Halloween Haunts: Fort Fear–Writing the Origin Story for a Haunted Attraction by Adrian Ludens

“We want to build a haunted attraction and we'd like you to write a back story for it.” An origin story for a spook house? What a novel idea! More of a short story idea, really, but still an inviting challenge. One I readily accepted. Four summers ago, I sat in an Irish pub in Rapid City, SD with the creative team behind a new Halloween attraction. Fort Fear, as they called it, was to be set up inside a chuck wagon supper establishment that would conveniently be closed for the season. “We want an Old West theme.” “We have…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Mom by Nancy Holder

For many years, I dreamed of having a daughter, but no daughter came. When Belle finally showed up, I couldn’t imagine anything better—except that she missed being born on Halloween by three days. I thought that would have been perfect. But turns out that Belle and I share a lifestyle that includes Halloween as a season (and pretty much a year-round pursuit) so we have a house filled with a black Christmas tree up all year round, pirate and horror-themed art (and dishes, and table cloths) and a general love for gothy goodness. I’ve hosted about a dozen Spooky Sleepovers…

Halloween Haunts: Could Vampires Be Real? by Carole Jahme

Dr Paul D Stewart (http://www.paul-d-stewart.co.uk) is a zoologist and multi award-winning wildlife filmmaker. After reading the new Darwinian vampire novel Worth Their Weight in Blood, by Carole Jahme, Stewart emailed, intrigued to know more about Jahme’s biologically credible vampires. Subject: from Paul Stewart Worth Their Weight in Blood is beautifully written, throughout the book you take 'vampire lore' and turn it to something more biologically meaningful. I'm not sure that has been done before. How did you come up with the idea?   Subject: from Carole Jahme Thank you. Perhaps all children wonder if vampires are real, I certainly had speculated on this notion and…

Halloween Haunts: Famous Monster (Hunters) of Filmland (and Beyond) by Ed Erdelac

The leaves yellow up and the pumpkins sprout faces, the monster movie marathons begin and the spooky books get their own prominent section up front in the library, where they’ll quickly be supplanted by the Turkey Day and Christmas selections, like a rapid succession of Billboard number one singles. Halloween’s come around once again. Blink and you’ll miss it. Since the nineties there’s been a trend in horror fiction and media towards depicting the sympathetic creature of the night. Nuance is never a trend I mind, but sometimes I do find myself pining for the good old days of the…

Halloween Haunts: Stoker Spotlight Interview with Linda Addison

Linda Addison is the recipient of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Poetry for How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend. 1. How would you describe How to Recognize a Demon has Become Your Friend? A science-fiction, fantasy and horror collection of short stories and poetry that explores the appearance of demons, inside and outside ourselves. The amazing cover is by Jill Bauman, who has worked with the top writers in the speculative field. 2. Tell us about what inspired you to write How to Recognize a Demon has Become Your Friend? With the passing…

Halloween Haunts: A Kiwi Halloween by Marty Young

Growing up in Hastings, New Zealand, we never really got to enjoy Halloween. It existed—for me, anyway—as some kind of weird holiday I got to see on TV and in movies. Halloween was so far removed from my world that it might as well have been as make-believe as the shows I was watching. It sure looked like fun, though, dressing up as ghosts and goblins and monsters and ghouls, and decking out your house with bats and Jack o’ lanterns and spiders and such… I remember going to the Hastings Library one day and looking up Halloween in the…

Halloween Haunts: The Gift of Fear by Rebecca Cantrell aka Bekka Black

Halloween is about scaring the crap out of kids and then giving them sugar. Tricks. Treats. Making little lions and Spidermen and pirates and kittens happy while giving them nightmares. It’s my favorite holiday. This year we’ve moved, but last year and for the ten years before that, we were a little insane about Halloween at our house. Here’s how it went: We start early with the silhouette of the pregnant lady stabbing her unsuspecting husband as he reads. Maybe he should have gone to the store to get pickles and ice cream after all. Then we raise the home-made…

Halloween Haunts: Dead Mann Talking by Stefan Petrucha

In an initial draft of the first book of my zombie detective series, Dead Mann Walking, a group of peacefully protesting undead, pushed too far by the living, go feral, fulfilling the zombie stereotype. As dead-detective Hessius Mann helplessly watches the mess, he broods on the fictional history of the walking dead. Ace editor, Jessica Wade, felt it pulled the reader out of the story. I agreed, lopping it out quicker than Ash with a chainsaw-hand. To celebrate the release of the sequel, Dead Mann Running, and the Halloween season, what could be more appropriate than restoring it to half-life?…

Halloween Haunts: Stoker Spotlight Interview with Rocky Wood

Rocky Wood is the recipient of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award® for Superior Acheivement in Non-fiction for his book Stephen King: A Literary Companion. 1. How would you describe Stephen King: A Literary Companion? Stephen King: A Literary Companion is a comprehensive review of all Stephen King's fiction. It starts with a broad twenty page introduction that puts into perspective the many themes that King has explored over the years - particularly hope and redemption; and the 'worlds' in which he operates, such as the Dark Tower-universe and the many stories set in Maine. Then we review all his fiction,…

Halloween Haunts: Why Horror? by Cher Green

I’ve wanted to be a writer for as far back as I can remember. Emily Dickinson led me into poetry, and V.C. Andrews opened me up to fiction. My reading habits include poetry, short stories, long fiction and everything in between – romance to horror, sci-fi to suspense. If the words grab me, the story shall be read. Yet, when writing, I stick close to my heart with paranormal and horror. Why, you may ask, would a nice girl like me want to write Horror? I blame it on my fascination with fear and the authors who create it. These…

