Halloween Haunts: I Dare You to Play (Paranormal Games for Halloween) by Brooke MacKenzie

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 ghost…

Halloween Haunts: Frights For a Good Cause by Robert P. Ottone

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 have…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween: The Holiday That Made Me by Samantha Arthurs

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…

Halloween Haunts: I’ll Carve A Smile Into You by C.C. Adams

This Halloween, I’m going to do something I never did before. It starts with the biggest, sharpest knife I can find. The darkness and quiet of night over the neighbourhood. A single candle. And a pumpkin.   Because, for the first time, I’m going to carve a jack o’lantern.   As someone born and raised in South West London, I’ve seen how the neighbourhood has evolved. Where I live in the city is mostly quiet; a residential area. I’ve seen it become more progressive. Back then, it was a newsagent or two, a fish and chip shop, a stationery shop…

Halloween Haunts: Why Do We Like Being Scared? by Marlena Frank

When I was little, my father used to have a creepy rubber mask that he wore every Halloween. It wasn’t a monster mask or a werewolf mask or anything like that, it was just a creepy looking guy’s face. He wore it with a tan, nondescript jacket with a hood that he tightened around the mask to make it look real. When it got near Halloween, he would put it on and chase me and my sisters around the house, and we would all three squeal and run, having an absolute blast. Then when he got tired, he would take…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Memories in the Basement by Cecilia Kennedy

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…

Halloween Haunts: I Hear Dead People: Communicating with My Father (and Others) in Spirit by Valerie E. Weich

  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…

Halloween Haunts: Writing the Female Horror Body by Holly Lyn Walrath

Throughout pop culture, horror, poetry, and literature, we’ve been taught to both hide the female body and see it is horrific. Every October I rewatch some of my favorite horror films, and this year my goal is to watch as many body horror films as I can. As we face a renaissance of feminist horror, I have wondered if the popularity of this genre is tied to empowerment. By remaking the female body as horrific, women creators regain control over the narrative tied to the very skin and bones we inhabit on a daily basis. We creature the body, other…

Halloween Haunts: The Pandemic Party by Naching T. Kassa

The chill of night filled the air. Shadows ruled the world and not even the plump autumn moon could keep them at bay. Halloween had come at last. The children donned their costumes and sat down to wait in the living room of the 1969 trailer home. The oldest, dressed as Blade, tapped his blue flashlight on the arm of the rocking chair, while his sister, a Day of the Dead Cutie, sat nearby. Their baby brother, clad in a Superman costume glared at them both. I, their guide, entered the room and announced the time had come. They all…

Halloween Haunts: Freakling Forever by T.J. Tranchell

We moved a lot when I was a kid—hell, I’ve kept moving even as an adult—so I’ve managed to lose touch with people quickly. Just before my fifth birthday (maybe just before my sixth?), I went back to one neighborhood to deliver a party invitation to my friend Scotty. His own mid-October birthday party was in full swing, and I was asked to stay. Cake and ice cream commenced followed by a trip to a haunted house. I had never been to a haunted house, but I knew the place we were going. The dilapidated structure sat next to the…

Halloween Haunts: Wicca is Alive and Well in Cleveland by Katherine Kerestman

Park your broomsticks on Broadview Road in the artsy, ethnic, and eclectic Old Brooklyn neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, and visit the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, where museum owner Steven Intermill will tell you about the cache of artefacts collected by the founder of American Wicca, Raymond Buckland. Born in England to a family of Romani heritage and occultist leanings, Raymond Buckland had studied Wicca there under Gerald Gardner (1884 – 1964), the father of modern Wicca. Buckland collected occult objects, which were first housed in a New York City museum in his own basement from 1966 – 1976,…

Halloween Haunts: The Season Begins by Michael J. Moore

It's that stagnant, nocturnal air—nothing close to warm, but not so cold you need a jacket. Those thin clouds, strewn across a pitch-black sky. It's the moon, hovering just out of reach, a sinister grin beaming down from its pockmarked face. Autumn leaves, rotting by the road. It's that first step onto the dewy lawn, decorated with plastic tombstones and spiderweb-covered trees. Your bag bouncing at your side, nowhere near as full as it should be. It's different for us all, I'm sure. For this horror writer, however, Halloween has never had anything to do with ancient myths from far…

