Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I shall not send you that previous email but instead draft something new. You shall see it at some point in the immediate future.

I'm also glad I've ruined your work schedule for the night. It warms my heart. I do hope you enjoy the tale in Best New Horror as well. I've received some good reaction from it.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

You are evil, dear sir! But nigh it is ye day after, & I shall not linger here long, for I've weird fiction to write. I quite enjoy'd your tale. I sensed when I saw the Captain's name that it wou'd concern a sinister kind of forgetting. You handled it superbly, and the ending is quite chilling. You captured, in depicting the other village, a subtle and yet disturbing sense of place, which is one of the things I most love about weird fiction, that it lures me to these realms, these dark domains, that are tainted and disturbed. Well done!
And now -- I take my leave of ye, TLO -- until -- perhaps -- to-night, when darkness falls -- -- --

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I just want to point out that there are worse things in the world than being compared to Lovecraft. Especially if the comparrison is positive. I'll bet that the critics say something like "he takes Lovecraft to a new height" about your work.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I finish'd my new book, WEIRD INHABITANTS OF SESQUA VALLEY, last night. It's wee, 35,000 words, and all Sesqua Valley tales. 'Twill be publish'd this summer by a new publisher, whose website is Independent Press: Terradan Works -- and my buddy Jeffrey Thomas will be doing the cover illustration. Now I begin work on the next book, for ye chapbook line of Bloodletting Press. I'm hoping to call it BEAUTIFUL GROTESQUE. Bloodletting is a publisher of very modern horror, & thus I am going to try and write a small collection (40,000 words) that is mostly non-Lovecraftian, really weird cutting edge psycho-#### -- but not "extreme horror" in that I don't enjoy writing about excess gore &c. I like to be emotionally and visually and psychologically extreme. I'm gonna try to write a but of weird tales set in my city of exiles, Gershom. And I want to work on a new prose-poem sequence, "Beautiful Grotesque," but this one inspired by decadent poetry and art. So, this will be a refreshing change and an new artistic challenge.

I now have three books awaiting publication -- pretty damn rad, and it's all because I can now stay home and write full-time. That is such a wonderful gift.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I would like to ask the following question to Mr. Pugmire. Why is it so important for him to rewrite some of his stories?

The story "Hungry Places" in Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror (Mythos Books, 1999) differs from the one in Tales from Sesqua Valley, published much earlier (Sarcophagus Press, 1990). However, I found both versions equally beautiful. I'm not sure but I think that any of both versions, slightly different if I don't remember exactly, is as I said excellent reading. So, my question again, why do you bother rewriting your stories? This is a question I already asked Ligotti, who also rewrites some of his stories, and his answer does not convince me at all.

"The cemetery was very old, an obsolescent and abandoned place that had not known new death for decades". (1990)

"The place was very old, an obsolescent necropolis in which outsiders to Sesqua Valley were buried." (1999)

Of course, Myhtos Books version was more beautiful because it added drawings by Stanley C. Sargent.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I've just re-written the story AGAIN for my new book. It's going to be the rue of my future bibliographers, to try and keep track of all the different versions. I always rewrite when a new edition of my stories is published, I simply cannot help myself. I justify it by telling myself that anyone who has the older books will have a newer version of the original story, not the same old thing. And I hate my early work -- passionately. When David Wynn told me he wanted to re-published DREAMS OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR, I said "Not unless I can completely re-write all of the stories." And so I did. I like to see what little changes I can make when I approach an old tale anew. The new version of "Hungry Place" is very wee, a mere 812 words. The new version of "Drink the Moon" is 1,633 words and it is a complete re-write, almost a new story. I think I shall be doing less re-writing as my style continues to mature -- but those early stories were so bad (to my present eyes) that I had to try to "save" them with another re-write. Some professionals have chided me for this "bad habit", saying that I should let those early stories speak for themselves. But most of my early books had a mere 200 print run, whereas my newer books have a much larger audience. I sometimes ruin a story with a re-write. The new version of "The Woven Offspring" in my forthcoming Centipede Press collection may have been a mistake. I was writing it and I thought of a radically different ending -- & one voice in my brain said, "Don't do it!", but my Imp of Ye Perverse said bollocks to that and I went ahead. Perhaps it is merely a sign that I am hopelessly & eternally an amateur. But I cannot help myself at present. Everything in the new book, WEIRD INHABITANTS OF SESQUA VALLEY, is totally and completely revised, in some cases a new version of an old idea. I think it's a good wee collection, much better than had I left those original boring and badly-written stories untouch'd.

Also, my VISION of Sesqua Valley has grown and altered with the years. It now has a very solid mythos, hints about the children of the shadow and the White Mountain &c &c. When I wrote those early stories, I didn't have a mature vision of what I wanted to do with Sesqua Valley. I was a stupid Cthulhu Mythos kid who was having fun. Now I'm an old queen who is obsessed with writing beautifully, poetically. I want the mythos of Sesqua Valley to be in tune, so to speak. I don't want the discord or contradictions that one finds in Lovecraft's fiction, where he says one thing about the Great Race in one story and then changes it elsewhere. However, I don't think, now that I have just scanned the new version of "The Hungry Place," that it is much of an improvement over the older versions, and so this new version may in fact be a failure. I guess I'll find out if anyone who is in contact with me buys the book.

