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Hi Gang!
I....well...pant pant...that was one active October.
I did my usual round of interviews as the Halloween expert (see below for a partial list - partial because I can't even remember all of it!), I did more interviews this year about my fiction (which was very gratifying), I tried to keep working on The Art of the Zombie Movie, and I tried to help my partner-in-crime Ricky with our yard haunt. All of that adds up to a whooooole lot of tired.
Given all that, this will probably be a slightly truncated newsletter. I'll be back next month, though, with more. I've decided I like the idea of celebrating Samhain like the ancient Celts did: as a new year observance. November 1 marks the return to normal life for me...or at least as "normal" as my life ever gets.
I hope you had a wonderful Halloween, and (if you celebrate) are remembering your loved ones on Dia de los Muertos.
Lisa
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Still Life
In which I rhapsodize about favorite movie photos from my collection
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I know I've talked about George Romero's Day of the Dead before, but hey - Day of the Dead (aka All Souls' Day, aka Dia de los Muertos) is tomorrow or today for a lot of you reading this, so what better movie to revisit?
Although Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are usually (and justifiably so) considered Romero's real masterpieces, Day is one that a lot of my horror writing friends really love (and me, too). There's something about that setting, for one thing - the real-life underground storage where they shot the film. And there's the conundrum of the protagonist, a doctor named Sarah who is tasked with both saving humanity and herself, since she might just be the last living woman. I even love the score by John Harrison.
Oh, and the film does have a sly little reference to November 2 (the date of Day of the Dead) buried in there. Give the film a (re)watch and see if you can spot it!
ABOUT THE STILL: This is a crazy Thai poster for the film. I can only surmise that perhaps they didn't have a still of Bub (the main zombie), so they resorted to painting something that looks like a bad Halloween mask for the zombie.
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The Halloween Spirit
Tips for keeping it going all year 'round
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Memories.
Isn't building great memories one of the reasons we celebrate ANYTHING? In this modern age we are lucky to have devices that we use (frequently!) to help us capture our special moments. Later, we can look back and enjoy those precious gifts of time all over again.
Halloween is certainly a special time for me, and I love capturing as much of it every year as I can, especially the yard haunt that Ricky and I put so much effort into. I've used these images as both practical things, like book covers or promotional material, and as personal remembrances, like the background image on my phone. Looking at them again always brings a tiny return of joy.
What do you love to remember?
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Strange Doings
The weirdest thing I've recently uncovered in my research
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Halloween in Germany.
This year a German news program invited me to chat with them about the history of Halloween in Germany...and I realized it was a gap in my knowledge, so off I went to find out.
Turns out that there's a guy named Dieter Tschorn who calls himself the Father of German Halloween. Back in 1991, the popular February German celebration of Carnival (which they call Fasching) was interrupted due to the Gulf War, and Dieter, who oversees public relations and promotion for the German Toy and Novelty Retailers Association, looked for another holiday that could be used to generate costume sales. He settled on Halloween.
The Germans also celebrate Martinmas on November 11, which is another reason Halloween was slow to catch on there. Nowadays the holiday is celebrated with pumpkin festivals, and - of course! - trick or treating.
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Introduction to A Little Yellow Book of Carcosa and Kings
(released earlier this year)
I've written once here about how an afterword I wrote (for the HWA Haunted Library of Horror Classics' releases), but I've never described how I go about writing an introduction or foreword.
First off, it depends on the book. If it's for someone else's book, I'll ask to read as much of the book as I can; I say that because quite often when I agree to do an introduction, the book isn't finished yet so I can't read a full manuscript.
When I write for one of my own books, I do quite a lot of research just for the introduction. However, when it came time to sit down and write the intro for my Robert Chambers collection A Little Yellow Book of Carcosa and Kings, I decided I wanted the intro to be an examination of Chambers' career, what led him to write his four "King in Yellow" stories, and speculate on why he never revisited that world. A lot of readers have heard of "The King in Yellow" but don't quite understand what that means, how many stories there are, or who Chambers was, so I took the opportunity to address all of those concerns.
I began work on the book in March 2020...yes, that's right - just as we went into Covid lockdown. It was a terrifying time - would I survive if I caught Covid? Would I still have a job when this ended...IF it ended? - and having a specific piece to work on was my life jacket. I threw myself headfirst into researching Robert Chambers. I read introductions to other collections of his work, I read interviews with him (yes, there are such things even though he died in 1933), I read the 1895 reviews of The King in Yellow and Other Stories when it was first released, and I read every supernatural short story Chambers wrote (there are more beyond "The King in Yellow" cycle). I pondered and wrote and rewrote until I ended up with 1,081 words and 8 footnotes about Chambers and his work.
I hope the introduction helped clarify Chambers' remarkable fiction and his position in literary history.
(Sorry, A Little Yellow Book of Carcosa and Kings is sold out.)
NOTE: If you are an HWA member and would like to read the introduction for consideration in the Bram Stoker Awards Short Non-fiction category, drop me an e-mail and I'll send you a PDF right away. Thank you. |
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Writing a coffee table art book is like nothing else I've ever done.
I've written some big books before, but not a BIG book. A coffee table art book comes with a small army of editors, and the writer isn't even the general overseeing the army (that's more like the senior editor).
