-Lovecraftian horror seen in recent years."[45] However, Joshi has been more critical of Pugmire's nonfiction writing, proclaiming "no one takes him seriously as a critic."[46]

Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, in their review of Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts, stated that "Pugmire's devotion to his sources transcends mere pastiche, and his style is neither overwrought nor too sparse."[47] Publishers Weekly, reviewing Uncommon Places: A Collection of Exquisites, said that readers "with an appetite for the weird and the decadent will find Pugmire's work a rich confection."[48] The site's review of Monstrous Aftermath: Stories in the Lovecraft Tradition, stated that "horror fans fond of baroque prose" should enjoy the collection, noting "a knack for injecting gallows humor", but adding that those "looking for memorable plots and vivid characterizations ... will have to look elsewhere."[49] Fantasy Magazine's review of The Weird Inhabitants of Sesqua Valley, while observing "the love-it-or-hate-it nature of even the best Lovecraftian style", noted that there were "many pleasures to be had" in the collection of "surprisingly humanistic" tales.[50] The New York Review of Science Fiction's review of The Tangled Muse stated that Pugmire's writing revealed "a mastery of language and vocabulary that brings to mind the work of Clark Ashton Smith", noting a "distinct homoerotic theme or undercurrent that is neither gratuitous nor inconsistent but rather genuine and often central to characterization and storytelling."[51]

Bibliography

Originally published mainly in fanzines and small press magazines,[52] [53] Pugmire produced a steady stream of book collections beginning in 1997. Centipede Press published two major retrospectives of his work: The Tangled Muse in October 2010,[54] and An Ecstasy of Fear in June 2019.[55] Earlier stories were often rewritten substantially by Pugmire if republished (notably in Weird Inhabitants of Sesqua Valley and The Tangled Muse).[56]

