Halloween

My October birthday is kind of a holy day for me. I try to take it off, spend it in a graveyard if at all possible. I’ve celebrated my birthday in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris (http://cemeterytravel.com/2011/04/06/cemetery-of-the-week-10-la-cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise/), in the Bone Chapel of Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic (http://cemeterytravel.com/2011/10/26/cemetery-of-the-week-38-the-bone-chapel-of-kutna-hora/), and in Colma, California’s Cypress Lawn (http://cemeterytravel.com/2012/04/11/cemetery-of-the-week-55-cypress-lawn-memorial-park/). Like the poet said, “Any day above ground is a good one.” If there’s sunshine and green grass, birdsong and statuary, or trees and flowers and poetry involved, so much the better. Last year, I spent the morning of my birthday poking around Westwood…

I wasn’t a social kid. I was bookish and shy and a daydreamer. We lived in a very small town and Dad was an alcoholic and everybody knew it. I imagined sometimes that we had kept it a secret and was always surprised that other people seemed to be aware of our circumstances. Other kids rarely visited our house. (It’s funny how I didn’t put those two things together until I was an adult.) To be honest, although the adult in me says that’s an unhealthy circumstance, I don’t remember feeling that I was suffering for it. I wasn’t developing…

I spent my childhood growing up in Sacramento, California. Halloween for my family meant my dad running out to buy last minute costumes. My youngest sister always got the princess costume and I got whatever they had left in my size—Spider Man, the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, even G.I. Joe one year—and I don't mean the fancy costumes. I mean the ones with the sharp mask edges, a rubber band stapled to the sides to keep it around your head. Where the seeing and breathing holes were cut wrong, and you spent half the night wiping breath sweat from the inside. Then we'd come…

My dear fellow and lady horror authors of the HWA: I have begrudgingly—kicking and howling all the way—let go of summer. I’ve hung up my sandals and shorts, exchanging them for my suit jacket and trousers. Still, in Philly, she teases us with 80 degree days, yet the mornings chill us; and we dig ourselves under our fox blankets—mine made for me by Tara Fox Hall. I am comforted each year by the turning of the seasons. Now comes Samhain, the ancient celtic cycle of the years, when we approach symbolic death—transition. This world and the next aligns; a thin…

Halloween should be banned. Hold on that’s not my opinion. There’s a government agency in the UK called Department 18 and they want our fun curtailed, even stopped. We overheard this conversation— “What’s this? The start of the apocalypse?” Simon Crozier, Director-in-Chief of Department 18, looked up from the bundles of files on his desk as Harry Bailey entered his office. “Don’t joke,” he said. “Bloody Halloween. Every year’s the same.” “I’m surprised you don’t try to get it banned,” Harry said cheerily as flopped down in the chair across the desk from his boss. “I would if I could.…

By the time you read this, it will be too late. My time is short, so I will be brief. Whoever you are, however you have found this journal, know that I wanted this. Welcomed it. But that when you see me next, I will be forever changed. I will have heard my master’s call. So follows the true and faithful account of The Slumbering One. 15 February 2013 - My goodly wife Sarah has reported to me a series of dreams in which a speck of stardust emerges from a yawning black void to find purchase within her body.…

Last year we discussed some of the supernatural traditions and beliefs of Laos, although the government officially denies the existence of the supernatural. A nation the size of Great Britain with over 600 years of tradition, much of the 20th century was spent in conflict. Known by some as the “Land of a Thousand Smiles,” or a “Lost Eden,” barely a dozen films have ever been made in the country. Mattie Do’s “Chanthaly” is a groundbreaking new horror film from Laos. It holds the distinction of being the first feature film ever directed by a woman in Laos, and even…

I grew up in New Zealand and now live in Australia, one hell of a long way from the States. The horror genre “down under” is pretty active, with a well-established Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA), fiction awards, magazines, and writers making their name on the world stage. We only have a limited number of conventions (catering more for the wider spec-fic audience than only horror, although we do now have an Oz Horror Con), and like most conventions, these are great fun. You get to catch up with friends you only see at cons and meet other writers like…