My contract comes with multiple deadlines, all very clearly laid out by date. My first deadline, back in March, was to deliver the illustrations. Yes, that's right - the writer is also tracking down all the art. The reason that's the first deadline is that the small army needs as much time as possible to work on clearing copyright and permissions on the illustrations and figuring out where they'll go in the book. I was contracted to deliver 600 images; I handed in just over 700, figuring too much was better than not enough.
My next deadline was June, when I had to deliver the main text. This was the only part of the process that felt like business as usual, since I researched and wrote and worked with an editor until the text was polished. By the way, each chapter had to include five small sidebar features as well and suggestions for quotes that could be pulled out to highlight.
Deadline #3 wasn't even much up to me, although I had a say: it was the delivery by the layout genius of the first layout. The layout has now been through three passes, and currently includes 512 images. I'm gobsmacked at how gorgeous it is!
Deadline #4 is mid-December, when I have to deliver captions for all the images. Sounds easy, right? Wellll...I'm contractually obligated to deliver 27,000 words of captions. That's more than my last novella. And oh yes, I've started on that already even though the pictures are still being cleared for copyright and print quality.
#4 is my last major deadline, although there are two minor editing deadlines after that. The last is in February.
There you have it! If all continues to go well (as it looks like it will), The Art of the Zombie Movie will be published by Applause Books in fall of 2023, and I'll be able to tick off another item on my bucket list.
Now if I can just sell someone on doing my dream book The Art of Halloween...
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WIP It
My current works-in-progress
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Okay, so aside from the continuing work on The Art of the Zombie Movie, the following happened:
Halloween Beyond: Piercing the Veil was released by Crystal Lake Publishing; it includes my novella "Halloween Beyond - The Talking-board" alongside incredible novellas by Lucy A. Snyder and Kate Maruyama.
I'm on display jabbering away in Linda Palmer's excellent documentary Halloween Obsessed: Haunted Attractions. If you'd like to rent or buy the video, you can go to Vimeo and use the code LisaM for 50% off (thanks, Linda!).
CBSChicago did a lovely video profile on me that you can see here or just below.
I absolutely LOVED doing this podcast chat with Linda Addison, Gabino Iglesias, Cynthia Pelayo, Hailey Piper, Becky Spratford, and Chuck Wendig for Book & Author Society.
If you have SiriusXM, you still have a few weeks to listen to the recorded broadcast of me jabbering on the October 21 episode of Dave Nemo Weekends (it's on Channel 146).
I had a delightful video chat with the I-Scream Queens.
I talked about the more scandalous side of seance history with the popular British podcast Betwixt the Sheets.
I also talked seance history for Dan Snow's History Hit podcast.
Here I am at YahooLife talking about the history of Halloween costumes.
NBC Boston quotes me in their History of Halloween piece.
ChurchLeaders talked to me about the history of trunk or treat (this piece also ran in Sight Magazine).
Grunge quoted me on this article about the history of haunted attractions.
This article on Halloween's colors was syndicated to most the Today show's website, NBC outlets and beyond.
The German podcast Tearing Down Walls talked to me.
"Why We Eat Candy on Halloween" ran at the Inverse science website.
Here's a general chat with me on the BookLights podcast.
I provided a little bit of video on our yard haunt for the Halloween Special of Ghost Magnet With Bridget Marquardt.
For HWA's popular "Halloween Haunts" series I did a little piece on writing "Halloween Beyond - The Talking-board" which includes an excerpt.
BookRiot included Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween (with a bunch of other cool books!) in their list of "20 Must-Read Halloween Nonfiction Books".
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Halloween Beyond: Piercing the Veil
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Includes my brand-spankin'-new novella Halloween Beyond - The Talking-board. Pre-ordering is now ALIVE!
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Haunted Tales: Classic Stories of Ghosts and the Supernatural
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My Ghost Stories partner Les Klinger and I have re-teamed for a new anthology of more classic horror tales. Coming in August 2022.
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Working with members of the Wily Writers writing group, I created this small anthology that marks the first in a series of Wily Writers Presents books, all with different editors and stories. Includes my story "Hollywood Dirt." Available in print or e-book.
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Classic Monsters Unleashed
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Now available! Includes my Headless Horseman tale, "Hacking the Horseman's Code".
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Includes my (science fiction!) story "Touch Has a Memory".
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Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween
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My award-winning history of Halloween, now available in an affordable "compact edition."
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Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances
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Now in a second printing (and coming in paperback in December): my comprehensive survey of the history of spirit-calling looks at necromancy, Spiritualism, modern ghost-hunting, and more. Illustrated and fully indexed.
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Weird Women Volume 2: 1840-1925
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A new volume of Weird Women, with stories by George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and more!
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Here's the second in the Wily Writers series of anthologies, this one edited by the estimable Loren Rhoads and with my story "La Japonesa."
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Includes my ghostly tale "Halloween at the Babylon".
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The Feminine Macabre Vol. IV
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I'm proud to have provided the foreword for this wonderful collection of nonfiction works by women writers.
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Video by Ricky Grove!
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Congrats to Susan Johnson, the lucky winner of my Halloween grab bag!
For this month, I've got a copy of the new paperback release of my seance history Calling the Spirits. Click the blue button below to enter, and good luck!
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November 7, 2022, 7 PM: Les Klinger and I will be talking Haunted Tales with Friends of the North Hollywood Library.
June 15-18, 2023: I will be attending StokerCon 2023 in Pittsburgh, PA.
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