Halloween Haunts: Horror Writers Association Goes to the Library

Halloween Haunts: Horror Writers Association Goes to the Library

This year, for the first time, the Horror Writers Association invited libraries to get involved with Halloween Haunts and help promote the event to their patrons. Libraries were asked to post HH announcements to their online sites, in their libraries, or to involve HH in their teen reads and literacy programs--and then submit photos of screenshots of their efforts. All libraries that participate are entered in a raffle to win one of the following prizes: Grand Prize: $100 for an in-library Halloween party or event or to support in-library literacy or creative writing programs First Prize: $50 for an in-library…
Halloween Haunts: Mass Grave by Colum Sanson-Regan

Halloween Haunts: Mass Grave by Colum Sanson-Regan

The Irish countryside is alive with spirits. On Halloween, the Celtic New Year, the thin veil between this world and the next slips. For the Celts, the year was divided in two, the bright half and the dark half. Halloween marks the beginning of that half of the year when the spirits hold dominion. The fruits of the last summer harvest were offered to the spirits so they would treat the living well during the coming dark months. In recent history, the weight has shifted and the ranks of unquiet and malign spirits has grown. The Great Famine is barely…
Halloween Haunts: The House of Hallows Eve by Anthony Crowley

Halloween Haunts: The House of Hallows Eve by Anthony Crowley

The month of October has always made me feel comforted, I recall during my childhood years the local residents of Warley County in the West Midlands would prepare and speak of exciting travelling funfairs as the Halloween season approached. Fond memories of freshly made cakes and toffee apples became a pastime which is still popular today. The change of season felt like a special homecoming. The leaves would fall and mysterious looking trees would wither with the skyline turning grey, it was a Gothic inspiration to visualise. One of the earliest memories I have about Halloween was visiting my Grandfather’s…
Halloween Haunts: Halloween Lost by Kenneth W.Cain

Halloween Haunts: Halloween Lost by Kenneth W.Cain

My daughter told me she no longer wishes to go out on Halloween night. This worried me, the thought that our children would never know Halloween night the way prior generations have. For me, Halloween was a day of empowerment. A day when you could be any superhero you wanted. When you could scare the girls by donning a wolf mask or some fangs and fake blood, and not end up getting scolded by your mother. It was a night you could run around the neighborhood unbridled, ransacking candy buckets and playing tricks without worry. Alas, times have changed. And…
Halloween Haunts: I Don’t Get Zombies by Kristina Stancil

Halloween Haunts: I Don’t Get Zombies by Kristina Stancil

Zombies. I don’t get the fascination. Aside from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a few scenes of Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies, and a handful of children’s movies where zombies play a role I have not had much interest in zombies. It is certainly has a wide fan base….especially in AMC’s The Walking Dead. Even though at least two of my friends (including my bff who is the whole reason I watched an ep) are diehard fans and after one won tickets to go to the season premier party and was extremely upset at not being able…
Halloween Haunts: The Enduring Popularity of Vampires by Michael J. McCann

Halloween Haunts: The Enduring Popularity of Vampires by Michael J. McCann

There's an ongoing fascination with vampires and the Undead, especially at Halloween. You can probably name a dozen novels and films/television series with vampire themes. Bram Stoker's Dracula set forth all of the conventions that were copied—for better or worse—by subsequent generations of writers and film-makers. The legacy of this novel has been immense. The vampire has become synonymous with horror in the popular imagination, and the concept of the “Undead” (which was the original title of the novel), an evil entity that cannot be destroyed but rises up again and again, is central to the horror genre. There have…
Halloween Haunts: Heady Ritual, Deviant Day by L. Andrew Cooper

