Halloween Haunts: Heady Ritual, Deviant Day by L. Andrew Cooper

Halloween Haunts: Heady Ritual, Deviant Day by L. Andrew Cooper

Not yet at the time of this writing, but on October 31, 2014—barring unforeseen circumstances, such as stepping into an open hole in the sidewalk and being impaled on the metalwork below—I will spend much of the day writing a short story. This year is the 22nd in a row for which my big Halloween plans are to be completely antisocial until I have produced a draft of something horrific, which I will then share with my partner and a close circle of friends and family. Not only is the voting-age status of this ritual an undeniable trump card for…
Halloween Haunts: Back In My Day… by Armand Rosamilia

Halloween Haunts: Back In My Day… by Armand Rosamilia

I’ll be 45 in November but some days I feel much older. I find myself talking about the Good Old Days and when I was a kid and saying things like you damn kids, get off my lawn. Halloween was a magical day when I was a child, and even into my teens. OK, late teens. I can remember all of the cheesy costumes my mom would dress me in: Ronald McDonald, a cowboy, Gene Simmons… but never as Darth Vader. I always wanted to be Darth Vader. My parents were great people but we didn’t have extra money to…
Halloween Haunts: My Father’s Holiday by Jay Wilburn

Halloween Haunts: My Father’s Holiday by Jay Wilburn

Halloween is such an oddly pseudo-religious, family friendly, mildly inappropriate for children, cross generational, community oriented, unrecognized national holiday. It has all the bizarre mixtures of a surreal story element. If Halloween did not exist and an author invented it as a device for a story, it would surely push the story into the realm of weird fiction. It is a holiday which encourages children in taking candy from as many strangers as possible. There is an implied and encouraged threat of vandalism based on a child’s judgment of quality of treat and adult homeowners’ choice of participation in some…
Halloween Haunts: The Darkness by J. Lincoln Fenn

Halloween Haunts: The Darkness by J. Lincoln Fenn

It sounds corny, cliché, but the truth is that when I saw my mother’s body in the coffin at the wake, she looked…good. Like she was taking a well-deserved nap. There was no trace of the pancreatic tumor that had swollen her belly so she looked 8 months pregnant, her skin was luminous and there was even a slight blush to her cheek. When I reached out a hand to touch her forehead, it was a true shock to find it cold. Cold because, after all, this body had just been pulled from a chiller, all to maintain the illusion…
Halloween Haunts: The Highwayman By David B. Riley

Halloween Haunts: The Highwayman By David B. Riley

One of the first stories I ever had published is "The Highwayman." I've actually managed to get it reprinted some 10 times over the years at various anthologies and such. It's very short, kind of whimsical, and I tend to dust it off every October. I debated whether to use it for Halloween Haunts as it's not really horror.  But it definitely is a Halloween story.  I hope folks enjoy it.    "The Highwayman" by David B. Riley Kalcouldn't tell for certain no one had seen him, but there weren't any sirens screeching through the night. He opened the hatch and…
Halloween Haunts: The Last Night of October by Marge Simon

Halloween Haunts: The Last Night of October by Marge Simon

The Last Night of October   The last night of October is one of crickets, loud and soft, blending with a yellow gray sky, a chill wind rising,   while down the street children in costume parade from house to house. But ours is dark.   A door slams. My wife's thin face, distorted with hate, breath stinking of gin, that shy pretty girl I took to the altar so many years ago, out she goes to the car.   (about the brakes - I'd fixed them just for her)   She revs it up, and charges into the rush…
Stephen King’s HorrorSelfie!

Stephen King’s HorrorSelfie!