Halloween Haunts: Why Horror Should Be Its Own Genre by Annie Neugebauer

“Horror is not a genre, like the mystery or science fiction or the western. It is not a kind of fiction meant to be confined to the ghetto of a special shelf in libraries or bookstores… Horror is an emotion.” --Douglas E. Winter If you write dark fiction, you’ve probably come across this quote often. In fact, it appears in the very well-written essay “What is Horror Fiction?” right in the FAQ section of the HWA website. The essay makes some excellent points that I whole-heartedly agree with. And yet, several things over the past year have gotten me thinking.…

Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Primer for Horror Writers by Lisa Morton

As a Halloween expert, I’ve been asked to do a lot of interesting things. I’ve been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal about the proliferation of sexy Halloween costumes, I’ve jabbered away on the supplements for the Blu-ray release of the movie Trick ‘r Treat, and I’ve been asked by writer and editor friends to fact-check works of Halloween fiction. Most horror writers love Halloween (of course!), and I’m betting most of them know more about the holiday than the average joe. They’ve seen the yearly documentaries, they’ve read enough Halloween-themed fiction to fill a haunted house, and maybe they’ve…

Halloween Haunts: Specialty Press Award Spotlight–Roy Robbins and Bad Moon Books

Roy Robbins and Bad Moon Books received the 2011 HWA Specialty Press of the Year Award. 1. How would you describe Bad Moon Books? We are a bookseller and publisher who specialize in horror and dark fiction. 2. Tell us about how Bad Moon Books came into existence. I am a big fan of the genre. I started out as a collector and was buying from some of the existing small presses in the late 70’s such as Dark Harvest, Scream Press, Ziesing, and the like. I figured out that if I purchased 5 copies of a title, and sold 4, I could…

Halloween Haunts: Making Halloween Mean Something by J.G. Faherty

Well, our favorite holiday of the year is fast approaching, and as always my writerly mind turns to thoughts of promotion. Or at least it did, back in August, when I started looking around for themed events in the local area where I could sign and sell books. I've done this before, appearing at fright fests and books stores, either alone or with other writers. Then something happened that changed my focus. I did a young adult reading at one of our local libraries. Now, at the time, I was just getting started in putting together some ideas for articles…

Halloween Haunts: Fright Club by Kenneth W. Cain

Being the sort of person who never did care much for sweets, Halloween has always been about the surprise for myself. This is the one day when being weird is fully accepted, when wreaking havoc is only kids being kids. This is a day when shock and awe are the norm, and being socially acceptable falls to the wayside. It is a night for ghosts and ghouls and Frankenstein, horror movies past midnight, spooky noises that keep you awake long after everyone else has gone to bed. For these reasons the day suits me. I've never been one for dressing…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Dog by David B. Riley

Halloween was always a wonderful time when I was growing up. Though, as an adult, it really stopped being much of a holiday. As time went by, I sometimes was in Arizona, where my dad lives, and sometimes not around Halloween. One year I remember my dad wanted me to walk his dog because he wanted to stay home and hand out candy. That was fine. I decided, since it was Halloween, to put Zero (named thusly because he really liked cold weather) in a Bart Simpson T shirt. One thing about golden retrievers is they’ll pretty much go along…

Halloween Haunts: Stoker Spotlight Interview with Allyson Bird

Allyson Bird is the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award® for Superior Achievement in a First Novel for her book Isis Unbound. 1. Tell us about what inspired you to write Isis Unbound? I've always been interested in Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire. So I combined the two in an alternate history. I knew that there was so much to be explored if Anthony and Cleopatra had actually won the battle of Actium. Add to that Egyptian gods who lived on earth and the aim of one to be superior over her sister (interwoven with what happens to mortal…

Halloween Haunts: Celebrate the Bad Times by John F.D. Taff

Halloween.  It’s trite that this holiday would be the favorite of a horror writer, but there it is.  Halloween is my favorite holiday, better than that blissed-out full feeling at Thanksgiving.  Better than a pile of presents at Christmas or rockets red glare on an Independence Day evening. Why?  Well, it’s unlike any other holiday.  Whatever its original intent, it isn’t celebrated today to honor anyone or anything’s birthday.  It’s doesn’t honor a deity, usher in a new year or even give thanks for anything.  In fact, what it celebrates is something that people spend their entire lives studiously ignoring;…

Halloween Haunts: Be Careful Who You Scare: A Halloween Cautionary Tale by Laura Benedict

We had a marvelously terrifying basement in our house in Western Virginia, a perfect setting for a Halloween party. The room at the bottom of the kitchen stairs was unsettling enough: a blocked-off fireplace, peeling vinyl flooring with a slick, unearthly sheen, flimsy paneling that hinted at having been hastily installed to hide bloodstains on the walls. It was damp. Always cold. The adjacent laundry room had spider-filled, broken cabinets, a cracked concrete floor, and an open closet which still held the dusty hunting clothes of a previous occupant. But the third and fourth rooms truly completed the Silence of…

Halloween Haunts: Diary of a Horror Writer–Entry 62 by Russell James

“What is that monstrosity in the driveway?” I knew those would be my wife’s first words when she got home.  I went to kiss her hello.  Her eyes burned through me. I paused at a safe distance. “It’s a hearse,” I said.  My enthusiastic grin bounced off her like rain on granite. “I know it’s a hearse.  Why the hell is it here?” A hell-oriented pun of a reply died on my lips.  “We own it,” I said. “Oh no.  We don’t.  What were you thinking when you bought it? ‘I’ve always wanted a car that transported dead people.’?” “I…