# My two new books out this month



## w h pugmire esq (Apr 4, 2013)

Yes--by some nameless eldritch cosmic plotting, my next two books, both limited edition hardcover collections, are coming out this month--and it wouldn't surprise me if they are released in ye same week.  This is absurd, of course, because your books should not have to compete with each other.

I'm very grateful that this forum allows us to promote our work in the weird phantasy genre.  When one writes exclusively for the small press, it behooves the writer to do what they can to spread the word about their books, as often the publisher is a one or two-person operation and they are spending most of their time and money on publishing.

*Encounters with Enoch Coffin* is a book that I co-wrote with the amazing Jeffrey Thomas.  With this collection, we have try'd to create a very modern version of H. P. Lovecraft's Richard Upton Pickman.  Enoch Coffin (we made up the name, thinking it a very unlikely one, only to discover there was a real Enoch Coffin long ago!) is an artist who lives in Boston, and who has a penchant for discovering and portraying the darker side of weird reality.  The stories (six by Jeff and six by myself) are audaciously Lovecraftian.  Jeff set his stories in "real" New England, and I set most of mine in "Lovecraft country" such as Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth.  The $99 deluxe edition of the book is almost sold out, but plenty of ye trade hardcover are still available from the publisher, Dark Regions Press.  Trade pb and ebook editions will follow.

Arcane Wisdom Press will be publishing _*Bohemians of Sesqua Valley*_, a wee collection of mostly new longish stories set in my haunted supernatural valley.  Again, the book is Lovecraftian to ye core.  It seems that the older I grow (I'll be 62 next month) the more an obsessed H. P. Lovecraft fanboy I become.  I love that it is so.

Both books are graced with amazing art.  If any of y'all will be attending the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival & Cthulhu Con in Portland, OR next month, I will be doing a wee reading from one of these new books there.  To all of you who have bought my books and supported my efforts as a writer of Lovecraftian weird fiction, my eternal thanks.  Writing these stories brings me my richest happiness, my deepest joy.


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## j d worthington (Apr 5, 2013)

It is a rather odd situation, isn't it? I hope, though, that it doesn't cause too much conflict amongst your readers....

And, even with the oddities of the situation, congratulations!....


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## Lobolover (Apr 9, 2013)

If by some chance your books would become a best seller then you would have the opportunity to be beaten out of the whatever top one has to be in to be considered one, by _yourself_. 

And I should probably not say more because your publication record and overall superiority to me in every measurable capacity is intimidating me quite severly


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## w h pugmire esq (Apr 15, 2013)

Lobolover said:


> If by some chance your books would become a best seller then you would have the opportunity to be beaten out of the whatever top one has to be in to be considered one, by _yourself_.
> 
> And I should probably not say more because your publication record and overall superiority to me in every measurable capacity is intimidating me quite severly



Oh, my dear, don't be absurd.  There is no commercial audience for my work, my books seldom get reviewed (and of late the reviews have been negative, complaining about my prose style and that my characters don't talk like "real" people), and my hardcover collections have a print run of under 200 copies.  I don't mind that this is so, I enjoy being a ghoul of ye horror underground; but now that I am unemployed and plagued by health issues that disqualify me for the kind of work I am used to doing (dish-washing, prep cook, janitor), my future seems a bit grim.  I find it amazing, truth be told, that H. P. Lovecraft is as popular as he is, because his writing style is so divorced from what modern youth are into, so it seems.  I wish someone with ability would study the popular appeal of Lovecraft's work and be able to judge how much of it is tied to just his writing, how much of it is tied to ye film and gaming industries.  S. T. Joshi has just turned in his Penguin Modern Classics edition of the prose & poetry of Clark Ashton Smith, and I am very keen to see how such a book appeals to ye masses.  

The pure joy of writing the kind of book I do is knowing that I give moments of pleasure to other Lovecraftians, that I please other members of ye tribe.  It gives me a kind of ecstasy to attend the _H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival & Cthulhu Con_ and be surrounded by hundreds of other Lovecraftians, to actually meet the people who read my books.  People who aren't Lovecraftians, even if they are into horror, often have a violent reaction to my work, my prose style, my characters.  In two or three fairly recent reviews there have been complaints that my characters don't talk like "real" people.  To such reviewers I would say that I certainly don't write about real folk--I write weird Lovecraftian phantasy.  "I could not write about 'ordinary people' because I am not the least interested in them.  Without interest there can be no art."  This is one of my Silver Lovecraftian Rules.  Like Lovecraft, I do not hesitate to say that I am trying to create Literary Art; & like him I find myself groaning at my inadequacy.  But one must try, and do the best one can.  If I am at times successful--excellent.  If not, well, I keep on trying.  

"We work in the dark -- we do what we can -- we give what we have.  Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task.  The rest is the madness of art."  --Henry James


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