Halloween Memories and October's Featured Follower
I went back into my archives to see what I'd posted on this holiday in the past. The first Halloween post was this one!
Halloween 2007
It just ain't the same. I mean tonight it will still be light when the tiny ghosts trek to my door. How can a ghost be spooky in daylight? And my witchy costume is so shabby from years of use that I rely on nightfall to conceal all of the patched pieces and cider stains. Sigh.
Well, no matter what, we are having Halloween. It is my absolutely favorite holiday. I don't have to plan a family gathering, I don't have to be sure to seat Uncle Pete away from Cousin Sadie, I don't have to make a vegetarian side dish for Leah Ann who is sixteen and turning Zen on me. All I have to do is buy a few trinkets and candy and have fun. My kind of holiday.
2008 and 2009 Westside Books had me out and about launching my first book, Sliding on the Edge, and I didn't have time to post about Halloween. But then 2010 produced this.
Halloween 2010
Happy Ghostly Halloween
It's the time of year to pull those pumpkin vines, bundle the corn stalks and put away the outdoor furniture. Fall is for coming to the hearth with a good book and a hot cup of cocoa-a time to look inward and reminisce about spring and summer days that warmed the garden and brought forth the crops for harvest.
The sudden shift of light, the clouds with hints of a storm bundled inside, the night that comes more quickly . . . all of these are October, and there's a slight charge in the air as the old myths stir within our memory.
Persephone once again returns to Hades as she was bound to do. Demeter bemoans the loss of her daughter and the earth goes silent and infertile for the months they are separated.
Now is the time for ghosts to walk among us, while our minds grow quiet in the long chilled nights.
I haven't written a ghost story in a few years, but I had a couple published a while ago in Crow Toes Quarterly, so I thought to celebrate the season, I'd share this one. It's written for middle grade readers, so I hope you'll print it and read it or give it to a young reader who would like to be a tad scared by the THE GHOSTLY DOUBLE.
This has been fun going back to see what I thinking and writing. Now let's come up to date.
Some of you know I've started Email Connect as one way to organize my support for authors and give 12 of them extra promo during the year. I can't believe I'm almost ready to announce my Featured Follower for November! But before I do, here's one more bit about October's Yvonne Ventresca and her new book, Black Flowers, White Lies.
FUN FACT: Near the end of the Black Flowers, White Lies, Ella meets a friend at Sybil’s Cave. As mentioned earlier in the novel, the real-life murder of Mary Rogers near that spot in 1841 inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 story, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.”
To buy Black Flowers, White Lies: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N | AmazonUK | BAMBio: Yvonne Ventresca’s latest young adult novel, Black Flowers, White Lies was recently published by Sky Pony Press (October, 2016). BuzzFeed included it at the top of their new “must read” books: 23 YA Books That, Without a Doubt, You’ll Want to Read This Fall . Her debut YA novel, Pandemic, won a 2015 Crystal Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for the Atlantic region.
Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads
My Quote of the Week: "Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories--and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories." Alice Munro, short story writer and Nobel Prize winner.
Beware the White Rabbit (Anthology: They Call Me Alice), Leap Books, Summer '15
Sliding on the Edge, C. Lee McKenzie, WestSide Books, Spring '09
The Princess of Las Pulgas, WestSide Books, Fall '10
The First Time, Fall '11 (Anthology story: Premeditated Cat)
Alligators Overhead, Outskirts Press, Fall '12
Two and Twenty Dark Tales (Anthology story: Into the Sea of Dew
Halloween 2007
It just ain't the same. I mean tonight it will still be light when the tiny ghosts trek to my door. How can a ghost be spooky in daylight? And my witchy costume is so shabby from years of use that I rely on nightfall to conceal all of the patched pieces and cider stains. Sigh.
Well, no matter what, we are having Halloween. It is my absolutely favorite holiday. I don't have to plan a family gathering, I don't have to be sure to seat Uncle Pete away from Cousin Sadie, I don't have to make a vegetarian side dish for Leah Ann who is sixteen and turning Zen on me. All I have to do is buy a few trinkets and candy and have fun. My kind of holiday.
2008 and 2009 Westside Books had me out and about launching my first book, Sliding on the Edge, and I didn't have time to post about Halloween. But then 2010 produced this.
Halloween 2010
Happy Ghostly Halloween
It's the time of year to pull those pumpkin vines, bundle the corn stalks and put away the outdoor furniture. Fall is for coming to the hearth with a good book and a hot cup of cocoa-a time to look inward and reminisce about spring and summer days that warmed the garden and brought forth the crops for harvest.
The sudden shift of light, the clouds with hints of a storm bundled inside, the night that comes more quickly . . . all of these are October, and there's a slight charge in the air as the old myths stir within our memory.
Persephone once again returns to Hades as she was bound to do. Demeter bemoans the loss of her daughter and the earth goes silent and infertile for the months they are separated.
Now is the time for ghosts to walk among us, while our minds grow quiet in the long chilled nights.
I haven't written a ghost story in a few years, but I had a couple published a while ago in Crow Toes Quarterly, so I thought to celebrate the season, I'd share this one. It's written for middle grade readers, so I hope you'll print it and read it or give it to a young reader who would like to be a tad scared by the THE GHOSTLY DOUBLE.
This has been fun going back to see what I thinking and writing. Now let's come up to date.
Some of you know I've started Email Connect as one way to organize my support for authors and give 12 of them extra promo during the year. I can't believe I'm almost ready to announce my Featured Follower for November! But before I do, here's one more bit about October's Yvonne Ventresca and her new book, Black Flowers, White Lies.
FUN FACT: Near the end of the Black Flowers, White Lies, Ella meets a friend at Sybil’s Cave. As mentioned earlier in the novel, the real-life murder of Mary Rogers near that spot in 1841 inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 story, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.”
To buy Black Flowers, White Lies: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N | AmazonUK | BAMBio: Yvonne Ventresca’s latest young adult novel, Black Flowers, White Lies was recently published by Sky Pony Press (October, 2016). BuzzFeed included it at the top of their new “must read” books: 23 YA Books That, Without a Doubt, You’ll Want to Read This Fall . Her debut YA novel, Pandemic, won a 2015 Crystal Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for the Atlantic region.
Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads
My Quote of the Week: "Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories--and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories." Alice Munro, short story writer and Nobel Prize winner.
Beware the White Rabbit (Anthology: They Call Me Alice), Leap Books, Summer '15
Sliding on the Edge, C. Lee McKenzie, WestSide Books, Spring '09
The Princess of Las Pulgas, WestSide Books, Fall '10
The First Time, Fall '11 (Anthology story: Premeditated Cat)
Alligators Overhead, Outskirts Press, Fall '12
Two and Twenty Dark Tales (Anthology story: Into the Sea of Dew
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