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RIO WULFMARE
AUTHOR - POET - ARTIST
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A POEM WITH FORGOTTEN GROUND REGAINED
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ABOUT WULFMARE, & MORE ART
"Elegant and haunting in a wholesome sort of way."
from Instagram reviewer @pickmanscarrioncreature, on 'Star Moment'
"This is stunning and creepy in the best way."
from professional editor Kelly Frame, on the artwork Kinnóra's Realm
PUBLICATIONS
POETRY
'GHOSTS OF BATTLE'
forthcoming in Amon Hen, with The Tolkien Society
Alliterative Verse
Old-English alliterative verse (AV) is poetry following strict traditions of half-lines, containing four beats each, all connected together by left-heavy alliteration. Consider Beowulf or 'The Battle of Maldon.'
For more information on the alliterative verse revival (not just following Old English tradition, but a mix of Middle English, Old Norse, Old Saxon, and Middle Welsh, too):
'STAR-MOMENT'
in Forgotten Ground Regained, Issue 11 (Summer 2026)
'CHILDREN OF DUSK'
with a designing-principles commentary, on Instagram
'STAR-HYMN'
modelled on 'Cædmon's Hymn,' on Instagram
'POEMS FOR EARLY WINTER'
with the University of Essex
SHORT FICTION
LOD THE ABYSS-STEPPER
a high, dark fantasy short story, currently being queried with online fantasy magazines.
COMPREHENSIVE PUBLICATION HISTORY
2026
Paul Deane, founder of Forgotten Ground Regained, introduces Wulfmare's recent 'Star-Moment' as the moment "when Lúthien is dancing in the starlight, after Daeron's music has suddenly stopped, but before Lúthien has turned to notice Beren watching."
'Star-Moment' appears alongside Wulfmare's original illustration The Dream of an Elf, and Deane's introduction, in Forgotten Ground Regained, Issue 11 (Summer 2026).
'Ghosts of Battle' is Wulfmare's ode to Rohan. It was read at Westmoot '26, in Minneapolis, by Paul Deane, and it is pending publication with the Tolkien Society in Amon Hen.
2025
His 'Children of Dusk' was read by Joe Hoffman at the University of East Anglia's conference, 'New Perspectives on Alliteration in Poetry and Cultural History' (Sep, 2025), and is cited in Hoffman's follow-up article on his blog, 'The Hunt for Alliterative Melody' (Sep, 2025). 'Children of Dusk' appears in full, with a designing-principle commentary, on Wulfmare's Instagram account, and is cited by Paul Deane in Forgotten Ground Regained, Issue 9 (Winter 2025).
'Children of Dusk' appears on Wulfmare's Instagram account alongside 'Star-Hymn,' a short alliterative verse poem modelled on the famous Old-English 'Cædmon's Hymn.'
2023–2025
Wulfmare published with the University of Essex as he learned. Alongside 'Poems for Early Winter,' he also wrote [earliest listed at the bottom]:
- A grimdark fantasy vignette called 'Dance of the Lich-Watch,' (no longer online) following the plots points of a deleted scene between Tywin and Pycelle, from the programme Game of Thrones.
- A post-apocalypse short story called 'Junction,' an apocalypse of waste.
- A cyberpunk short story called 'Doze.' Everyone in this one is allowed one vice; government mandate.
PUBLICATIONS
PROJECTS
LOD THE ABYSS-STEPPER
Short Story
QUERYING
PUBLISHING PLAN
THE COURTING OF MENAROS · I
Short Story
ROUGH DRAFTING
CORRIDOR FOR THE MOON-DEAD; or, STONE HISTORY
Short Story
ROUGH DRAFTING
First paragraphs of LOD THE ABYSS-STEPPER
SHORT FICTION
Independent narratives, 2k - 5k words, acting as a proof-of-concept for future, larger projects in the Highdark cosmogony. Ideal publications for these stories would be The Dark Magazine, Grimdark Magazine, Apex, and Three-Lobed Burning Eye.
Scroll for the opening of Wulfmare's current project: 'Lod the Abyss-Stepper'
VIII
… up the hill’s steps to Catenary Pass.
IX
All the halethas snarled from their shield cover, twelve abreast, across the width of the killing lane. Shimmering in the hail-haze. Those nearest their Lord wore red silken blood-knots on their right hands. They did not share their histories in gold vanity but humbly. And their Lord was not the shortest among them.
Dhannan – assassin – crouched at the other end of Catenary Pass. He watched his abyss-stepper, hulking beside him. But his abyss-stepper stopped just a javelin’s path from the enemy Lord and their gathered halethas. The Ettin, the bruiser, the abyss-stepper, raised his thirtyfold claymore.
