My daughter has a tote bag printed with the words, My Mom Blogs About Vampires.

When you are a parent who writes about the paranormal, horror, and urban fantasy, it is always Halloween, and of course you’re always the cool parent.

Back in 2012 I started a blog about parenting middle school and high school kids. Nobody read it, that is until I made it about parenting young vampires, who aren’t all that different from other kids. That said, it made a big difference. Adding horror to anything, including parenting, is not only fun but it brings in readers.

Now …

Halloween is that time of year when the veil between our world and the next, the natural and the supernatural, becomes virtually non-existent.  What better way to celebrate, and gather real-life inspiration for some excellent horror writing, than by invoking the paranormal?

For centuries, the brave (or foolhardy) have been summoning the supernatural through various rituals, or “games.”  During the Edo period in Japan, samurais used to play a game called “Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai” as a test of courage.  During the game, the players would sit in a room together, and one person at a time would tell a frightening …

I got to write about my family’s connection to Halloween last year, which was very cathartic, and resulted in tears when I talked to my mom about it. This year, I thought I would talk about the importance of fundraising as it relates to engaging with haunted attractions. As I’ve gotten older, I do my very best to be political with how I spend my money. An extension of this relates to charitable organizations. Growing up, we often put on haunted houses on our front lawn, with multiple rooms, scares, designs, effects, all that good stuff. Typically, we would …

Most every child loves Halloween, for the obvious reasons. Costumes, candy, classroom parties, and a little dash of mischief thrown in for some razzle dazzle. We’ve all been there, and I’m sure that we all had an undeniably great time, but for me Halloween always meant just a little bit more. I was born on November 2nd, and while I always bemoaned my arrival on All Souls Day instead of All Hallows Eve, my feelings on the matter were often soothed by Halloween themed birthday parties. Sometimes my guests and I wore costumes, and other times the coinciding of my …

In a stunning feat of magic, my father, who was rehearsing his role as a terrifying Merlin the Magician for the local YWCA Halloween party, burned a hole in my mother’s underpants. I remember his excitement when he called my mother and me to the rec room basement to announce his latest trick that he was perfecting: passing a lighted cigarette through a handkerchief, but he couldn’t find a handkerchief. Mom’s underpants were the next best thing. We held our breath when we saw the smoke, hoping the white cloth underneath would get by, unscathed. It didn’t. It was the …

My father was a Halloween baby—born on All Hallow’s Eve 1934. So Halloween was extra special in our household—Dad’s birthday and Trick-or-treating. Talk about your sugar high! As a smartass teenager, I used to tell Pop he was a trick instead of a treat. He had no snappy comeback for that one. Our church’s All Hallow’s Eve celebrations for the kids doubled as my father’s annual birthday party. No doubt he would rather have been partying somewhere else.

But the party ended on July 2, 2016 when Stage four lung cancer claimed my father. It’s an ugly way to …