A Few of My Favorite October Stories

Posted on October 17, 2023 ·

(A version of this post appeared in The Faerie Review in 2022)

‘Tis the season for ghosts and goblins, misty graveyards, and haunted houses. When long summer days are overtaken by autumn darkness there’s nothing like curling up with a good October story, so in honor of Halloween month, here are a few of my favorites:

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

No one writes October stories quite like Ray Bradbury. The celebrated fantasy and horror author famously loved Halloween month, a fondness he indulged in books like The Halloween Tree, The October Country, and my personal favorite, Something Wicked This Way Comes. Reading Bradbury’s dark fantasy about a sinister traveling carnival spreading evil in a small Illinois town is like falling into a dream. The story is told in prose that’s more like poetry, rich with the warm hues of autumn and a deep hypnotic dread.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Written like a classic Victorian ghost story, this Gothic tale embraces requisite tropes of the genre: an isolated house shrouded in fog and ruin, a mysterious figure lurking in a graveyard, phantom cries that can only be heard at night. Wrapped in a Christmas memory, the story does take a while to warm up, but once the haunting begins it pulls you along in a slow luxury of terror. A perfect October read.

“Children of the Corn” by Stephen King (from short story collection Night Shift)

The 1984 movie adaptation of Stephen King’s classic October story was a favorite of mine as a teenager. I loved it so much, when my high school sweetheart said he had family in the little town of Salix, Iowa, where part of the movie was filmed, I immediately suggested a road trip. Unlike the film, the short story is bereft of sentiment and does not end well for our main characters. This version is as much a grim portrayal of a failing marriage and the cruelties we become capable of inflicting on those with whom we’ve fallen out of love as a story of supernatural evil.

17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma

This absolute gem of a young adult novel is set in winter but is 100% an October story. Suma, with her hazy, languid prose, skillfully weaves a tapestry of missing teenage girls whose stories haunt the main character, Lauren, in ghostly visions and terrible dreams. Lauren becomes further estranged from her real-life relationships as she’s pulled deeper into the psychic mysteries of these lost girls. A mesmerizing story with a shock of an ending that somehow works.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…” Ah, what better first line to lure a reader into the sublime gothic nightmare that is Rebecca? Fraught with mystery and dread, this slow burn of a novel settles into your bones like the chill of autumn itself. The isolation and fear that Daphne du Maurier creates for her unnamed protagonist, and the bleak, ominous atmosphere of the estate of Manderley where she is haunted, combine to grip the reader in a dark and gloomy embrace. Pure October horror.

Enjoy the season, everyone, and happy reading!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 31, 2021 ·

Image by Mayur Gadge from Pixabay

It’s so hard to let go of October; I always wish it would stay a little longer. Halloween night has yet to arrive and already my month has been full of treats.

I indulged in plenty of great horror movies, including a re-watch of the compulsively re-watchable Fear Street trilogy; I switched from summer dresses and sandals to cardigans and boots; and once, on an early morning walk, I spotted a coyote disappearing down a dark quiet street. The half-eaten breakfast he’d left behind on a nearby lawn was as disturbing as anything I’d seen on screen.

Another sort of scary but fun experience was posting a short story to Kindle Vella.

“The Secret Keeper” was first drafted in 2015 as part of my collection What Was Never There. I never published the collection but succeeded in placing several of the pieces in online magazines. “The Secret Keeper” was obviously not one of those; it’s nearly 8,000 words long and that far exceeds most magazines’ word count.

It’s perfect for Vella though! A clear favorite among those who’ve beta read What Was Never There, “The Secret Keeper” is about a boy named Owen and the secrets he keeps beneath an enchanted willow tree. I split the story into three parts, all of which are now available to read. I hope you enjoy this magical tale of childhood wonder, summer nights, and October promises.

Happy Halloween!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Zombie Slime, Hocus Pocus, and Other Scary Stuff

Posted on October 31, 2020 ·

Photo by Sarah Gualtieri on Unsplash

Happy Halloween, everyone! The day started with an astonishing sunrise and is ending on a blue moon. I’m taking a break from fiction during my morning writing block to scribble an October blog post that I’ve meant to write for weeks. Every time I sat down to do it, my efforts were thwarted by the Freeform channel’s eerily addictive programming. Apparently there’s no limit to the number of times you can watch Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the Goosebumps movie.

Anyway, I hope you and your family enjoy the holiday. I did my dressing up yesterday, donning a floppy brown hat and denim overalls to play scarecrow for the day. Our elementary school students returned this week (well, about half of them), and it was delightful to see their sweet faces and adorable costumes. Tonight it’s my children’s turn—Abbey is a 1920s flapper girl and sure to dazzle in her black and gold fringe dress, and Gabe is once again Anonymous, so he’ll be wearing two masks this year.

There are still pumpkins to carve, cupcakes to frost, and some edible zombie slime thing to prepare—it looks a bit like blood Jell-O swimming with gummy fingers and actually glows in the dark. It might just be the scariest thing I see tonight, unless I try to sit through yet another viewing of Hocus Pocus.

Stay safe, have fun, and see you in November!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:

Celebrating Halloween with a New Story

Posted on October 31, 2018 ·

This Halloween I’m celebrating for several reasons. One is simply the fact that, to me, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. When wreaths of snarled twigs and black roses show up in the stores alongside pumpkins, sugar skulls, and shelves full of candy, it signals the end of summer. And for us desert dwellers, that is a blessed relief.

Another reason to celebrate is that today I’m editing the final chapter of my book The House on Linden Way. I wrote about this work-in-progress last September, but back then I called it my maybe-novel. That’s because I often start a story with the intention of writing a book, but instead end up writing a long short story. I was thrilled when this one chose to stay with me a little longer. Now my once maybe-novel is a full-length manuscript—revised, polished, and on its way tomorrow to my beta readers.

Finally, I’m excited to announce that my short story “The Lost Girls” was published today in YA Review Net (YARN). This story was formerly known as “The Shell of Light” and won runner-up in YARN’s 2017 Halloween Fiction Contest. It’s a favorite of mine for the same reason Halloween is my favorite holiday: I love the moody imagery and Gothic gloom of October stories. I keep my Halloween screen saver on all year long, and I’m a sucker for literature and films depicting crumbling castles, misty graveyards, dark forests, decaying mansions, ghosts and goblins or, in this case, a night out trick-or-treating gone horribly wrong.

I wrote “The Lost Girls” to a prompt given to me by my then seven-year-old son, so this one’s for him, although it’ll be a few more years before he’s allowed to read it. You don’t have to wait though. Click here to read “The Lost Girls,” and Happy Halloween!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,