Halloween

Halloween has always held a special place in my heart, even before I ever thought about becoming a horror and science fiction writer. While there is never one single reason a person can trace to a love of all things spooky, without doubt one of the factors in my own personal horror-mania has to be that I grew up in one of the most haunted places in the country, a region where Halloween isn't just a holiday, but a part of life. I'm talking about the lower Hudson Valley of New York. Stretching from Manhattan to Albany County, there are…

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Growing up, I relished Halloween’s approach even more than Christmas. Santa had nothing on Halloween with Jack o'Lanterns, costumes and candy… Every year the crisp October air prompted my father to take my twin brother, mother and me to the local farm on Long Island to choose the biggest pumpkin we could find for the momentous occasion. That same night, after the dinner dishes had been cleared, Dad would put some old newspaper on the kitchen table, and hand my brother and me black magic markers and together we would draw a scary…

One of my most vivid childhood memories was of a haunted house in the neighborhood when I was young. It was the artificial variety. The guys who ran it where most likely high school students—certainly way older than me and my friends. These guys went all out. They had grave stones in the yard. Some dead guy hanging from a tree (and he was active, meaning he moved), lightning, and spooky music. It worked. It was really scary, at least to a little kid. Oh, did I mention the monster that reached out from the bushes and grabbed your feet?…

Why do we do it? Why do folks like Mike Dellosso, Brian Keene, Elizabeth Massie, Kevin Lucia, me, and any number of other writers look at the dark side of the literature spectrum? Why write horror novels when there are so many other kinds of things to write? Maybe the first line from this Associated Press story will give you a better idea. “A Louisiana man is accused of decapitating and dismembering his disabled 7-year-old son and leaving the boy’s head near the street so the child’s mother would see it – a killing that brought seasoned police officers to…

Fans of horror and dark fantasy love Halloween. There’s a reason people watch frightening films or walk through “haunted houses” to be terrorized by college students dressed as zombies: There is something incredibly exciting and entertaining about being scared. Not “being chased by a crazy man with a knife” type of scared, but rather, the kind of fear that you know is artificial but COULD be real. Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft are often cited influences of many authors and that is true for me as well. However, the biggest name in the history of horror is not lost…

Every day when he comes home from preschool, my four-year-old son, Owen, proceeds to creep us out with his artistic creations. Here are some of my favorites (with appropriate captions):                   “Follow me,” the cat said as it led me through the house of mirrors. After a while, I looked down and realized my legs were attached directly to my head. Worse, I was bald.                   Despite the warnings, I gazed directly into the creature’s eyes. Its forbidden name appeared on the wall and…

As with most authors of horror stories and ghost tales, one of my favorite times of the year is the Halloween season. My fondness for the spooky holiday stems back to early childhood, when my fellow elementary school students and I sang eerie tunes like “The Ghost of John,” and neighborhood kids spread rumors about a stuffed witch down the street coming to life at midnight on Halloween night. I grew up in a shiny, brand-new suburb in Orange County, California. Despite the nearness of the atmospheric Mission San Juan Capistrano and Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride, nothing about the area…

There are a lot of wonderful reasons to use Halloween in fiction. It’s an extraordinarily rich holiday, offering a variety of experiences. For some, it’s about the autumn season, with the sights and smells and sensations that accompany longer nights and turning leaves; for others, it’s about candy and the empowerment derived from costuming; and for many of us, it’s a chance to test our fears in safe, playful environments (movie theaters or haunted attractions). It’s also experienced by virtually everyone in North America at this point (and is rapidly spreading all around the globe). In horror fiction, many of…

October raises dark dreams of chill breezes and the aroma of dead leaves. Dreams of streets and houses, dead black in silhouette against sunset’s orange and indigo skies. Twilight dreams. Memories of things that never existed. Things we obsessed over in childhood when the ritual of donning a Halloween costume and trick-or-treating meant more than simply harvesting candy because it still seemed possible when we were young that on Halloween the supernatural might reveal itself. Ghosts might drift through the air and shadows come alive. Lights might appear in abandoned houses. Black, driverless cars might cruise down the road beside…