Short fiction and poetry collections

Novel

Selected anthology and magazine appearances

External links

Notes and References

  1. "Summation 2003: Horror" by Ellen Datlow, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, and Garvin J. Grant, St. Martins, 2003, page lx.
  2. Web site: Wilum Pugmire. Centipede Press. 21 April 2019.
  3. Book: Pugmire, W. H.. The Tangled Muse. Centipede Press. Foreword by S. T. Joshi. 2011. 978-1-933618-78-4. 15.
  4. Book: Joshi, S. T.. I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft. Hippocampus Press. 2010. 978-0-9824296-7-9. 1043.
  5. Web site: Jepson. Theric. 4 February 2010. Latter-day Saint, Latter-day Lovecraft: an interview with W.H. Pugmire. 1 February 2021. A Motley Vision. en.
  6. We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America by Kevin Mattson, Oxford University Press, 2020, pages 45-6.
  7. "Notes: The Hag's Head of Angel Street," The Mysterious Doom and Other Ghostly Tales of the Pacific Northwest by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Sasquatch Books, 1992, page 197.
  8. Book: Humphrey , Clark . Vanishing Seattle. 2006. Arcadia Publishing. 978-0-7385-4869-2. 114.
  9. Web site: Remembering Count Pugsly. Pugmire. W. H.. 30 November 2012. A View from Sesqua Valley. 19 April 2019.
  10. The AckerMonster Chronicles!. 2012. Brock, Jason V (Director). JaSunni Productions, LLC. USA. Documentary.
  11. Web site: Pugmire. W. H.. 5 April 2012. Happy Birthday, Bho Blok. 19 August 2013. A View from Sesqua Valley.
  12. Web site: "…Fiction that is Audaciously One's Own": An Interview with W.H. Pugmire. Cushing. Nicole. 11 May 2012. Litggressive. 17 April 2019.
  13. Web site: Joshi. S. T.. 31 March 2019. My Friend, Wilum Pugmire. 15 November 2020. stjoshi.org.
  14. Web site: Love For The Craft: The Weird Tales Of W.H. Pugmire. 1 March 2016. The Monarch Review. 28 January 2018.
  15. "Latter-day Saint, Latter-day Lovecraft: an interview with W.H. Pugmire" by Theric Jepson, A Motley Vision, 4 February 2010.
  16. "Interview: W.H. Pugmire" by Nick Mamatas, Icarus 13: The Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction, issue 13, summer 2012, Lethe Press, pages 37-40.
  17. Book: Powers-Douglas, Miranda. Cemetery Walk. AuthorHouse. 2005. 978-1-4208-6826-5. 114–15.
  18. "Biographical Material", in The Fungal Stain and Other Dreams by W. H. Pugmire (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2006) .
  19. "Pugmire, W.H.," Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2019 by Harris M. Lentz III, McFarland, 2020, page 335.
  20. Web site: W.H. Pugmire (1951–2019). 27 March 2019. Locus.
  21. Web site: Editor Spotlight: W. H. Pugmire. Derie. Bobby. 27 March 2019. Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein. 22 April 2019.
  22. Web site: WH Pugmire, 1951-2019. Kramer. Bret. 1 April 2019. Sentinel Hill Press. 22 April 2019.
  23. Web site: In memory of our friend W.H. Pugmire: video and audio interviews, and more. Davis. Mike. 8 April 2019. Lovecraft eZine. 22 April 2019.
  24. Web site: Nyfors. A.R.. May 2019. In Memory Of Seattle Horror Writer, Magazine Editor Wilum Pugmire. 31 January 2021. www.punkglobe.com. en.
  25. Web site: Interview with Author W. H. Pugmire. Eden. Deirdra A.. 22 July 2011. A Storybook World. 7 May 2019.
  26. American Hardcore: A Tribal History (Second Edition) by Steven Blush, Feral House, 2010, page 306.
  27. Web site: Punk snot dead. Hamlin. Andrew. 26 January 2016. The Seattle Review of Books. 16 April 2019.
  28. Web site: An Interview With Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire by David Hoenigman. Hoenigman. David. 15 March 2012. The Bailer. 10 May 2019. 10 May 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190510230736/http://thebailer.com/interviews/an-interview-with-wilum-hopfrog-pugmire-by-david-hoenigman/. dead.
  29. Web site: Interview: W.H. Pugmire. Steele. Justin. 3 January 2013. The Arkham Digest. 1 May 2019.
  30. Web site: The H Word: Lovecraftian Horror. Pugmire. W. H.. 12 June 2013. Nightmare Magazine. 13 May 2019.
  31. Web site: Issue #28 – December 2013. 6 December 2013. The Lovecraft eZine. 21 April 2019.
  32. News: Ghost Writers – Seattle's Horror-Fiction Authors Find Our Region's Gloomy Days Nourish Their Creative Spirits. Bartley. Nancy. 30 October 1988. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. K1.
  33. Web site: Joshi. S. T.. 6 April 2019. More on Wilum, and Other Matters. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20190415025036/http://stjoshi.org/news.html#post_20190406. 15 April 2019. 17 April 2019. stjoshi.org.
  34. "Have You Met H.P.? NecronomiCon Providence resurrects Lovecraft" by Philip Eil, The Providence Phoenix, August 23-29, 2013, page 9.
  35. Web site: The WEIRD Bookshelf: An Interview with Wilum "Hopfrog" Pugmire. Draa. Douglas. 26 November 2013. Weird Tales. https://web.archive.org/web/20140210171823/http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/2013/11/26/the-weird-bookshelf-an-interview-with-wilum-hopfrog-pugmire/. 10 February 2014. 21 April 2019.
  36. "A Fine Tribute to the Godfather of Weird Literature: The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu, edited by Paula Guran" by Damien Moore, Black Gate, August 31, 2016.
  37. "Review of Bohemians of Sesqua Valley" by Wayne Edwards, Cemetery Dance Magazine, issue 47, 2003, page 103.
  38. Connors. Scott. Fall 2011. A Kinship with Monsters: Review of The Tangled Muse by W. H. Pugmire. Dead Reckonings. New York. Hippocampus Press. 1. 10. 24–26. 1935-6110.
