Halloween Haunts: Obsession

Halloween Haunts: Obsession by Dean Cade   Costumes and makeup effects have always been a part of Halloween for me. When I was a kid in the 70s, I would get one of the simple plastic outfits with a generic mask of a skull or a not quite Frankenstein’s Monster from TG&Y to go trick or treating. There was also a brief period of running around in Superman Underoos with a red towel for a cape to my mom’s chagrin. As I got older, I took an interest in painting my face and using fake blood. Fascinated with horror films,…

Halloween Haunts: Evoking Dread: A Balancing Act

Halloween Haunts: Evoking Dread: A Balancing Act By Alexa Tanen   I’ve always loved horror stories; the scarier, the better. But there have been so many examples of an idea I adore that’s given a not-so-scary execution. As both a reader and an editor, there are a few key areas where writers can lose that all-important tension that’s integral to horror. Unsettling Universes Sometimes, the real horror lies in the implications. Writers must rely on their readers’ imaginations to bring their words to life, but you don’t need to spell everything out. It’s like seeing the monster in the movie.…

Halloween Haunts: Arachnid Teachers

Halloween Haunts: Arachnid Teachers By Heddy Johannesen   I recall a night many years ago when I passed by a cemetery as I was walking home. Something was odd about the cemetery. Cemeteries are naturally spooky places. The streetlights lit the headstones in the eeriest glow I have ever seen. It inspired me to write a horror poem which did get published later. I have seen many other odd and creepy things in my life: a deceased dog that washed up ashore, insects crawling over rotted apples in a different cemetery, the shadow person that appeared and vanished in my…

Halloween Haunts: Sparkles: A Haunted House Story

Halloween Haunts: Sparkles: A Haunted House Story by Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar When I imagine a haunted house, my mind conjures up broken windows, sagging floorboards, and cracked ceilings. I picture cobwebs in the corners and old-fashioned, dust-covered furniture. Rodents skitter about the hallways, their scratching claws punctuating the deathly silence. Generally, people don’t think of a brand new, two-story, single-family home with white siding, black shutters, and a red door flanked by similar houses. They don’t picture my former house. We moved in on Halloween night in 2007. Twice the size of our previous residence, it was constructed specifically for…

Halloween Haunts: Writing Horror For Comic Books

Halloween Haunts: Writing Horror For Comic Books By Jonathan Hedrick Long before the now defunct Comic Code Authority was slapping their seal on funny books left and right, the medium was no stranger to the macabre story telling of horror. Spinner racks were jammed packed with titles like Witches Tale, Chamber of Chills, and The Haunt of Fear. Even now, the modern-day comic book reader can still find a plethora of spooky graphic novels at their local comic shops. From The Autumnal to The Walking Dead, this sequential art form remains a breeding ground for horror stories. But beware! Before…

Halloween Haunts: “Halloween in the Hudson River Valley”

Halloween Haunts: “Halloween in the Hudson River Valley” by Katherine Kerestman www.CreepyCatLair.com An excerpt from Creepy Cat’s Macabre Travels: Prowling around Haunted Towers, Crumbling Castles, and Ghoulish Graveyards (WordCrafts Press, 2020)   Halloween in the Hudson Valley – where the holiday (as we know it today) was invented by Brom Bones, who transformed a harvest celebration into a night of terror when he galloped on a midnight black steed carrying his pumpkin head and tossed it at Ichabod Crane. I was driving Route 80, spanning the breadth of Pennsylvania, back into history, to the time when the Dutch first came…

Halloween Haunts: The Pukwudgie

Halloween Haunts: The Pukwudgie By Ricardo D. Rebelo   Bobby was in awe of the orange and green field. He looked forward to it every year. At thirteen he hadn’t seen many, but Bobby had savored every one. He hated September because it meant school, which was always a low point for him. No more beaches, clam cakes, fresh waffle cones filled with coffee ice cream and long summer days. Three weeks into the school year, Indian summer usually ran out of steam. The air would get crisp and his mom would start drinking pumpkin spice lattes like Dunkin Donuts…

Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Scare for the Ghost Tour Host

Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Scare for the Ghost Tour Host By David Allen Voyles   Halloween has always been a thrill for me, even as an adult. Without a doubt, it’s the main reason why I write horror. For over forty years, my wife and I, garbed in our October aliases of Mr. and Mrs. Dark (raising a glass to you, Ray Bradbury), have hosted an annual over-the-top, themed, Halloween party. The popularity of our “Dark Ghost Tours” party in 2014, when I took guests all over our property to tell stories about the little scenes of horror we had…

Halloween Haunts: A Night at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia

Halloween Haunts: A Night at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia by Nicole M. Wolverton We clustered in groups at the hulking gray-stone entrance of the prison. Twilight deepened, purple to gray. Nothing stirred beyond our nervous laughter. We waited for what came next, shivering in the late October cold. “Are you sure this is safe?” my then-boyfriend asked. “I’ve never heard of anyone dying on the tour,” I joked. “The liability waivers and hard hats are probably just for show.” At that point Eastern State Penitentiary had only been open for limited public tours for a few years, and only…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: IT’S AN EMINENCE FRONT

Halloween Haunts: It’s An Eminence Front by Mark Matthews       Trigger Warning: This post addresses mental health. Halloween is a magical night when we can transform ourselves into something else, something we may have always longed to be, whether it be superhero or super monster. Put on a mask, or craft some makeup, and we spend a night parading as a whole new being. A whole new persona. Then we walk door to door, walking on front porches, ringing doorbells, looking for others to bear witness: See, look what I’ve become? I’m no longer me.  Often we become…

Halloween Haunts Blog: Call for Submissions

From October 1 through October 31, the Horror Writers Association will host an online event to celebrate the month of Halloween and help horror readers and horror writers connect at the eeriest time of the year.

