Halloween and Tariffs, Requiem, and a Giveaway!
Every Day is Halloween #101: The Official Newsletter of Lisa Morton
Hi All!
As I write this, we’re only two weeks out from StokerCon, my favorite event of the year. I’ve always believed that you choose your family, and this is my yearly family reunion. I can’t wait to see old friends, meet new ones, share meals and drinks and book talk, and even take a day trip to New York to see Cabaret with Orville Peck, who I absolutely love. While I am NOT looking forward to traveling (months ago, before all the recent news coverage, I booked everything through Newark, groan), this year I’ve taken two extra days of vacation time just to cover the travel part so I can fully enjoy the convention.
A month after StokerCon I’ll be traveling again to the east coast, for a private conference I’m probably not supposed to talk about but am very much looking forward to, despite again enduring long flights and lines.
Meanwhile, we’re close to locking the deal on the next nonfiction book, so I hope to have one more reason to celebrate at StokerCon.
Because of that book (which will take a year to write) and another smaller research project (two months of research on that one and related to that July trip) I have to do something I don’t like: I'm afraid I’ll be unable to consider doing anymore blurbs, for at least a few months. As much as I enjoy reading great stuff and helping other authors, I’m going to be overwhelmed with my own work.
Here’s to a summer of getting stuff done.
Lisa
NEW STUFF I LIKE
I’ve been a fan of John Palisano’s work for a few decades now, which is why I’m especially happy to say his new novel Requiem might be his best yet. I had the pleasure of reading this early on and I supplied this blurb (which ended up being used on the back cover!):
"Smart, trippy, fast-paced and packed with dread, John Palisano's Requiem is a superb horror/scifi hybrid that will rattle your synapses and jangle your nerves."
Amazon’s got a nice sample you can read, but you can buy it anywhere.
Bonus: John’s author newsletter, Dispatches, is also great and you should subscribe. ;)
THE HALLOWEEN SPIRIT
Trump’s thoroughly daft tariffs (I’ve taken to calling him The Tariffier) are breaking everything, including Halloween. I’ve never been to the Spirit Halloween flagship store opening (hey, it’s on the other side of the country from me), but I know it’s a big deal to a lot of Halloween people.
I’ll just leave this here.
STRANGE DOINGS
I’ve recently been digging into the story of William Crookes and Florence Cook, a tale I find endlessly fascinating (which explains why I’m using this strange saga in both fiction and nonfiction I’m currently working on). The CliffsNotes version: in 1874, Crookes - who at the time was considered one of the greatest scientists in England - spent six months investigating the mediumship of the teenage Cook. Florence was supposedly able to completely materialize her spirit guide, Katie King, and Crookes took 44 photos of Katie during seances (most of these photos are now lost).
While looking for another article I remembered that was written by Florence’s mum and described her early psychic abilities, I stumbled across an 1872 front-page story from The Spiritualist newspaper that was a collection of eyewitness accounts of Florence’s seances…and it astonished me. Really, after writing an entire book about seances, I thought I’d heard it all. But this story…well, check out some of these strange occurrences:
Like most mediums at the time, Florence was tied to a chair at the start of her seances…but she wasn’t tied by any of the sitters present. They’d find her inside the “spirit cabinet” (a screened-off area) supposedly tied by the spirits. One witness said it took her ten minutes to untie Florence.
Florence complained about being in a trance during the seances because she didn’t get to see anything.
Witnesses described Katie King singing lullabys to Florence to keep her in a trance state.
One witness (who is unnamed in the account but who may have been William Crookes) said the interior of the spirit cabinet grew so hot it nearly made him faint.
It was said that Florence’s energy was so great that sparks would emanate from her hair.
Many of those who took part in her seances described Katie King as possessing the most beautiful face they’d ever seen, although no one described Florence that way.
BEHIND THE SCREAMS
“Love Eats” (first published in Dark Terrors)
This story was inspired by adopting my first cat, Buster. I’d grown up around dogs and was extremely allergic to cats, but when I began working at the Iliad Bookshop in ‘91, the store had a resident cat (Charlie), and within about six months of being around him I got over the worst of the allergy (although I’ve never really lost all of it). When a friend’s cat had kittens, she convinced me to take one.
