W. H. Pugmire

Wilum 'Hopfrog' Pugmire
W. H. Pugmire signing books at the World Horror Convention on March 28, 2008
Born	(1951-05-03) May 3, 1951 (age 65)
Occupation	Short story writer
Nationality	American
Genre	Horror, Dark fantasy
Literary movement	Cosmicism
Website
sesqua.net

Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire (born May 3, 1951) is a writer of horror fiction based in Seattle, Washington. His works typically are 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 pays homage to Lovecraftian lore. Lovecraft scholar and biographer S. T. Joshi has described Pugmire 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."

Originally published mainly in small presses, since 1997 Pugmire has produced a steady stream of book collections. His stories have also been published in magazines and anthologies such as The Year's Best Horror Stories,Weird Tales, The Children of Cthulhu, The Book of Cthulhu, and many more. The Tangled Muse, a major retrospective of his work, was published in 2010.

Born 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. Pugmire served as a Mormon missionary in Omagh, Northern Ireland, where he corresponded with Robert Bloch and first began writing fiction. After returning to the United States in 1973, he discovered Arkham House and the fiction and Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft. In a press release for one of Pugmire's books, it is said that Pugmire's discovery of punk rock "saved his soul and gave him a new fictive voice."

When a student at Franklin High School and into circa the 1970s he played vampire "Count Pugsly" at Jones' Fantastic Museum in Seattle. Issue #69 of Famous Monsters of Filmland was dedicated to Pugmire. The cover feature was Lon Chaney, Jr.'s vampire in London After Midnight, who inspired the look of Pugmire's Count Pugsly.