All HWA members are invited to participate in this series of daily blog posts, book excerpts, and more. Halloween Haunts offers HWA members a place to share Halloween anecdotes and stories to connect with new readers, spread the word about members’ new works, and raise the profile of the horror genre and the HWA.

Halloween Haunts: On Being a Halloween Expert by Lisa Morton

Halloween Haunts: On Being a Halloween Expert by Lisa Morton   "How did you become a Halloween expert?" At this point in my life, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've answered that question; I can't even tell you how many times I've done it over the last few months. We might as well get it out of the way here: I never planned to be a Halloween expert, and really fell into it almost by accident. Back around 2001, I'd just finished a film book for the publisher McFarland & Co., Inc. and because we'd had…

Halloween Haunts: The Wolf Girl of Portsmouth, Rhode Island by L. E. Daniels

Halloween Haunts: The Wolf Girl of Portsmouth, Rhode Island by L. E. Daniels   “‘Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!’” That’s Dad, performing Bram Stoker in a well-oiled accent. Howls rolled slowly across the walls and I felt each one weave up the legs of my chair and along the rungs of my ribs. Secretly, I levitated at the kitchen table. Every Halloween through the seventies and eighties, Dad propped speakers against the windows and the needle crackled with The Language and Music of the Wolves. One side is narrated by Robert Redford…but the…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Reading by Kevin Wetmore

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Reading by Kevin Wetmore My non-horror friends always get a little excited that they can relate to me better for a few weeks. “We’re watching some scary movies this week,” I am told. Or, “I’m going to read a horror novel.” And I am genuinely happy that they are willing to embrace the dark even for this brief period. I am happy to give recommendations and congratulate them for watching a scary movie in October or picking up a horror novel around Halloween. But, my friends, we are the Halloween People. We read scary stuff all year…

Halloween Haunts: The Last Trick or Treat by Alison Armstrong

Halloween Haunts: The Last Trick or Treat by Alison Armstrong The last time I went trick or treating was the moment I realized my childhood was fading. Every year I looked forward to the magic of Halloween, a time when monsters (Dracula, the Wolfman, and their ilk) emerged from their protective lairs and roamed the neighborhood streets in childlike form. Often nearby cousins would join me in the celebration. Afterwards, as we gathered at my house and compared our sugary loot from the evening, we would start planning our next year’s costume. Much more than the candy I collected, however,…

Halloween Haunts: How to be Safe in the Cemetery by Loren Rhoads

Halloween Haunts: How to be Safe in the Cemetery by Loren Rhoads   One foggy summer day, I explored the historic cemeteries a mile outside of Pescadero, California. The grass was ankle-high on the Protestant side, but over my knees on the Catholic side. Holes the size of juice glasses riddled the ground, but I never saw a mouse or gopher poke his head out. Where there is prey, there will be predators. I kept an eye out for snakes. When I could, I walked on the graves’ copings. I’d nearly finished my exploration and was headed cross-country down the…

Halloween Haunts: Our Love Story as Told by Halloween by Jessica Hobbs

Halloween Haunts: Our Love Story as Told by Halloween by Jessica Hobbs   As my husband and I approach our anniversary of seventeen years together – an unusually long time for a pair of artists still in their 30s – I can’t help but look back on all we’ve been through, from touring gigs to Hollywood dreams to a broken marriage healed through tenacity and witchcraft, and notice how Halloween tells the story of the people we’ve become.   There are no seasons in Los Angeles. For some, the mild climate is the point of living here, but for me,…

Halloween Haunts: The Ghost with the Ruby, Ruby Lips by Naching T. Kassa

Halloween Haunts: The Ghost with the Ruby, Ruby Lips by Naching T. Kassa   A few years ago, during Halloween Haunts, I shared one of my most favorite scary stories with you. It was, “The Ghost with One Bloody Finger.” https://horror.org/halloween-haunts-the-ghost-with-one-bloody-finger-by-naching-t-kassa/). In that post, I talked about my love of scary stories and how the kids in my small, rural elementary school loved it. I also mentioned two other stories. The first was an oldie but a goodie, “The Man with the Golden Arm,” and the other was today’s story, “The Ghost with the Ruby, Ruby Lips.” I learned this…

Halloween Haunts: Licensing on Halloween by Rosemary Thorne

Halloween Haunts: Licensing on Halloween by Rosemary Thorne   Children are not the only ones going door to door setting up dealings on Halloween. There are sorcerers too, knocking on the darkest gates of all realms to renew their practicing licenses. If you pay the right attention, you will see us running up and down not as cheerful as candy-holders: the endeavours we must carry out on that night are hideous, hair-raising, abominable. Those are the mandates of the Ones behind the veil in its thinnest. I usually take my time to anticipate events and make calculations to have everything…

Halloween Haunts: All The Treats! by Linda D. Addison

Halloween Haunts: All The Treats! by Linda D. Addison   Halloween has been one of my favorite holidays my whole life. As a child the idea of dressing up that one day and going house to house to collect candy was magical. Back then, no one worried about being poisoned or razors in fruit. I felt stronger and magical in costume then in regular clothes. The thin awkward kid who read books all the time and didn’t talk much could become a powerful witch, one of my favorite costumes, and no doubt the easiest for my mother to create, since…