Buster was a gorgeous long-haired orange boy, full of mischief and energy, and I was surprised at how much of my life he quickly became a part of. Budgets, vacations, shopping were all planned with him in mind.
I began to seriously ponder what I felt for this little feline whackjob, and (as is often the case with my ponderings) those thoughts began to shape themselves into a story. That story would be about a lonely woman who adopts a cat, names it “Love,” and, when the cat proves to be a seriously finicky eater (which, fortunately, was not a problem with Buster), the concerned human turns to…well, alternative food sources.
Steve Jones bought “Love Eats” for the first volume of his Dark Terrors anthology series. It was my third short story sale and has been reprinted a number of times. Buster may be long gone now (he died at 15 of esophageal cancer), but I like to think a little piece of him lives on in this story.
THE WRITE STUFF
I’ve recently read a number of stories that focused on monsters. While I enjoy a good monster as much as the next horror reader, I always want to ask the authors of these pieces:
What is the story really about?
A story that is only about monsters on a killing spree might be entertaining, but it misses the chance to be something more. What do your monsters stand for? Think, for example, about the Creature from the Black Lagoon (probably my all-time favorite monster): he is the only one of his kind, living in an isolated location, away from civilization…a quintessential loner. He would undoubtedly have led a peaceful life, swimming in his lagoon, eating fish, sleeping in his grotto…but humans had to intrude. His existence is both frightening (to the humans, at least) and tragic, since his species dies with him. The third film in the series, The Creature Walks Among Us, even made the subtext the main story by presenting a plot centered on scientists trying to humanize the Creature and integrate him into society. In that instance, the Creature becomes not just a comment on the wisdom of leaving the outsider to their own devices, but also addresses (as many films in the ‘50s did) the ethics of rampant experimentation.
All of which is to say that the Creature works because he has deeper meaning lurking just under those gills.
If you’ve created your own monster, hey - kudos! That’s cool…but what does that monster really mean? Does it express something we humans try to keep hidden? If you can bring that quality to the surface, your story has a greater chance of resonating with readers and affecting them on a deeper level.
Deeper, I mean, than, “Oh, that killing ROCKED!”
NEWS & WORKS IN PROGRESS
In case you’ll be attending StokerCon - great, I hope to see you there! If you can’t make it…I’ve recorded virtual panels on ghosts stories and the history of seances, and a virtual reading.
If you’ll be at the con in the flesh, here are my scheduled appearances:
Thursday, 4 pm - “Found Forms in Horror” panel
Friday, 10 am - “Scaring and Daring” (a panel about HWA’s next anthology)
Friday, 2 pm - “The Tangled Skein of Short Stories”
Friday, 3 pm - “A Conversation with Del Howison” (Del is a Guest of Honor and a longtime good friend, so this should be fun!)
Friday, 4 pm - Mass author signing
Friday, 8 pm - Final Frame Short Film Competition (I’m a judge)
Saturday, 8 pm - The Bram Stoker Awards presentation (I’m a presenter)
UPCOMING APPEARANCES
June 12-15 - I’ll be in Stamford, CT for StokerCon
August 17 - I’ll be at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach
THE WHOLE HAUNTED WORLD
In May, I finished the story of Simon Magus, the Biblical necromancer and possibly history’s first great fraudulent medium. What’s coming next:
A detailed look at the story of William Crookes and Florence Cook, and what that tells us about how we sometimes suspend intellect and even our sense of self-preservation to believe in the impossible
My all-time favorite ghost, La Llorona
WHERE YOU CAN BUY MY BOOKS
GIVEAWAY
Speaking of Midsummer Scream…this book was a special giveaway last year to VIP attendees. It’s mostly a blank journal, but it does have some writing prompts inside, including one by me (which is the beginning of a short story that it’s up to you to finish!). I recently acquired an extra copy, so this month’s giveaway is for one printed copy of the 2024 Midsummer Scream souvenir book!
Sorry, this is only open to residents of the U.S.
PLEASE NOTE: If you enter, remember that I will have to contact you via Substack to get your shipping address, so keep an eye on your messages around the end of May!
Thanks as always for reading this far!
I love this! Writing prompts are so essential.
🌻 Happy June!