Halloween Haunts: Heady Ritual, Deviant Day by L. Andrew Cooper

Not yet at the time of this writing, but on October 31, 2014—barring unforeseen circumstances, such as stepping into an open hole in the sidewalk and being impaled on the metalwork below—I will spend much of the day writing a short story. This year is the 22nd in a row for which my big Halloween plans are to be completely antisocial until I have produced a draft of something horrific, which I will then share with my partner and a close circle of friends and family. Not only is the voting-age status of this ritual an undeniable trump card for…
Halloween Haunts: Back In My Day… by Armand Rosamilia

Halloween Haunts: Back In My Day… by Armand Rosamilia

I’ll be 45 in November but some days I feel much older. I find myself talking about the Good Old Days and when I was a kid and saying things like you damn kids, get off my lawn. Halloween was a magical day when I was a child, and even into my teens. OK, late teens. I can remember all of the cheesy costumes my mom would dress me in: Ronald McDonald, a cowboy, Gene Simmons… but never as Darth Vader. I always wanted to be Darth Vader. My parents were great people but we didn’t have extra money to…
Halloween Haunts: My Father’s Holiday by Jay Wilburn

Halloween Haunts: My Father’s Holiday by Jay Wilburn

Halloween is such an oddly pseudo-religious, family friendly, mildly inappropriate for children, cross generational, community oriented, unrecognized national holiday. It has all the bizarre mixtures of a surreal story element. If Halloween did not exist and an author invented it as a device for a story, it would surely push the story into the realm of weird fiction. It is a holiday which encourages children in taking candy from as many strangers as possible. There is an implied and encouraged threat of vandalism based on a child’s judgment of quality of treat and adult homeowners’ choice of participation in some…
Halloween Haunts: The Darkness by J. Lincoln Fenn

Halloween Haunts: The Darkness by J. Lincoln Fenn

It sounds corny, cliché, but the truth is that when I saw my mother’s body in the coffin at the wake, she looked…good. Like she was taking a well-deserved nap. There was no trace of the pancreatic tumor that had swollen her belly so she looked 8 months pregnant, her skin was luminous and there was even a slight blush to her cheek. When I reached out a hand to touch her forehead, it was a true shock to find it cold. Cold because, after all, this body had just been pulled from a chiller, all to maintain the illusion…
Halloween Haunts: The Highwayman By David B. Riley

Halloween Haunts: The Highwayman By David B. Riley

One of the first stories I ever had published is "The Highwayman." I've actually managed to get it reprinted some 10 times over the years at various anthologies and such. It's very short, kind of whimsical, and I tend to dust it off every October. I debated whether to use it for Halloween Haunts as it's not really horror.  But it definitely is a Halloween story.  I hope folks enjoy it.    "The Highwayman" by David B. Riley Kalcouldn't tell for certain no one had seen him, but there weren't any sirens screeching through the night. He opened the hatch and…
Halloween Haunts: The Last Night of October by Marge Simon

Halloween Haunts: The Last Night of October by Marge Simon

The Last Night of October   The last night of October is one of crickets, loud and soft, blending with a yellow gray sky, a chill wind rising,   while down the street children in costume parade from house to house. But ours is dark.   A door slams. My wife's thin face, distorted with hate, breath stinking of gin, that shy pretty girl I took to the altar so many years ago, out she goes to the car.   (about the brakes - I'd fixed them just for her)   She revs it up, and charges into the rush…
Stephen King’s HorrorSelfie!

Stephen King’s HorrorSelfie!

Visit horrorselfies.com to upload your own Horror Selfie and to see selfies from Stephen King, Lisa Tuttle, Peter Straub, Ellen Datlow, Aaron Sterns, and Ramsey Campbell among many others! And, you might win a prize if you submit in October!
Halloween Haunts: Halloween, Horror, and Death by Leigh M. Lane

