For those who don’t know, Wilum Pugmire was hospitalized Thursday night with heart problems (thanks to Will Hart for letting us know). I guess I should have known something was wrong because I emailed him Thursday to see how his Thanksgiving was going, and he didn’t reply.

Anyway, I just spoke with him on the phone. He told me that the prognosis keeps getting worse each day — the doctors are, in his words, treating him like a terminal patient. He said he honestly does not know if he’s going to die or not. However, he’s in really great spirits. He told me that if he does die, he has accomplished everything he set out to do. He had the goal years ago of wanting to be known as a Lovecraftian writer, and he feels he has done that. I replied that not only has he accomplished it, but that I agree with Will Hart — he is the world’s greatest living Lovecraftian writer.

He has a relative bringing him a couple of Lovecraftian books tomorrow — he says if he dies, he wants to do it with a Lovecraft book on his chest.

Wilum may be feeling chipper, but this news has hit me and I know a lot of others hard. Wilum is one of the nicest people on the planet.

I can’t release personal details, but I am checking in with him again tomorrow and I’ll report back here after I speak with him. Please, everyone, feel free to comment below if you would like to pass a message on to him — I’ll print the comments out and send them via overnight postal mail to Wilum on Monday.

(Image by Andrea Bonazzi)