HALLOWEEN CHECKLIST

Let’s see…black lipstick? Check. Blue undead serial-killing supermodel wig? Check. Outdoor “cemetery” decorations from every party, card, and hobby shop in town? Check. Window jack-o’-lanterns, plastic fangs, wads of spider webs? Check, check, check.

An oddly pumpkin-colored and—come on, admit it—demonic-looking sky, just in time for Halloween? Yeah, that’s a bonus.


Have a pus-filled, gory, ghastly Halloween, everyone! (Here, your ears fill with a wicked witch’s cackle…)

SEYMORE BONES

What? That’s his name. And the love of his life, Ima Dead, currently resides just one grave over. Their love affair was the stuff that long, sprawling songs are made of: “Frankie and Johnny,” or even Cash’s “Delia’s Gone”…the kind of thing that ends in cheating and gunshots…

At least, that’s what I tell people when they see the cemetery I’ve got out front, which gets a new headstone just about every single day…and don’t even get me started on the backstory I invented for Frank N. Stein, who’s the newest addition to the graveyard, chains, bashed-in skull and all…

…I mean, you can’t expect a writer to just turn off her story-telling when she gets up from her desk, now, can you?

I'M A BOOK COOK!

Okay, so I’m not exactly going to be in the running for Top Chef anytime soon, but fellow ’10 YA debut novelist Holly Cupala graciously included me in her clever blog series Book Cooks (writers dishing on their forthcoming books and favorite recipes). She posted my super easy recipe for Coffee Jelly yesterday!

Check it out at Holly's blog!

HARVEST MOON HEAVEN

We’ve enjoyed a harvest moon in the area as of late—that full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, whose light once gave farmers the opportunity to work well into the night, hauling in their crops…

All I can say is that farming isn’t the only work a harvest moon can foster. Something about the first chill of autumn makes me want to brew an extra pot of coffee and work on my new manuscript long after sunset hues like these have faded away…