Halloween Haunts: Rekindling The (Halloween) Magic

Halloween Haunts: Rekindling The (Halloween) Magic By DJ Slater I remember when the feeling hit me, the one where you realize something that once brought you immense joy no longer reaches those heights. Since my early childhood, my parents always found the time to take my sister and me to a haunted house attraction every October. We were probably too young for the experience, yet it was common for an 80s kid to be exposed to certain things way too soon. We watched horror movies before we ever walked the halls of an elementary school. We witnessed increasingly violent media…

Halloween Haunts: Halloween in a Theatre

Halloween Haunts: Halloween in a Theatre By Kevin Wetmore   There is a running joke in the theatre, often expressed on a t-shirt, stating, “I can’t – I have rehearsal.” This has felt like a truism for much of my professional life. I am often too busy doing theatre to do much else, including seeing other theatre. Don’t weep for me or my people, however, because we are, like the Halloween People, able to keep the Halloween spirit all year round. Think about it: I get to put on costumes regularly. I play dress up. I play, period. One of…

Nuts & Bolts: The Value of Creative Writing Courses With Author Ray Cluley

Taking a creative writing course is a concept that some of Ray Cluley’s fellow authors seem to find puzzling. Even objectionable. If you’re calling yourself a writer, shouldn’t you already know how to write? Since it’s such a personal endeavor, how can it even be taught?

In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, Ray discusses the full range of benefits from a creative writing course, and how even seasoned professionals can use one to hone their craft.

Halloween Haunts: An Oingo Boingo Halloween

Halloween Haunts: An Oingo Boingo Halloween By Joshua Millican   I’ve always loved horror more than Halloween. Horror, that feeling you get when you face the darkness of the unknown, has fascinated and excited me since I was a kid. Horror movies, comics, stories, toys… you name it, I loved it! By my pre-teens, horror had already become a lifestyle for me. I was a spooky kid with morbid curiosities and a love of fear that made me a standout—for better or worse. When you live horror 24/7, Halloween was just another day. Don’t get me wrong—I loved the fall…

Halloween Haunts: KRAKEN, AND RAVENS, AND RAPTORS… OH, MY!

Halloween Haunts: KRAKEN, AND RAVENS, AND RAPTORS… OH, MY! By Evan Baughfman    October’s not just for things bumping in the night. It’s also when sports grab ahold of me, slide their fangs into my bookish flesh, and transform me into a fanpire. The NFL season is alive, and my fantasy football teams have (once again) been some frustrating version of the undead—ripping opponents apart one week and fumbling around in the dark, headless and heartless, the next. My kids are both playing soccer. Their games have had me on the edge of my seat more often than the newest…

Halloween Haunts: What Ben Cooper Taught Me About Life

Halloween Haunts: What Ben Cooper Taught Me About Life By Den Shewman   The things that made me: The famous Shock Theater package of Universal Studios monster movies, licensed cheap to local TV stations. Aurora’s monster kits, especially the glow-in-the-dark versions, and their wonderfully dark (and horribly short-lived) Dr. Deadly’s Monster Scene snap-together kits, featuring the Doctor, the Pain Parlor, and the Saber-tooth Rabbit (we won’t mention the Victim, who got the PTA all riled up). The Comics Code Authority, the loosening of which in the early 1970s released a slew of monsters into mainstream comics in all their four-colored…

Halloween Haunts: Cinnamon Sugar and Grave Dust: Musings of a Writer in San Diego’s Old Town

Halloween Haunts: Cinnamon Sugar and Grave Dust: Musings of a Writer in San Diego’s Old Town By Kathryn Blanche   “The oldest town in California,” touted the sign posted on the dust-coated message board of the El Campo Santo Cemetery. I wandered through the grave markers, dust swirling around my boots. My friend Kaylee kept pace beside me. Always up for an adventure, Kaylee agreed to join me in Old Town this evening to find a specific gravesite. “I think this is it.” Littered in seashells, bracelets, and other trinkets, it stood out from the others. Kaylee wrinkled her nose…

Halloween Haunts: Learning About Dark Poetry, and a Burning Haibun for Halloween

Halloween Haunts: Learning About Dark Poetry, and a Burning Haibun for Halloween By Stacie Herrington Hello, Halloween people! First off, I would like to thank HWA member and amazing poet Stephanie M. Wytovich along with all the contributors to Writing Poetry in the Dark, which I am reading now and highly recommend. Thanks to the ideas, creativity, and experimentation with form encouraged in this book, I have been writing every day. As a result, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole about form, and learned about a form called the burning haibun. A Haibun, if you have not…

Halloween Haunts: Have You Ever Shaken the Devil’s Hand on Halloween Night?