For my next two books, I cannot rewrite the stories because they are gonna be mostly new and original tales. All of my old stuff has been heavily reprinted and is available in present-day editions. So -- the newer books, BEAUTIFUL GROTESQUE and THE TANGLED MUSE, will have mostly original tales with just a few reprints. And those reprints are of newer stories with which I am well-pleased, because I wrote them recently, in maturity.

I like change. I gets bored. That's why my profile image is ever-altered. I'm restless.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

When do you think these books are going to be available?

I remember that Borges used to say that he published his works not to make any revisions of them over and over. Your viewpoint, rewriting stories as your conception of the world grows more mature, is quite interesting.

20 years ago, I tried to write a story, poor quality literature for a friend of mine, and starting with a simple plot, I rewrote it several times after, always adding details, slightly changing the original idea, deleting lines, adding new ones, and finally I ended up with a story that was alive in itself. I just created a monster, and I was so obsessed in writing it, that I forgot about it (fear of being devoured by it, perhaps), and after so many years I still keep story and revisions untouched. When I read a few of your stories, and revisions, I felt that someone else did it, and by adding more revisions, I just wonder if this last "Hungry Places" version is going to be the last one, or maybe, and more interesting, there is going to be another one.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

No, this will be my last re-write of "The Hungry Place" -- I need to concentrate on new work. Rewriting is a compulsion for me, but mainly I simply hate how those early stories read now that my style has matured and fully developed. My newer strories please me, mostly. Most of the stories from THE FUNGAL STAIN that are appearing in the Centipede book have been left untouched, the two that I revised being "An Eidolon of Nothing" and "The Fungal Stain."

The books will appear as follows:
WEIRD INHABITANTS OF SESQUA VALLEY, Terradan Works, this summer as an inexpensive paperback;
INHABITANTS OF WRAITHWOOD: COLLECTED WEIRD FICTION OF W. H. PUGMIRE, Centipede Press, scheduled to be released next Spring, in time for World Horror Convention in Brighton, England. I suspect it will cost $95;
DREAMS OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR, revised/expanded edition, perhaps to be published as hardcover, from Mythos Books. It will be publish'd -- well, it's Mythos Books we're talking about -- it'll come out Some Strange Aeon.

I'm now working on the collection for the chapbook line of Bloodletting Press. It will be almost all new work. I have no idea when it will be out. I hope to have it completely written at year's end. Because I'm having so many books published (my last one came out just last October) they may want to wait and "pace" its release with my other titles.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

Wonderful news, Wilum. I hope your INHABITANTS OF WRAITHWOOD: COLLECTED WEIRD FICTION OF W. H. PUGMIRE by Centipede Press receives an impressive presentation similar to their editon of Michael Shea's works -- minus the typos, of course.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

Jerad tells me that the book will be exactly the size and format of Michael's book -- which is the only Centipede book that I have yet purchased (I bought it at WHC in Salt Lake City, and just holding that book made me ache to be published by Centipede, which I thought unlikely). A beautifully made book enchants me as nothing else can, and Jerad's books are so handsome. Mine will have, I hope, a rather Victorian fin-de-siecle "feel" to it, with one of Madame Talbot's posters serving as endpaper image, and hopefully an Aubrey Beardsley-esque board design of yellow and black.

Last night I completed the story that was inspired by TLO's "Who Killed St. John?" thread, on which I posted the beginning of what I hoped would be a long story, a direct sequel to Lovecraft's tale set in Sesqua Valley. I tried to write it a while back, but the inspiration was not there. After reading S. T.'s magnificent THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS, however, I became extremely obsess'd with ye writing of Lovecraftian weird fiction, and this has aided me in the construction of my story. I completed it last night, at just a wee bit over 6,000 words, and have added it to ye contents of my newest to-be-published collection, WEIRD INHABITANTS OF SESQUA VALLEY, whut will be published this summer by a new publisher for me (http://www.terradanworks,com). S. T. is the only critic whose opinion means anything to me, & so to have him, in his book, praise my Lovecraftian fiction as being a sincere homage to Lovecraft that doesn't merely rip-off HPL's ideas but is original unto itself, has fueled by artistic flame. I burn to write weird fiction. Being here, at TLO, has added fuel to ye aesthetic flame. You are all so literary, so knowledgeable about the arts, so in tune to the world of literary art. I find few people in my personal life who shew any interest in classical world literature, or with anything to do with culture, and so finding TLO has been to feel like an orphan newly adopted into the family he has longed for. Thank you, my loves. I have dedicated this newest story, "Some Distant Baying Sound," to you.