The hail stopped briefly, and then the assassin grinned.
“Move them aside.” Dhannan ground his teeth at the huge man’s back.
The bruiser bowed his head at the duellist, the Weirding Lord on the Maira side of the Pass. Torrent-breaths blasted down his bandaged nose. The Lord’s chain eddied lightly and slowly through the air. Hail turned to Snow and settled on the unmoving bruiser. Then he breathed out and lowered the claymore.
Dhannan’s vision spasmed, and he curled his upper lip. “Poxy Ettin, the Mór on Maira Hill, it’s just there. Don’t live down your legend now.” He pointed down the Pass into Maira, the squat rotunda framed by armoured halethas. “Kill them all.”
FOUR STANDALONES
Longer, enriched stories that develop key factions, worldviews, locations, and ultimately offer book-long glimpses into the world. These will not be novels, but discomforts, composite novels, short story cycles, texts with narratal conceits.
Holegn Persists is a WIP short story cycle.
Conversations with a Dream-Reader is a WIP project made of vignettes, following each entity that has a conversation with Marr.
SOMNOLENCE
Five novels, constructed around a WIP character that Wulfmare refers to as 'Neceros.' A lich, who creates a surrogate body to gestate all of Winter, and who seeks to become the apprentice to the frigid immortal mother, Róna. She fails. New plan: usurp Winter and all ice, ever.
THE REST
A verse translation of the Old English poem 'The Battle of Maldon,' together with re-creative writing that explore the potential of gaps for practice-based creative writing scholars.
The WIP short story 'Corridor for the Moon-Dead; or, Stone History' reimagines the Anglo-Saxon context. It draws on the the poem's language, and structure to retell the events of August 10, 991, from the perspective of stone. This is a narrative in lithic deep time, experimenting with impermanence, obsolescence, and ellipse.
"Sensitive but still mysterious."
from author Eva Rebiuh, on the WIP novel Holegn Persists
Wulfmare's HIGHDARK stories are perfect for fans of ...
On 'Gardens of the Moon' - A Book Review
Deep in the recesses of my mind linger the echoes of supernatural massacres in unseen realms of existence, where chaos bubbles and plumes in fountains of light and fantasy. Unbridled, dark-epic energy. The most complex, psychologically untethered sorcerers in all Speculative Fiction. A tapestry of the carnal and the carnivalesque together.
Trust nothing that you see.
Battle surrounds Moon's Spawn: beyond spectacular. The fighting is grim, sweating, visceral, elbows-spells-and-explosives-kind of fun / -kind of terror. The Hounds are more ferocious than real dog-faced beasts, and the inanimate dolls cannot be trusted to stay inanimate. Every surface and texture is tangible here.
Continue reading this review, and others on Malazan novels and dark fantasy tomes:
PROJECTS
Wulfmare posts every other Wednesday, where he can. Expect:
Creative reviews that match the aura of each narrative reviewed.
Ramblings about numinous and beautiful places. Picture Sutton Hoo,
Stonehenge, the Cotswolds, Maldon.
Reading community challenges and goals, like TBR check-ins and
bookshelf 'shelfies.'
Every post begins with a Question of the Day. Chime in, find your niche, and start the conversation.
IG
CALL ME
RIO WULFMARE
Rio Wulfmare’s storytelling has appeared in Forgotten Ground Regained and is forthcoming in Amon Hen. He writes speculative fiction, shapes poetry (specialising in Old-English alliterative verse), and creates dry-media fine art and illustrations.
His writing is especially caught up in the fragility of modern lyricists like Aurora and Editors’s Tom Smith and the non-fiction vulnerability of New Nature Writing and psychogeography—a voice with which he attempts balancing the cosmic and the intimate.
"Rio" is the legendary anthem by Duran Duran: simple enough. There are two "Wulfmærs" in 'The Battle of Maldon.' Rio likes the second, hearth-companion beside the ealdorman Byrhtnoth, who hurls the fatal javelin back at the Vikings, and who perishes protecting the body of his lord.
Recently, Erikson and Esslemont’s Malazan has stolen his heart, and the prose of Clarke’s Piranesi and Mandel's Station Eleven have upended his list of books he needs to read. But the Gothic phase is looming again, The Mysteries of Udolpho on his shelf behind him. He is an alumnus of the University of Essex’s BA creative writing programme and an annual attendee of the University of Liverpool's conference on Current Research in Speculative Fiction. Wulfmare now teaches English in the UK, engulfed by Lego, books, and the ocean.
BIO
GALLERY
A collection of original artworks by Wulfmare in the same Highdark setting, plus fan art, in the same monochrome style.
Hover over each image to read more.
GALLERY
CONTACT
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