Kelly Dwyer: Halloween

Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts

(from @TheGoodwillLibrarian)

When the leaves turn gold and red, the air feels crisp and smells like wet leaves, the temperature drops to the 50s, and pumpkins and mums appear on porches, my thoughts turn to scary books and films.

I love watching my favorite creepy movies, and I love re-reading and discovering new shiver-inducing books. A few recent discoveries these past few weeks have been Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak, about a young nanny, recently sober, who comes to live with a family with a five year-old child. When he starts drawing dark, disturbing pictures, the nanny, unsure of what she's seeing, begins to investigate an old murder. Fervor by Alma Hatsu combines Japanese monster stories with the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II, as well as a Zombie-like illness. Ray Russell's Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Stories contain some gothic stories that seem as though they could have been written during any time period, even though these were mostly written in the '70s. My favorite is the tale of how a man came to acquire a permanent disturbing grin on his face.

I'm a fast reader, and these were page-turners. If there's a ghost haunting me, standing behind me, reading slowly, I'm afraid I disappointed them, for I was turning these pages as fast as I could to make sure the characters got out alive....

What about you? Read any good (scary) books lately? What are you looking forward to reading this fall?

Photo by Patrick Tomasso from Unsplash

As someone who loves to write and read ghost stories because of the metaphors they provide about what we can see and not see, about what we can know and not know, and about what is haunting us, I love Halloween. This year Rosie and I dressed up as a prisoner arrested for "disorderly conduct" and the friendly, unarmed police officer who is keeping the streets safe from her thievery--mostly of popcorn and covers.

Now that we are into November, I know many of you are keeping the party going by participating in National Novel Writing Month. I take my (police) hat off to anyone attempting to write 50,000 words in a month. How do you do it? I've heard the key to success is "Don't look back."

Seems like good advice for those of us trying to get a lot of writing done, and those of us walking up creaking, chilling stairs...

Like everything else, Halloween was a little different during our global pandemic, and I was impressed by how inventive and creative people were in finding new ways to celebrate and distribute treats. Some things never change, however. See Rosie the pug, above, my beloved best friend, who hated wearing a costume just as much as she always does. She was an astronaut in her rocket just long enough to seem very skeptical about a life in space with a flimsy spacesuit and no treats, while I snapped a few pictures, and then she was back to unencumbered freedom again--until I will put a Christmas hat on her, that is.

Halloween over, I awoke the next morning with a marvelous feeling: It was Sunday, November 1! I love it when new months fall on Sundays or Mondays, don't you? The entire month seems like it is filled with possibility!

I have so many plans to accomplish: so much teaching and editing this month. I also hope to enjoy some walking in brisk air before it snows, and to read and watch scary books and movies in whatever free time I have! What are your hopes and dreams for a new month that begins on a Sunday?

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