Halloween Haunts: Thing That Make You Go “Hmmm…” by L. Marie Wood

Halloween Haunts: Thing That Make You Go “Hmmm…” by L. Marie Wood We speak of the dead in past tense and positives. We dress for them in ceremony and as protection. We offer them food, plant trees in their honor, name celestial clusters after them. We ameliorate, machinate, gyrate, lie prostrate in the hopes that we can appease them, calm their souls so they favor us, smile on us… do any and all so they don’t haunt us. But what do they think? Do the dead balk when considering Samhain?  Do they smile at our ignorance to think that we…

Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Wedding in the Cemetery by Denise Dumars

Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Wedding in the Cemetery by Denise Dumars   A remembrance of Meg (Susan) Groeling, 1949-2023   Last October I officiated a wedding between two horror writers: Ashley Dioses and K.A. Opperman. It had a Gothic theme, held in a beautiful forest setting. I’ve officiated weddings in various places, but as yet I have not officiated a wedding on Halloween itself. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t attended a wedding on Halloween. I have attended one, and it was performed in a local cemetery. At midnight. “Old Sunnyside” is the common name for the Long Beach Municipal…

Halloween Haunts: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Lara Frater

Halloween Haunts: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Lara Frater I would like to take you back to a magical time. Before streaming and when few had cable. We only had 7 channels and the extras PBS ones were snowy and British. Where computers meant the Commodore 64, and VCRs were high tech. This was the late 70s/early 80s. Okay, not such a magical time. Actually, kind of a messed up time. If a Gen Xer or Boomer tells you the 80s were the good old days, they are liars. I grew up in a suburb of…

Halloween Haunts: When Taboo Becomes Tradition by Carrie Lee South

Halloween Haunts: When Taboo Becomes Tradition by Carrie Lee South   When I tell non-horror people I write dark fiction, their response is often something like “Why? Don’t you want to think about something more positive?” But then autumn’s cold breath brings crisp leaves and suddenly, everyone “gets it.” Halloween. That most American of all holidays. Once a year, the neighborhoods parade out the fake skeletons and tombstones and we all invite death into our lives for a while. In 1988, as a result of an accidental drowning, my sister died only a week away from her third birthday. Fifteen…

Halloween Haunts: The Facts in the Case of Edgar Allan Poe by Joseph Maddrey

Halloween Haunts: The Facts in the Case of Edgar Allan Poe by Joseph Maddrey   When I moved to Richmond, Virginia in 2021, after fifteen years in Los Angeles, I was disappointed about Halloween. Nobody celebrates Halloween like people in L.A. and I expected Halloween in Richmond to be anticlimactic, so I immediately started looking for the local horror crowd. In September, I gravitated toward the Edgar Allan Poe Museum and decided to embrace my new home by dressing up as its native master of horror on October 31st. Because I’m nothing if not obsessive, I also started re-reading Poe.…

Halloween Haunts: How a favorite holiday (Hint: It’s not Halloween) made me love spooky stories by Nikki Kallio

Halloween Haunts: How a favorite holiday (Hint: It’s not Halloween) made me love spooky stories by Nikki Kallio When my collection of short fiction came out this year—an assemblage of sci-fi, speculative and gothic stories—a family member who read the book commented that she liked it, but she thought it was really dark. “Have you always been this dark?” she asked. It got me thinking—have I? When was it that I began to appreciate stories that reach into the shadows, whether they take place in a creepy house or outer space? The answer: Christmas. While there’s a long and crimson-wrapped…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween on Blood Mountain by Jeffrey LeBlanc

Halloween Haunts: Halloween on Blood Mountain By Jeffrey LeBlanc Golden and crimson leaves fall majestically from the ageless trees of Blood Mountain. As they drift along nearing the forest floor, I watch the wind wisp them up into swirls across the rocky bald, and shadowed crags of Blood Mountain. I smile warmly and place my hand to my brow shading my eyes from the crossing sun. I narrow my blue eyes and furrow my brow trying to trace the track of the turbulent leaf storm as it rolls and glimmers as elfin gold in a late-afternoon sun. It truly is…

Halloween Haunts: Why Write Horror? by Megan Bledsoe

Halloween Haunts: Why Write Horror? by Megan Bledsoe   My mom remembers sitting side-by-side with me in a vinyl green recliner back when I was two years old. She had her arm around me, was cuddling me close, when I suddenly gasped and twisted to look behind me. "What? What is it?" Mom asked. "Scary man pinch me." Mom says that I said those words in earnest as I rubbed my backside, that I was dead serious.  I don’t remember doing any of this, but Mom says that she twisted around in that squeaky recliner herself and looked around the…

Halloween Haunts: Pangangululuwa by Victory Witherkeigh

Halloween Haunts: Pangangululuwa by Victory Witherkeigh   “Did you bring the crispy pata? It was your Tito’s favorite pork dish.” The woman sitting on the gravesite in front of me said. I turn my head, realizing that there’s a teenage boy behind me holding a silver tray covered in aluminum foil. “Yes, of course, Ate!” he said, yelling back as he maneuvered his feet to avoid stepping on the metal grave markers littered through the grass. It must be getting closer to starting time… Car horns and the smell of dark grey clouds of fuel exhaust caused my nose to…

Halloween Haunts – HWA and Halloween-Inspired Horrorky by Paul Lonardo

Halloween Haunts – HWA and Halloween-Inspired Horrorky by Paul Lonardo As a writer whose focus has always been prose, I had never even considered attempting writing in verse. The thought of composing a poem had always been intimidating to me. Just the mention of iambic pentameter makes me break out in a cold sweat. I was of the belief that poetry was something for deep-thinking, brooding, scholarly types who possessed some arcane ability to plumb the depths of the human soul and mortal existence with strings of words that held meaning I did not understand, nor even capable of comprehending.…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE RURAL HEART OF DARKNESS AND ITS MONSTERS by Nicole M. Wolverton

