Pacific Northwest Gothic is a literary subgenre that explores the darker, more gloomy and disturbing aspects of Pacific Northwest culture.

It specializes in themes that revolve around unsettling, often highly atmospheric experiences with nature and the supernatural, the otherworldly, and the hidden violence of the Wild West.

Contemporary stories may also intersect old folkways with high tech in narratives that portend the dark side of AI, the dangers of “smart” living, and cyberstalking.

Here, there’s also no shortage of spooky campfire stories featuring cryptids that include more than just Sasquatch.

Look for the Lady in the Lake (Lake Crescent), the infamous tree octopus, plentiful UFO sightings, ghosts on horseback in the Cascades, haunted taverns and logging towns, missing cemeteries, the Narrows Bridge kraken, murderous sanitoriums, the Basket Ogress, shanghai tunnels, giant octopi, and shuttered asylums where history points to horrifying lobotomization and disrespect for human remains.

These cautionary tales, like other regional gothic narratives, are rooted in the PNW’s indelicate links to Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, Prohibition, failed treaties, and even the dot com boom and bust.

The region’s literature also maintains an ongoing conversation to seasonal affective depression (SAD) and other mental health woes linked literally to its shadowy forests, dark winters, and perpetual fog.

Modern themes include class conflict, queer identity, echoes of war, and climate change.