About three years ago The Husband (author Weston Ochse) and I made good on our talks about downsizing and wanting to move back into a town neighborhood as opposed to the rural house we’d been living in for more than six years. We signed papers, coughed up money, had some sleepless nights, and the following November (two years ago next month) we moved into our newly built home in Sierra Vista proper. One of our wishes was to be smack in the middle of all the fun decorating for holidays. Halloween especially: the ghosties and goblins hanging from trees, carved…

Ah, Halloween. That magical time of year when the air is crisp and redolent of burning pumpkins, when candy is collected, raw eggs are tossed, and the streets are filled with everything from pint-sized demons to last year’s Comic-Con castoffs. When I was young, most kids wore costumes from Ben Cooper.  They came packaged in a box with a cellophane window that allowed you to see the mask.  Usually the drugstore (Halloween shops were unheard of back then) had sample masks and costumes hanging high out of reach.  The mask was brightly colored plastic with two eye holes and was…

Halloween. This is one of my favorite times of the year. In fact, the whole month of October is such a wonderful time for me. Aside from the noticeable changes in the sultry, hot and sweaty summer, of which I totally despise, to the cool crisp northerly breezes I simply love, I seem to come alive again. Not sure if there’s something in this air that passes through my open windows, or perhaps the stars in my astrological whatever you call it, align around this time, but I do. As Halloween approaches, the smell of Pumpkin pie and the hunt…

Last year, I described what fear was for me. It has never been that which I see, the visceral and horrid depictions on a TV screen, but always in those moments of reflection that follow. Often, when we are all alone, is when fear strikes. What if some monster waits for me around that corner? What if I don’t make it home from my friend’s house alive? What if, indeed? There will always be “What if’s” to threaten our thoughts. What I wanted to share with you this year, and mostly because a few early readers of my latest collection…

Originally published in Raven Elektrik's Jack O' Spec, 2011. It was time for another Family Gathering. I can always tell because Auntie Blue gets fidgety and insists we wash all the curtains twice. Cousin Anne makes a night sky for the occasion, with clouds and a full moon. You’d think this would bother the neighbors because the sky stays that way for a week or two. It’s not an easy matter to change days back to day, and nights to night in the proper order. But the folks on our street don't seem to mind. In a day or two,…

well I let their teeny minds think that they're dealing with someone who is over the brink and I dress this way just to keep them at bay cos halloween is everyday it's everyday Ministry, “Every Day is Halloween” What is it that makes Halloween unique among the other holidays? Well for one, it’s the last unrepentant pagan holiday still observed. But it’s also an affirmation, if not a celebration, of the unseen world and its effects on us. Cynical modern western culture allows itself this one day to imagine a universe of devils and demons, ghosts, angels and spirits.…

For years now, I’ve been hoping for The Horror Revolution. A resurgence. A return to the good old days of the eighties (before I was born!) when horror was not only successful, but thriving. In some ways, on some days, I feel like we’re almost there. I read exceptional horror novels and short stories (many from HWA members) all the time. I feel that the industry is teetering on the brink of Big Change, and that one little push could bring about the boom that will pull us out of the bust. On other days I feel seriously frustrated with…

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, the other favorite being Thanksgiving. I’ve always enjoyed dressing up and I’ve had some great costumes courtesy of my mom and her willingness to sew. I had a dog costume that was probably one of my favorites and I recall wearing it year after year until I outgrew it. Mom made me a horse rider costume that I also remember vividly. Basically my top was the rider and my legs were horse legs and I wore a horse body. Not really the most practical costume for school, but I wore it.…

We've heard for years how to write. We've learned three-act structure, possibly subconsciously, through countless hours of movies, television shows, and novels. We've read articles about sentence structure, grammar, what kind of dialogue tags to use, point of view, how to format the best of our best for submission. You name it. But there's something else that I feel is equally as important as all the above. That's opening the vein. Ripping open your heart. Spilling your guts on the page. Making the emotional connection. But what will make the difference? How does one connect to other people? How do…

Should Halloween not be a case where the parent is the boss of what their child does without it being considered evil? Hypocrite or actual devout Christian can find some way to make sure their children are not ostracized this Halloween by their classmates because peer pressure among adults is one thing. For the most part we as adults can handle the snide comments concerning how we choose to celebrate Halloween but why punish our children? Halloween and Christmas, while in a base sense reflect two different religious views, are paramount to young children.  They view them on almost the…