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE RURAL HEART OF DARKNESS AND ITS MONSTERS   by Nicole M. Wolverton The rural Pennsylvania hinterlands beg for monsters. It’s more than just the setting—sprawling cornfields, more than a few reputedly haunted covered bridges, dark forests, desolate mountains, and sparsely populated towns—it’s that there isn’t very much to do. Boredom breeds imagination. It sure did in my case. I grew up in a tiny northeastern PA town called Berwick, and that is where my monsters were born. That was never more evident than at Halloween. My mom can sew—and one of my grandmothers was a factory seamstress.…

Halloween Haunts: What the Drive-In Means to Me by David Sharp

The drive-in has always held a special place for me in regards to horror. It was an awesome place to hang out and watch a double feature with friends. I would go no matter the weather; being in the car with an outside screen and FM radio frequency was cool as hell. And as fall came into effect, as much as Houston, Texas would let it, it was a definitive Halloween season destination, especially around the full moon. My early experiences with the drive-in were as a child at The Gulf-Way. When my grandmother wouldn’t babysit me, my mom would…

Halloween Haunts: The Lighthouse by Elizabeth Mitchell

Halloween Haunts: The Lighthouse by Elizabeth Mitchell   I love St. Augustine. It’s a part of Florida that feels unlike Florida—or it did when I went there as a child. It was a slice of Europe with a splash of American tourism dusted in pirates. When my grandparents rented a condo there one year, I had a laundry list of things I wanted to do. Visiting the beach was at the bottom of the list. Museums, old homes, the lighthouse, and the ghost tour were at the top. Given that St. Augustine, FL is one of the most haunted cities…

Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady by Heddy Johannesen

Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady by Heddy Johannesen   Helen Creighton was a celebrated folklorist, author, and pioneer researcher. She is best known for her book Bluenose Ghosts about firsthand accounts of spine-chilling tales. Creighton excelled at collecting local folk ballads, folk tales and ghost stories. She is also known for her skill at collecting local dances, games, cures and proverbs. She was born with a caul. A person born with a caul will have a warning before danger. This proved true when Creighton explored the province in search of folk tales. One night she stayed at an…

Halloween Haunts: Rekindling My Love for Halloween by Sheri White

Halloween Haunts: Rekindling My Love for Halloween by Sheri White     I have a confession to make. I don’t enjoy Halloween as much as I used to. The holiday has changed so much for me over the past several years. When my kids were little, Halloween was an event. The day started with a breakfast of pumpkin pancakes before they were off to school. I was always the “room mom” for my youngest daughter’s class, so it was up to me to plan the class party—the games, the prizes, the snacks, and sending out the dreaded volunteer sign-up sheet…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE GHOST OF YOUNGER ME, STILL LAUGHING BY MY SIDE by Ronald J. Murray

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE GHOST OF YOUNGER ME, STILL LAUGHING BY MY SIDE by Ronald J. Murray   My earliest taste of bringing others frightful fun came on Halloween during my twelfth year. Almost annually, Halloweens were spent at my grandmother’s when I was a kid. I could see downtown Pittsburgh from her front porch, so the trick-or-treater traffic was abundant. This particular year, I wore one of those faceless, hooded ghost costumes, and instead of trick-or-treating, I decided to hang back and have a different kind of fun. I reclined along the space next to the concrete stairs that led…

The Seers’ Table October 2023

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison recommends: London native C.C. Adams is the horror/dark fiction author behind books such as But Worse Will Come, Misery And Other Lines, and Downwind, Alice. A member of the HWA, he still lives in the capital. This is where he lifts weights, cooks—and looks for the perfect quote to set off the next dark delicacy. Adams has a story in The Black Beacon Book of Horror anthology releasing Friday, October 13, 2023 (yes, you read that right, Friday the 13th). The anthology features dark and disturbing tales of psychological,…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE by Lee Murray (and friends)

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE by Lee Murray (and friends) Recently, I asked the contributors of Kiwi horror anthology Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa (Clan Destine Press, 1 October 2023) what they thought about Halloween in New Zealand. Is it a thing? Yes, or no? What’s your take? My colleagues’ responses were both varied and insightful. Bryce Stevens, co-editor of the acclaimed Cthulhu Deep Down Under anthology series from IFWG, said no, “It’s not an important date” and Wellington poet Tim Jones agreed. “Not a huge fan,” he said. Although, in Tim’s case, location might be part…

Halloween Haunts: A Marie Kondo Halloween by JG Faherty

Halloween Haunts: A Marie Kondo Halloween by JG Faherty   Life is funny, and not always in the ha-ha way. We spend most of it moving forward into the future. Growing up. Getting jobs. A place of our own. Cars. The world advances, technology advances, life gets busier and more complicated every year. Things change over time, and not always for the better. This same transformation (some might say mutation!) has happened with our holidays. Traditions evolve or get lost completely. The simple things in life become commercialized and lose their meaning. Charles Schultz depicted this magnificently in “A Charlie…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ashley Dioses

Ashley Dioses is a writer of dark poetry and fiction from southern California.  She is the author of Diary of a Sorceress, a collection of dark fantasy and horror poetry, and The Withering, a collection of psychological horror and supernatural horror poetry.  Her third and latest collection, Darkest Days and Haunted Ways was just released from Jackanapes Press.  Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Cemetery Dance Publications, Weirdbook, Black Wings VI: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, and others.  Her poem “Cobwebs,” was mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s recommended Best Horror of the Year Volume Twelve list. She has also appeared in the…