Halloween Haunts: Once in a Blue Moon

by Lou Rera Those of us who live for this time of year when we can be someone or something else without raising eyebrows, know full well, Halloween is a day unlike any other. I suspect most HWA members are card carrying night people to some degree. This year Halloween and a full moon crash into our lives on the same day! Can you believe it? Some people might treasure the full moon the way the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten (1350 BC) adored the sun. He tried to convert Egyptian society to worship and bring into daily life, the God RA…

Halloween Haunts: The Owl

By Jeffrey LeBlanc Children of Horror, The leaves are crisped and sere with a harvest moon brilliantly glowing. Goblins, ghouls, and ghosts trek chilled, fog-filled streets to trick or treat. And the living and undead dare the decrepit crypt and the haunted house to test their nerve on this unholiest of magical and macabre nights—Halloween! Hopefully…or not…they survive. Happy Halloween HWA family! We want to share with you fiends and friends this horrific poem in tune with the terrifying season. Being a child of Poe, Machen, Lovecraft, King, Anne Rice, and Matheson, we channeled our inner madness on Christmas Eve…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Records!

By Dr. Greg McWhorter Heh...heh...he...The wind is starting to blow. The bats are flapping around in the moonlight. Distant howls from wolves can be heard late into the night. Ah, yes...it’s Halloween time once again! And what better way to spend the witching season than by spinning some dead wax! Although I am a horror writer, I also have a radio show called the Record Graveyard where I play the vinyl records I collect as the Crypt-Keeper. In 2013, I shared some of my favorite Halloween records as part of the HWA Halloween Haunt (HWA 2013). Now I have risen…

Halloween Haunts: Writing Modern Horror

By Heddy Johannesen Horror has a seductive hold on us. Horror is like a tentacle crawling from the crypts of our darkest dreams to suck us into horrific nightmares. If done properly, it casts a dark magic, sending chills down readers’ spines. Now is the time, now is the hour. In my opinion, horror movies such as Insidious 1-2, The Possession of Hannah Grace, and Sinister aren’t scary to me. I am an avid writer of horror fiction and I am well read. In order to give readers or viewers the fright royale, readers should be too afraid to not leave the lights on all night and…

Halloween Haunts: Scarier than Halloween

By Loren Rhoads   Halloween has always been my kid’s favorite holiday. I did everything I could to encourage Ezra in that, even letting her choose to stay home from a school sleepaway trip in fifth grade so she could trick-or-treat. What kind of monster schedules a school trip over the best holiday of the year? By the time Ezra reached junior high, some of her classmates were already outgrowing trick-or-treating, too cool for costumes. Not my kid! Since she’s an only child, we made dates for her to trick-or-treat with another seventh-grader. My husband Mason and I took them…

Halloween Haunts: A Corporate Halloween

By David B. Riley I worked for many years in the hotel business in the mountains of Colorado.  At high altitude snow was a very real possibility for Halloween.  One day, as Halloween was approaching, snow seemed unlikely so I thought Halloween might be good for once. I asked why no one had decorated the lobby of the hotel.  I was shocked when I was informed it was no longer allowed.  The hotel had recently been taken over by another company. Apparently the new owners did not approve of Halloween and there would be no decorations or wearing of costumes…

Halloween Haunts: All Hallows Eve from Someone Who Knows Enough to be Scared

by L. Marie Wood Pumpkins and goblins and witches galore… those are things that Halloween is for!  Ok, mayb e not, and I thank you for sitting through that random rhyming start – the rest of the post will be better… I promise.  😊 Lost of people talk about Halloween an its origins, what it means, and what you could (should) do on that day, but how many of you know about All Hallows Eve?  The day before the one where children dress up as Elsa and Batman, their only quest getting as much candy as they can fit into their…

Halloween Haunts: Barbasol and Terror

By Meghan Arcuri   The fathers always took us. That’s just how it was. Maybe the dads liked it more. Maybe they thought they’d get extra candy. Maybe that’s the way it was done in my neighborhood. Regardless, most of my memories of trick-or-treating involve my dad. One year, my older brother tried to argue that we didn’t need Dad to come with us. Only in 4th grade, I wasn’t so sure I was old enough for that. Fortunately, my dad said no. I was old enough, however, to be aware of the shaving cream wars my brother and his…

Halloween Haunts: A Hundred Years of Horror Movies

by Amanda Trujillo Halloween is horror movie season. Actually, I enjoy horror movies year-round, but when Halloween draws near, I marathon my favorites. As a child, I’d watch my favorite films (mainly Universal) throughout October to get into the spirit of the season, sorting them by categories and devoting entire days to vampires, werewolves, haunted houses, etc. Nowadays, I need to begin watching my extensive collection in August and usually don’t finish until early November. I’ve also switched to viewing the most recent releases first and working my way backward to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Doing so allows me…

Halloween Haunts: A Tradition of Fright

by Robert P. Ottone As long as I can remember, Halloween has been my favorite holiday. This isn’t an original concept, right? Every horror writer champions Halloween as the best night of the year, but for me, my affinity for the spookiest of all nights connects directly to my dad and our special way of celebrating the night. The last time I went Trick or Treating was in fifth grade. I dressed as Michael Meyers and went out with my friends Shawn and Chris, and came home with a large assortment of deliciousness. After that, there was no time to…