Visit horrorselfies.com to upload your own Horror Selfie and to see selfies from Stephen King, Lisa Tuttle, Peter Straub, Ellen Datlow, Aaron Sterns, and Ramsey Campbell among many others! And, you might win a prize if you submit in October!
Halloween Haunts: Halloween, Horror, and Death by Leigh M. Lane

Halloween Haunts: Halloween, Horror, and Death by Leigh M. Lane

The best Halloween I ever had occurred a little over a decade ago. I was living with my sisters in a large house just outside of Las Vegas, and we’d joined efforts to transform the front yard into a terrifying treat. We’d constructed elaborate gravestones for the lawn, adorned the porch with spider webs and multiple Jack-o’-Lanterns carved with devilishly scary faces, set out a cauldron flooding over with the sublime of dry ice, and compiled hours of spooky MIDI files to finish the mood. The finished product had been horror-film worthy, the reactions it evoked worth every hour we’d…
Halloween Haunts: Monster Squad: An Appreciation by Patty Templeton

Halloween Haunts: Monster Squad: An Appreciation by Patty Templeton

Halloween, to me, is about watching movies. Yeah, yeah, costumes and candy, too, but it’s mostly about the MOVIES. A hella fun flick I revisit nearly every Halloween is The Monster Squad. 1987 was not kind to The Monster Squad. The New York Times said, “The Monster Squad looks like a feature-length commercial for a joke store that sells not-great, rubber monster masks.” The Washington Post was even harsher saying, “…the movie plays like it was written with a power tool.” It cost 12 million to make and yet recouped only 3 million at the box office. Geez. But this…this…
Halloween Haunts: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Jim Pyre

Halloween Haunts: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Jim Pyre

I’ve loved Halloween. It seems passé I should, but before I read my first bit of Lovecraft. I was crazy for the holiday. It was different, not the same tick-tock ritual as the others.  Thanksgiving, I sat at the same table until I was sixteen.  Christmas, sure it was the mother load, but how long can you pretend Uncle Fred is the jolly old fat man.  Halloween was always different. Always on my terms. I wanted to be a pirate. Bam, I was a pirate. Same goes for a mad scientist, or even a Ghostbuster. I also picked where I…
Charles Day Retires as Mentor Program Chair, Replaced by Michael Knost

Charles Day Retires as Mentor Program Chair, Replaced by Michael Knost

As previously announced Charles Day is stepping down as HWA's Mentor Program Chair after three years to concentrate on his roles as Co-Chair of HWA's New York/Long Island Chapter and as a Member of the Library Committee. HWA's President Rocky Wood thanked Charles for his service, "Charles has done a superb job, increasing the number of members being mentored many fold to 35. The work needed to get more mentors and matching mentors and mentees is immense and largely unseen." Members who wish to volunteer as a mentors should email president@horror.org. After a handover period Michael Knost will be the…
Halloween Haunts: Real Horror on Halloween by Billie Sue Mosiman

Halloween Haunts: Real Horror on Halloween by Billie Sue Mosiman

I love the holiday. It's dark, chilly October flying fast into November and the nights are full of ghosts. Sometimes we become ghosts. Don’t we? Real horror is to face a life-threatening disease, facing it squarely, shoulders thrown back, and a mantra in the mind saying, "Go ahead, do your worst. I did my best. I'm not afraid of you." I saw several of my friends and contemporaries in the past year succumb to the Reaper and yet some of them overcame and rallied. I cheered for that, sending my love and healing thoughts to them. I rallied, too. The…
What The HWA Has Meant To Me: JG Faherty

What The HWA Has Meant To Me: JG Faherty

(Editor’s note.) While editing Legends of the Mountain State, I rejected a story from a fella named JG Faherty. I immediately received a thank you from him, along with another submission. I rejected that one, too. It didn’t take long to receive a submission from the same young man when I started accepting submissions for Legends of the Mountain State 2. I rejected that story as well. Then, a year later, I read a manuscript from Greg for Legends of the Mountain State 3 and couldn’t believe how wonderful it was. In an email, I told him I wanted to…
Discounts for Members

Discounts for Members

Did you know that the Horror Writers Association has a list of businesses that offer discounts to its members? As a member, you can get discounts on advertising, car rentals, editing and proofreading, merchandise, publications, travel and tours, and web services. Members, if you haven't seen the list, check it out! (Member login required.) To Businesses The Horror Writers Association wishes to thank all those who have so generously offered discounts to HWA members. If you are a publisher or bookseller, are involved in some other type of business providing products or services that might be of interest to professional…
Halloween Haunts: Why Halloween Is the Best Holiday by Tony Peak

