Halloween Pets, Skeletons, and a Giveaway!

Every Day is Halloween #80: The Official Newsletter of Lisa Morton

Hey Crew!

Well, I’ve finally done it: I’ve taken on more work than I can possibly deliver (on time, at least). Seriously…I’d hoped to be caught up with things by the time my Halloween season commenced, but I didn’t make it so I now have both a lengthy list of stuff I’m committed to write AND a block of upcoming interviews, podcasts, lectures, and signings.

The big news is that I’ll be teaching a 3-session lecture course on the history of Halloween through Atlas Obscura. I’ve long been a fan of Atlas Obscura, so I’m excited about this one!

As a result of all the great work…this newsletter will be a bit terse!

I hope you’re staying well-chilled in this A/C-challenging summer.

Lisa

NEW STUFF I LIKE

Anything by Alma Katsu is guaranteed to be great, and “Black Vault” is no exception. I also really like these Amazon shorts (if you haven’t read Katsu’s award-winner “The Wehrwulf,” it’s one of my favorite stories of the last few years). If you’ve never read Katsu, this is a great place to start.

THE HALLOWEEN SPIRIT

Halloween pet sales keep climbing every year, and with stuff like this insanely cute cat bed (although they call it a “cat house” - yes, really) from Chewy.com it’s not hard to see why! My cats also love the stuffed severed fingers and the dangly ghost toy (although they’re - ahem - not so fond of my attempts at dressing them up).

STRANGE DOINGS

Sure, evil clowns are still hot-sellers for Halloween in 2023, but there’s another trend I noticed this year that might be even bigger: Bones. Yep, big ol’ skeletons, skulls galore, and lots and lots of bones.  

This trend’s been building since Home Depot introduced their 12-foot skeleton three years ago and it sold out everywhere, but of course bones and Halloween were old friends waaaaay before 2020. That association goes all the way back to the holiday’s roots; bones have obviously always been a part of death, and death was a part of both Samhain and All Saints’ Day, the two celebrations that combined to make Halloween. 

But when we think about Halloween and skeletons, we think of macabre or playful images like the Grim Reaper, and turning Death into the ultimate prankster didn’t happen until the Black Death rampaged throughout the western world. As plague killed both young and old, rich and poor, artists responded by personifying death in paintings and etchings. Beginning in the 15^th century, a type of art known as the Dance of Death depicted skeletons leading the dead away. The most famous Dance of Death illustrations were produced by Hans Holbein the younger in the early 16^th century, and chances are you’ve seen some of these – they show gleeful skeletons, sometimes playing bony drums or xylophones, dancing alongside everyone from kings to farmers.  

But there was a later artist on the other side of the world whose work may have been just as influential on holiday skeletons, and that was the Mexican artist Jose Guadalupe Posada. Now I know you’ve seen his most famous work, which he produced towards the end of his life in 1913: “La Calavera Catrina” shows a female skeleton dressed in a big plumed hat, and was later used by Diego Rivera in his famous mural “A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park". La Catrina ended becoming the most beloved icon of the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, which combined All Saints’ Day with Aztec and Mayan festivals. As Mexicans spread north, they brought Dia de los Muertos with them, and soon one culture’s skeletons started to mesh with another. Hey, we’re all the same under the skin, right? 

Now Halloween is stuffed with skeletons! Home Depot now offers an entire Halloween subset called “Grave and Bones” where you can buy a life-size skeleton horse or a convenient six-pack of human skeletons, you can head to something like AtmosFX to buy a digital projection of dancing skeletons, or – possibly my favorite – pick up your “Skeleton Alien” at Spirit Halloween. 

BEHIND THE SCREAMS

“The Chain” from Macmillan Sponsored Write 2022

Every year, a fundraiser for the British Macmillan Cancer Support organization asks a group of writers to gather together and write a story on a theme in just a few hours. The event is called Sponsored Write because the writers are sponsored by donors. At the end of the event, every donor receives an e-book with the stories.

2023 will be my third outing with this event, which I enjoy both because of the chance to help out a worthy nonprofit, but also because I enjoy the challenge of producing a story quickly.

Last year’s theme, as chosen by Ramsey Campbell, was “Regeneration.” The writers know the theme in advance, but we aren’t supposed to start writing until the day chosen for the Sponsored Write. When I sat down to start the actual writing, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do with the theme, but it was a delicious challenge to put it into words in a short period of time.

I wanted to deal with the way I watch things work in my garden: everything consumes something, even plants. What if, I wondered, our soul survived death in every part of us, parts that were all consumed as part of a chain? I crafted a revenge plot around that, and the story was born in a few hours.

This year’s theme was suggested by Paul Tremblay, and is: “A Well of Strength, A Strength of Will.” I have no idea yet what I’ll do with it.

If you’d like more information or might consider donating, please visit the Sponsored Write page.

THE WRITE STUFF

As an aging writer, you find yourself thinking more about what will happen to your work after you're gone.

But you shouldn't wait until you're long in the proverbial tooth to think about this, because the unthinkable can happen to anyone, at anytime, of any age.

Do you know the phrase "orphaned work"? This is what can happen to your writing if you pass away without leaving behind solid instructions. If you have no literary executor, your work is stuck in copyright limbo, rendered inaccessible and unreadable.

I'm someone who never had brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, children, or grandchildren; at this age I have no parents or grandparents, and I'm not even completely sure about aunts, uncles, and cousins. Sometime ago I set up a designated literary executor, in the hopes that my work might survive after I pass my expiration date.

If you're a writer - OF ANY AGE - and you haven't done this, you should seriously consider doing it now. Nearly 20 years ago, Les Klinger (who is an estate attorney) set up this simple form which anyone can print out, fill out, and store in someplace where it can be found. Neil Gaiman shared it. I'm sharing it again.

NEWS & WORKS IN PROGRESS

Here’s one of my favorite interviews I’ve recorded: chatting with longtime bud Scott Edelman for his “Eating the Fantastic” podcast.

I contributed the foreword for the excellent new anthology Remains to Be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, edited by Lee Murray.

I’ve been working with a group on a soon-to-be-announced Halloween exhibit for the Muzeo in Anaheim (trust me, this one’s going to ROCK!).

I’m quoted several times in the beautiful new book Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas: Beyond Halloween Town.

I’m currently working on a new feature article for the Jan./Feb. issue of Rue Morgue.

UPCOMING APPEARANCES

• I’ll be signing The Art of the Zombie Movie at Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City on October 1.

• I’ll be signing The Art of the Zombie Movie at Dark Delicacies on October 8.

• I’ll be at StokerCon 2024 in San Diego, May 30-June 2, 2024.

WHERE YOU CAN BUY MY BOOKS

• Amazon

• Barnes & Noble

• Bookshop.org

GIVEAWAY

This month’s giveaway is a freebie for EVERYONE! To celebrate the forthcoming release of The Art of the Zombie Movie, I’ve put together a collection of six zombie-themed short stories. Just click the button below to get your free PDF, and aim for the head!

Thanks as always for reading this far!