  39. Web site: A Brief History of Sex in Weird Fiction. Derie. Bobby. 15 September 2014. Weird Fiction Review. 21 April 2019.
  40. Web site: Authors to Read (Part II). Barron. Laird. 12 March 2017. Laird Barron. 18 April 2019.
  41. Web site: The Black Barony 1.. Barron. Laird. 21 December 2017. Laird Barron. 18 April 2019.
  42. "Update on W.H. Pugmire" by Mike Davis. The Lovecraft Ezine. November 26, 2011. Accessed October 10, 2021.
  43. News: Moreno-Garcia. Silvia. Tidhar. Lavie. 13 January 2021. Let's talk about fantasy and science fiction books that have fallen off the radar. en-US. Washington Post. 28 January 2021. 0190-8286.
  44. Book: Joshi, S. T.. Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2007. 978-0-313-33781-9. 123.
  45. Book: Joshi, S. T.. The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos. 2008. 268. Mythos Press. Poplar Bluff, MO. 9780978991180.
  46. Web site: Review of A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos, by John Haefele.. Joshi. S. T.. 25 October 2013.
  47. Web site: On Books. Di Filippo. Paul. 2004. Asimov's Science Fiction. https://web.archive.org/web/20120220101620/http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0409/onbooks.shtml. 20 February 2012. dead. 18 April 2019.
  48. Web site: Uncommon Places: A Collection of Exquisites. 18 June 2012. Publishers Weekly. 30 January 2018.
  49. Web site: Monstrous Aftermath: Stories in the Lovecraftian Tradition. 22 August 2016. Publishers Weekly. 18 April 2019.
  50. Web site: Dansky. Richard. The Weird Inhabitants of Sesqua Valley by W.H. Pugmire. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20190126153927/http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/reviews/weird-inhabitants-pugmire/. 26 January 2019. 15 November 2020. Fantasy Magazine.
  51. "Wilum H. Pugmire's The Tangled Muse", by Peter Rawlik, The New York Review of Science Fiction, October 2011, Issue 278, pages 13–14.
  52. http://www.locusmag.com/index/s541.htm Entry for PUGMIRE, WILLIAM “WILUM” H. (1951–)
  53. Web site: Summary Bibliography: W. H. Pugmire. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. 23 April 2019.
  54. Web site: The Tangled Muse. Centipede Press. 17 April 2019.
  55. Web site: An Ecstasy of Fear. Centipede Press. 24 June 2019.
  56. Web site: Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, The Interview. Mamatas. Nick. 21 December 2009. Livejournal. 10 May 2019.
  57. Web site: Contents Lists: Space and Time, Issues 20-49. The Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index. 13 May 2019. 13 May 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190513231642/http://www.philsp.com/homeville/sfi/t1181.htm. dead.
  58. Web site: Interview with author W.H. Pugmire by Brian M. Sammons. Sammons. Brian M.. 10 May 2016. Dark Regions Press. 10 May 2019.
  59. Web site: Publication: The Year's Best Horror Stories: XV. 1 March 2015. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. 3 May 2019.
  60. Web site: Publication: Tales by Moonlight II. 17 January 2013. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. 3 May 2019.
  61. Web site: Publication: The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVIII. 1 September 2015. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. 3 May 2019.
  62. Web site: Publication: Love in Vein: Twenty Original Tales of Vampiric Erotica. 14 April 2014. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. 3 May 2019.
  63. Web site: Publication: The Darker Side: Generations of Horror. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. 3 May 2019.
  64. Book: The Children of Cthulhu. Random House. 17 April 2019.
  65. Web site: Locus Online: New Magazines, early April 2008. Locus. 17 April 2019.
  66. Web site: Black Wings of Cthulhu (Volume One). Titan Books. 17 April 2019.
  67. Web site: The Book of Cthulhu: About the Authors. The Book of Cthulhu. 17 April 2019.
  68. Web site: New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird edited by Paula Guran. Prime Books. 17 April 2019.
  69. Web site: The Book of Cthulhu II: About the Authors. The Book of Cthulhu. 17 April 2019.
  70. Web site: Final ToC of the Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume One. 30 March 2014. Laird Barron. 21 April 2019.
  71. Web site: Black Wings IV [eBook] Edited by S. T. Joshi ]. 22 June 2022 . PS Publishing.
  72. Web site: That is Not Dead [Hardcover] edited by Darrell Schweitzer]. 15 November 2020. PS Publishing. en.
  73. Web site: New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird edited by Paula Guran. Prime Books. 17 April 2019.
  74. Web site: Cthulhu Fhtagn!. Word Horde. 16 April 2015 . 20 April 2019.
  75. Web site: Innsmouth Nightmares - Table of Contents. www.loisgresh.com. 18 April 2019.
  76. Web site: The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu edited by Paula Guran. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20191214045507/http://paulaguran.com/the-mammoth-book-of-cthulhu-edited-by-paula-guran/. 14 December 2019. 15 November 2020. Paula Guran.
  77. Web site: Black Wings V [eBook] Edited by S. T. Joshi ]. 22 June 2022 . PS Publishing.
  78. Web site: Nightmare's Realm: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic. Dark Regions Press. 8 May 2019.
  79. Web site: Black Wings VI [eBook] Edited by S. T. Joshi]. 17 April 2019. PS Publishing.
  80. Web site: Weirdbook #38. 15 November 2020. Wildside Press. en.

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