Halloween Haunts: Halloween, Horror, and Death by Leigh M. Lane

The best Halloween I ever had occurred a little over a decade ago. I was living with my sisters in a large house just outside of Las Vegas, and we’d joined efforts to transform the front yard into a terrifying treat. We’d constructed elaborate gravestones for the lawn, adorned the porch with spider webs and multiple Jack-o’-Lanterns carved with devilishly scary faces, set out a cauldron flooding over with the sublime of dry ice, and compiled hours of spooky MIDI files to finish the mood. The finished product had been horror-film worthy, the reactions it evoked worth every hour we’d…
Halloween Haunts: Monster Squad: An Appreciation by Patty Templeton

Halloween Haunts: Monster Squad: An Appreciation by Patty Templeton

Halloween, to me, is about watching movies. Yeah, yeah, costumes and candy, too, but it’s mostly about the MOVIES. A hella fun flick I revisit nearly every Halloween is The Monster Squad. 1987 was not kind to The Monster Squad. The New York Times said, “The Monster Squad looks like a feature-length commercial for a joke store that sells not-great, rubber monster masks.” The Washington Post was even harsher saying, “…the movie plays like it was written with a power tool.” It cost 12 million to make and yet recouped only 3 million at the box office. Geez. But this…this…
Halloween Haunts: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Jim Pyre

Halloween Haunts: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Jim Pyre

I’ve loved Halloween. It seems passé I should, but before I read my first bit of Lovecraft. I was crazy for the holiday. It was different, not the same tick-tock ritual as the others.  Thanksgiving, I sat at the same table until I was sixteen.  Christmas, sure it was the mother load, but how long can you pretend Uncle Fred is the jolly old fat man.  Halloween was always different. Always on my terms. I wanted to be a pirate. Bam, I was a pirate. Same goes for a mad scientist, or even a Ghostbuster. I also picked where I…
Charles Day Retires as Mentor Program Chair, Replaced by Michael Knost

Charles Day Retires as Mentor Program Chair, Replaced by Michael Knost

As previously announced Charles Day is stepping down as HWA's Mentor Program Chair after three years to concentrate on his roles as Co-Chair of HWA's New York/Long Island Chapter and as a Member of the Library Committee. HWA's President Rocky Wood thanked Charles for his service, "Charles has done a superb job, increasing the number of members being mentored many fold to 35. The work needed to get more mentors and matching mentors and mentees is immense and largely unseen." Members who wish to volunteer as a mentors should email president@horror.org. After a handover period Michael Knost will be the…
Halloween Haunts: Real Horror on Halloween by Billie Sue Mosiman

Halloween Haunts: Real Horror on Halloween by Billie Sue Mosiman

I love the holiday. It's dark, chilly October flying fast into November and the nights are full of ghosts. Sometimes we become ghosts. Don’t we? Real horror is to face a life-threatening disease, facing it squarely, shoulders thrown back, and a mantra in the mind saying, "Go ahead, do your worst. I did my best. I'm not afraid of you." I saw several of my friends and contemporaries in the past year succumb to the Reaper and yet some of them overcame and rallied. I cheered for that, sending my love and healing thoughts to them. I rallied, too. The…
What The HWA Has Meant To Me: JG Faherty

What The HWA Has Meant To Me: JG Faherty

(Editor’s note.) While editing Legends of the Mountain State, I rejected a story from a fella named JG Faherty. I immediately received a thank you from him, along with another submission. I rejected that one, too. It didn’t take long to receive a submission from the same young man when I started accepting submissions for Legends of the Mountain State 2. I rejected that story as well. Then, a year later, I read a manuscript from Greg for Legends of the Mountain State 3 and couldn’t believe how wonderful it was. In an email, I told him I wanted to…
Discounts for Members

Discounts for Members

Did you know that the Horror Writers Association has a list of businesses that offer discounts to its members? As a member, you can get discounts on advertising, car rentals, editing and proofreading, merchandise, publications, travel and tours, and web services. Members, if you haven't seen the list, check it out! (Member login required.) To Businesses The Horror Writers Association wishes to thank all those who have so generously offered discounts to HWA members. If you are a publisher or bookseller, are involved in some other type of business providing products or services that might be of interest to professional…