Halloween Haunts: Weird Women Take on Halloween: Five Early Halloween Works by Women by Lisa Morton

When we remember holiday ghost tales, we probably go to Charles Dickens and the most famous ghost story of them all, “A Christmas Carol”. Think about Halloween stories, and you might imagine that you’d have to wait until at least the mid-twentieth century, when Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury rolled around. But here’s one of those historical bits that even the most knowledgeable horror fan might have missed: many of the earliest stories about Halloween were by women. That’s right, not long after Dickens tormented Scrooge with Christmas ghosts, his feminine counterparts were setting their spirits loose on Halloween. After…

This October, Halloween Haunts rises again!

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. You can find past posts on our Halloween blog: https://horror.org/category/halloween/……

Halloween Haunts: When Captain Howdy Visits on Halloween: The History of the Ouija Board

By Lisa Morton Whenever I tell people that I’ve written a book about séances, the subject of the Ouija board usually comes up very soon. Ouija boards have fascinated us for almost 130 years now; for the price of a board game, they offer us the promise of communicating with spirits in the comfort of our own living rooms. Unlike a more traditional séance, which must be guided by a medium with some experience or skill, anyone with fingers can use a Ouija board. Ouija boards connect with Halloween in the idea of easing contact with ethereal spirits. Halloween is…

Halloween Haunts: From Birthdays to Doorbells to Arson: Mischief Night

By Kevin Wetmore My mother’s birthday is October 30.  She told us that when she was growing up her parents would throw a Halloween-themed birthday party. My grandmother would call my mother’s friend Bunny’s father, who ran a bakery, to make a Jack-o-lantern cake decorated with plastic witches on broomsticks holding the candles and all sorts of Halloween themed plastic paraphernalia.  (To me that sounds like Heaven).  As a result, however, my mother does not much care for Halloween, as it required her to share her birthday with a national holiday aimed (at the time) at children and she felt…

Halloween Haunts: The Haunter of the Cul de Sac

By Nancy Holder Oh, Halloweens of my childhood, those halcyon days when our parents hardly ever supervised us and had no idea of the traumas we underwent in the name of fun—most of the time. How it is that I have teeth and am still alive is a mystery to me given all the perilous adventures I took myself on. Yet here I am, remembering not a terrifying Halloween tale of menace most shambling, but the Halloween season when my father shared in the soaring triumph and ultimate defeat of the robot costume he made for me when I was…

Halloween Haunts: The Hungry Ghost Festival

By Lee Murray & Geneve Flynn Lee Murray: As a girl, I remember my Kiwi-Chinese mum lighting joss sticks for the spirits of the dead, always three or five slender sticks since those numbers are auspicious. She would hold the sticks in both hands, the tips glowing red, and bow respectfully, before placing the still-burning bamboo on a stand on the windowsill where the aromatic smoke would curl upwards and permeate the kitchen. I loved that smoky scent. And the solemnity of the moment, quiet amid the general busyness of my childhood. It’s a practice that seems out of place…

Halloween Haunts: “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps”

by Frazer Lee In another life, and another time (1998 to be specific) I was hired to work crew for several weeks on a film shoot. The movie production in question was Siamese Cop, which had the awesome logline: ‘Two cops. One jacket’. A low-budget affair (no kidding) the bulk of the shoot was confined to one main location, which would also serve as the production base, equipment store, and – as it turned out – a place to haunt your every waking step. Friern Barnet Mental Hospital, as it was then known, opened its doors as Colney Hatch Asylum…

Halloween Haunts: The Voice and Poe

by Naching T. Kassa   When I think of Halloween, sweet memories come to mind. The scent of caramel apples, the brisk chill of October’s dying breath, horror films flickering on a small screen, and the smooth taste of chocolate on my tongue. These memories are beautiful, but my most favorite is the sound of my dad’s voice reading Edgar Allan Poe. My father loved Poe. Growing up, he’d read every story, from “The Masque of the Red Death” to “The Gold-Bug.” He also loved the movies, and my first introduction to Poe was through the Roger Corman films starring…