Halloween Haunts: Why Halloween Is the Best Holiday by Tony Peak

For horror writers, Halloween is the most anticipated holiday of the year. It’s not hard to imagine why: many dress up like their favorite monsters or villains, and it’s easier to find black lipstick in a department store. The holiday is observed in the middle of autumn, when there is less daylight, the night is chillier, and the landscape has shriveled up in preparation for winter. There is a vague sense of impending excitement, as the year draws to a close. Perfect setting for a gothic novel—or a celebration of who we really are. What places does Halloween have in…
Halloween Haunts: Halloween Changes Through The (My) Ages by JG Faherty

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Changes Through The (My) Ages by JG Faherty

As a writer with a strong leaning towards horror and dark fiction, it's only natural that I'm a huge fan of Halloween. In fact, it's my favorite holiday. The fact that you're reading this means it's probably one of yours as well. But I loved Halloween long before I ever thought about putting pen to paper. As a kid, it was the third-best night of the year (coming after Christmas and my birthday), and as I grew older, my love of all things spooky only grew. However, time has a habit of changing how we look at things. While at…
Halloween Haunts: From Soul Cakes to Bones of the Holy–Halloween European Style by Catherine Cavendish

Halloween Haunts: From Soul Cakes to Bones of the Holy–Halloween European Style by Catherine Cavendish

I suppose, in some ways, I had a somewhat deprived childhood. Oh, nothing serious, but when I grew up in the northern English town of Halifax, nothing really happened on Hallowe’en. There was no Trick or Treating and no kids ran the gauntlet of their mother’s anger by tearing holes in her best white sheets to make ghost costumes. There were precious few Jack O’Lanterns. In fact, I don’t recall seeing many pumpkins around anyway. I do have a vague recollection of bobbing for apples round at a friend’s house, but that’s about as Hallowe’en as it got. So I…
Horror Selfies! We want your face.

Horror Selfies! We want your face.

Inspired by the popular “Say it with a Sign” meme—used by everyone from Ellen DeGeneres and Jon Bon Jovi, to David Beckham and Princes William and Harry—the HWA is utilizing the vast reach of social media to provide a platform through which people can tell the world why they love horror. The HWA invites authors and readers, actors and directors, fans and followers, to submit a selfie to www.HorrorSelfies.com in which they hold a sign encouraging others to read horror/dark fantasy, to watch horror movies, or to write horror. Additionally, the HWA is encouraging people to promote literacy and reading…
Halloween Haunts: Sweets in the Darkness by James Chambers

Halloween Haunts: Sweets in the Darkness by James Chambers

Around this time of year, an image of Halloween comes to my mind. It’s a Halloween that never quite occurred and likely never will. It lives in my imagination, defined by oblong shadows stretching beneath Bradburyesque October skies, cast by comic book haunted houses stacked with impossible, Gothic architecture, cobwebbed porches, and ominous, arched windows. Children disguised in costumes worthy of a Hammer horror film—or at least a Corman sci-fi flick—rush along leaf-blown streets, clutching candy-swollen sacks. The chilly breeze lifts their voices, crackling with excitement. Hearts enflamed with celebration, they rush freely through the gloom. Jack-o-lanterns outnumber street lamps.…
How the HWA Helped My Career: Jonathan Maberry

How the HWA Helped My Career: Jonathan Maberry

My name is Jonathan and I write horror. I know, it sounds like the kind of thing you’d admit to at a meeting. Or maybe after taking an oath in court. Or, maybe something you’d tell a priest as part of your dying confession. I write horror. I read horror. I like horror. Or, maybe it’s that I love it. Viewed from a distance, considered without more information, it’s easy to judge and to reach the wrong conclusion. Happens all the time. I’ve encountered it more times than I can count. People meet me and discover that I write horror…