Halloween Haunts: Damp Wind and Leaves – Halloween Fiction from Amy Grech

Dracula. Frankenstein. The Mummy. The Wolfman. Posters covered his walls, as did cotton cobwebs, rubber tarantulas, and bats strung with elastic. Dribbles of wax added authenticity to the gold-painted candelabra on shelves covered with Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror comics and antique Aurora monster models. Layered across this display fit for a wax museum was the season’s own finishing touch, stark claw-like shadows of brittle, bare branches cast through his window by the flickering streetlamp outside. As he stood gazing down at Marlborough Street, Jeff wished he were twelve again—old enough to go even a block ahead…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Abroad: Exploring Origins

by Nicole M. Wolverton Hundreds of pairs of feet pounding on Millennium Bridge, the sound of it ricocheting off the River Liffey, was like being inside an enormous beating heart—the chaos and fury mirrored in my own chest. That we all blindly followed a massive puppet toward Wolftone Square to meet up with two other parades led by two different giant puppets didn’t seem strange at all. Neither did the wind rising eerily off the Liffey, nor the howls of Macnas’ street performers cavorting amongst us in the dark. The Summoning had begun. That was the scene in Dublin, Ireland…

Call for Ads for the StokerCon Denver Souvenir Anthology

StokerCon 2021 Denver is coming in May 2021 and now is the time to get your ad in for the souvenir book. Edited by Josh Viola of Hex Publishers, an award-winning local Denver press, the souvenir anthology is sure to be an instant collector’s item. The anthology will include exclusive new fiction from some of the area’s most notable authors in addition to a unique table of contents overflowing with new non-fiction exploring the history of Denver’s robust literary scene. Of course, there will also be summaries of the HWA’s year and many programs. This anthology souvenir book will only…

Halloween Haunts: How to Enjoy Halloween in Quarantine

By Jo Kaplan These are strange and terrifying times, my friends, but not the good kind. Not the kind of strange and terrifying when a full moon shines down on twenty-five hours of Halloween mayhem as the bars fill with grotesque creatures and the streets fill with hungry little monsters. Who knows what Halloween will bring us in this, our year of the pandemic? Perhaps the streets will be empty and hauntingly quiet; perhaps you would prefer to be safe in your home. Even so, let us not mourn the loss of this year’s Halloween, but find creative ways to…

HWA’s Next Anthology Call for Submissions

Other Fears - An Anthology of Diverse Terrors Submissions open on October 1, 2020. HWA is proud to announce our next anthology: Other Fears will be an anthology of original stories revolving around a recurring theme that often comes up in both critical analysis of the horror genre and discussions about the prejudices and biases people have against minority groups that manifest in myriad phobias: the idea of "otherness." A fairly universal truth across oppressed, victimized, or historically underrepresented groups is that they have come to signify “otherness.” Be they of a different culture, a different background, a different belief…

Halloween Haunts – Why Horror Matters

by Tim Waggoner Excerpt from WRITING IN THE DARK Years ago, a student asked me why I write horror. “You seem like such a pleasant person,” she said. I looked into her eyes and smiled a slightly wicked smile. “Writing horror is what keeps me pleasant.” We all have a dark side that whispers to us, a side that we struggle against and ultimately need to make peace with if we don’t want it to destroy us. In many ways, that’s probably the most primal story of humanity. Horror fiction gives us a safe way to explore and – hopefully…

Welcome to Halloween Haunts 2020

Welcome! Come in!  Welcome, foolish mortals! Is everyone sitting comfortably?  Good.  I'll begin. {cue spooky music & creepy lighting} It is my honor and pleasure to welcome you to HWA's 2020 Halloween Haunts - a month of blog posts on all aspects of horror and Halloween for those of us who find this to be the most wonderful time of the year.  Be sure to check back daily as new posts from members of the Horror Writers Association will share Halloween memories, tips for making Halloween special in quarantine during a global pandemic, Halloween fiction, advice on writing scary, brief…

The Seers’ Table October 2020

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community So many of us are stuck inside this Halloween, so we’re excited for this full list of fabulous titles from our Seers’ Table this month. From new anthologies to recognizing a great who left us too soon, browse below for reading to get you through a gloomy October. Tish Booker recommends: Meet Alledria Hurt, a writer of the macabre from Pennsylvania now enjoying the warmth of sunny Georgia. She is the author of numerous short stories, novellas and novels from the Black perspective. She has three upcoming projects, including a short…

HWA Presents: Don’t Turn Out the Lights

The HWA is pleased to announce the release of its newest publication, Don't Turn Out the Lights, a middle-grade anthology edited by Jonathan Maberry and published by Harper Collins. The book debuted 9/1 in hardcover, eBook, and audio. Don't Turn Out the Lights is a tribute to Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and features 35 stories from such talents as R.L. Stine, Madeleine Roux, and many members of the Horror Writers Association. Illustrations by Iris Compiet.     Watch interviews with the contributors: Don't Turn Out the Lights Panel Discussion #1 This is the first of…