It's Heeeeeeere!
Spooky Season, that is!
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that October is my favorite month.
It’s the one time of year when the horror genre is taken seriously by everyone from big national chain stores — when else will you see giant skeletons at Home Depot, ghosts at Michaels, and bat-covered glassware at Crate & Barrel? — to your local bookstore, which may not usually carry much horror but will devote at least one table to it in honor of Spooky Season.
Also not likely to come as a surprise: Halloween is my favorite day of the year!
Halloweens of my youth involved costumes and trick-or-treating. Later, I found myself on the other end of that transaction, handing out candy to local kids, which is always a joy. (Yes, they get candy even if they don’t dress up. It’s Halloween! Everyone gets candy!)
Recently, I have a new Halloween tradition. On the big day, I settle in with a bowl of mini candy bars (I refuse to call them “fun size”!) and watch a triple feature of horror movies, mostly from the 1980s, which for my money is still horror’s best decade.
In the past, I’ve spent my Halloween sugar-high in the company of classic films like Creepshow, The Fog (1980), Fright Night (1985), Phantasm, and Return of the Living Dead.
I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to watch this year, and I’ve come up with this potential triple feature:
Poltergeist (1982)
Event Horizon
Hellraiser (1987)
The list is still tentative. I can feel Candyman (1992) creeping in at the corner of my mind, demanding a slot. We’ll see if he can smash through the mirror this year or if he has to wait until next.
How about you? Do you have any special Halloween traditions? Any movies you like to watch on the big day? Let me know by leaving a comment on the Web version of this newsletter!
Sneak Previews
My author's copies of Shadows Out of Time have arrived! Aren’t they pretty?
This Lovecraftian anthology, edited by Darrell Schweitzer and published by PS Publishing, contains my brand-new story “Every Path Taken,” which features the Mi-Go from Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness," a small Vermont liberal arts college, and a very determined undergrad who finds herself knocked into multiple timestreams.
Shadows Out of Time is available in trade paperback, e-book, and as a special hardcover signed by all the authors and limited to 100 copies.
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Special Alert: Paperback Price Drop!
Crossroad Press, publisher of several of my books, has very kindly lowered the prices of all my paperbacks to make them even more affordable!
Still Life: Nine Stories is now just $10.99!
In the Shadow of the Axe is now just $11.99!
The Hungry Earth is now just $11.99!
The Stone Serpent is now just $12.99!
Get ‘em while they’re hot! (These new prices are permanent, which means the books will always be hot!)
In the Flesh
Back at the end of August, I was a guest on Meg Goetz’s podcast, Real Chills, where folks tell their own real-life paranormal stories.
I won’t spoil my story before you listen, but suffice it to say, anyone who remembers NYC’s old occult shop the Magickal Childe on West 19th Street will get a kick out of it!
I also talk a bit about my writing, my process, and advice for new writers.
Aside from being a paranormal enthusiast, Meg is a standup comedian, so there are lots of jokes and laughs throughout the episode to help keep things fun.
I know a podcast isn’t technically me in the flesh, but you get to hear my, um, fleshy voice? Anyway, it’s available for listening now!
Here’s a link to my episode on Spotify, but you can catch it wherever you listen to podcasts!
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Come see me at the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival on Saturday, October 14th!
The festival is held at the Haverhill Public Library, 99 Main Street in Haverhill, MA, from 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM.
It’s a fun time! There will be books for sale, panel discussions, and candy for the kids!
Catch me on the 10 AM panel, “Old Horror vs. New Horror - Who did it better when it comes to the classic monsters, vampires, and ghosts?” along with Ellen Datlow, François Vaillancourt, John Langan, John Buja, and Tom Deady!
And best of all, the festival is 100% free and open to the public!
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The Shade Bar reading in August went so well, I’ve been invited back!
Come see me at “Horror at the Bar(ror) 2” a reading event on Sunday, October 22nd at the Shade Bar at 241 Sullivan Street in New York City!
The reading goes from 6 PM - 9 PM. Hosted by Todd Robinson, it will feature Erin Adams, Steven Van Patten, James Chambers, Kathleen Scheiner, Nick Kolakowski, Carol Gyzander, Teel James Glenn, and yours truly!
The reading is free! All they ask is that you buy drinks and tip well!
Weird Science Fact for October
What better time than Halloween to talk about people who have come back from the dead?
No, really, they did!
In 2014, a 78-year-old man from Mississippi, Walter Williams, was pronounced dead at his home by the local coroner. His body was taken to a funeral home, where the next day, just as the workers were about prepare his body for embalming, something strange happened.
Walter’s body bag began to move. Something was kicking at the bag from the inside.
Now, if it were me, I would have started running for the door. Luckily, the workers were much braver than me and opened the bag. Inside, they found Walter alive and breathing.
He’d been only moments away from being embalmed. If he hadn’t started kicking when he did, the process surely would have killed him.
Or perhaps I should say, killed him again.
That same year, a 91-year-old woman in Poland, Janina Kolkiewicz, was found unresponsive at home by her niece. The family doctor declared Janina dead.
The body was taken to the mortuary, where it was placed in cold storage before the funeral preparations. Eleven hours later, workers who entered the cold storage unit were shocked to see the body bag moving.
Again, I probably would have quit on the spot and left town, but the workers unzipped the bag to find Janina alive, confused as to where she was, and — this is my favorite detail — complaining about the cold!
There are other cases, too, some as recently as February of this year on Long Island.
This bizarre phenomenon is known as Lazarus syndrome, named after the character in the Bible who was ostensibly brought back to life four days after his death. Luckily, since 1982, when it was first described in medical literature, there have been fewer than 40 known cases of people coming back from the dead.
What causes Lazarus syndrome? Doctors and scientists still aren’t sure. Leading theories include pressure from chest compressions during CPR building up in the chest until CPR is stopped, at which point the pressure slowly releases and kickstarts the heart into action again; a delayed reaction to life-saving emergency medication like adrenaline, causing the heart to resume beating long after expected; and, oddly, high levels of potassium in the blood.
Of course, I prefer to think these people truly came back from the dead. We’re lucky they came back without fangs or a taste for human flesh! However, a medical explanation is probably the correct one.
If you’re worried this might happen to you, perhaps leave a note for your heirs asking them to do what they used to do for dead sailors on ships and stick a sailcloth needle through your nose, just to make sure you’re really dead!
Happy Halloween!
Until next time!
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Loved this read.
As a Halloween tradition, I used to dance along with Thriller on the TV. Got the body involved with the excitement.
My God: Lazarus syndrome?!