Halloween Haunts: Have You Ever Shaken the Devil’s Hand on Halloween Night? By David Sandner   Was it a Halloween night when Robert Johnson walked out to the crossroads to make a deal with the devil? I don’t know, I’ll ask him next time I see him. There’s lot of versions of this story (because there’s lots of ways to go to hell, but only one way home). Here’s one account of things: Robert Johnson wanted to be a Blues guitar player, but when he stepped on stage as a young man, he got hooted off. He just wasn’t good…

Halloween Haunts: The Severed Hand

Halloween Haunts: The Severed Hand By Michael Subjack Halloween has always been my favorite time of year, but there was an odd period between trick-or-treating as a child and enjoying more ambitious pursuits as an adult that found me homebound but still eager to celebrate the holiday. This interlude occurred from eighth grade through my senior year of high school. I generally had friends over to watch horror movies while I handed out candy. The street I grew up on was on a direct path to a building known colloquially as the Armory, which hosted a family-friendly Halloween party every…

Halloween Haunts: Healing Halloween

Halloween Haunts: Healing Halloween By Lauren Drinkard   A Child of the 80’s Being a first model Millennial (1981) my love of all things spooky and haunted started as a young child. My gateway drugs were Hellraiser, Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead, Child’s Play, Dracula, Pet Sematary, and Misery. I was just as influenced by my generation's young adult horror books: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Halloween Tree, Goosebumps, and The Witches. Dark thrillers and evil plots had become part of my DNA. Like most parents, my mom also heavily influenced me. She is a water…

Halloween Haunts: Eat, Drink, and Be Haunted

Halloween Haunts: Eat, Drink, and Be Haunted by Paula Cappa What traditional Halloween supper do you conjure up on October 31? How about ghost-steaming penne pasta, murdered sliced-up sausage, and green spinach playing peek-a-BOO. At our house, this is a Halloween night favorite. This dish Penne Alla Vite is served at the Twisted Vine Restaurant in Derby, Connecticut, where diners report hearing disembodied voices, seeing apparitions—a little girl is said to haunt the tables—and a jukebox starts playing at its will.     The pasta recipe is published in Food To Die For by Ami Bruni, Recipes and Stories From…

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,…

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Iona Wayland

What inspired you to start writing?

To be honest, it was a group of alley cats. Even before I could write, I’d literally scribble and loopity-loop in a composition notebook about the cat families I saw outside from my window. The way I portrayed their stray lives was often like an anthropomorphized telenovela and I remember being frustrated when no one could read what I’d written.

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.…

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Ericca Chavez

What inspired you to start writing?

I was inspired to start writing because of the ghost stories I would hear as a kid, in particular, La Llorona; they sparked my imagination. I made up worlds in my mind and found myself lost in them—still am most days. Then one day, I decided to bring these worlds to life by actually putting them down on paper.

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…

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Erick Mancilla

What inspired you to start writing?

For a long time, I wanted to be a comic book writer/creator. I wrote various stories in the comic book medium. Unfortunately, the search for an artist/collaborator was a difficult task. After quite some time of fruitless searches, I did some deep soul-searching and made the jump to writing genre fiction where I had no one but myself to rely on. It has turned out to be the best decision I could have ever made for my creativity.

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…

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Victor H. Rodriguez

What inspired you to start writing?

It was a combination of two things: reading, and my day job. After I started working full-time, I developed the terrible habit of not reading anything longer than a magazine article. Then, per my mother’s recommendation – which is odd, considering how not into horror she is – I picked up The Books of Blood, short story collections by Clive Barker, those slim American paperback editions with the monstrous faces on them. The stories The Midnight Meat Train, The Forbidden, and In the Hills, the Cities tore a hole in my brain. I could barely believe people could write such things. I became a lifelong fan of his work. Meanwhile, my career took me in the direction of audio production for TV, movies, and video games. If you combine high-concept short-form story ideas and my fascination with sound, you get the lion’s share of my fiction.