I love Halloween, a holiday that doesn’t belong to a particular religion, or even a particular culture. I love the changing leaves, slanted autumnal light, and getting into costume. I created some great costumes over the years, but here’s one of my favorites.
My colleague (in white) and I collaborated for many years. Her AVID students were placed in my freshmen English classes.
This Halloween I feel dizzy with excitement–so many events. Not only do I have the Mausoleum reading in Santa Rosa (previous post), but my fellow misterio press author, Kirsten Weiss, is hosting a blog party for her upcoming Hoodoo Detective, set in New Orleans. In honor of the event, I offer here what is probably my spookiest Halloween costume. I was going for forest nymph, but the mask, which I made in a workshop, is plain creepy.
Another upcoming event, the Dead Writers Costume Party, a fundraiser for the Santa Cruz Young Writers Program on Oct. 24, will allow me the opportunity to reprise my Emily Dickinson outfit. I haven’t used it since I retired from teaching four years ago. When I taught Dickinson’s poetry, I would come to class dressed as the poet and try to remain in character for the whole class in spite of all the pesky questions like, “Are you a virgin?” and “What’s it like to be dead?” I may find out the answer to the latter at the party where four local writers will conjure a dead writer with an Ouija board. Can’t wait!
Vinnie:
Love the forest nymph costume! And I’ll bet you’ve got some awesome Halloween doings in Santa Cruz. Do they do any “Lost Boys” themed stuff there?
Thanks for visiting, Kirsten. Downtown Santa Cruz is a scene on Halloween, the streets teeming with people in costume.
Halloween in Santa Cruz! I bet that will be especially entertaining this year with it falling on a Friday night.
Yes! Sometimes it can become scary in a bad way.
OMG, Vinnie… being at a party with writers conjuring up dead writers on the Ouija board?? I would pay to be there! How fun!
I’ve proposed to Kass that I write about the experience for our next post. (This #%!@$ auto-correct refuses to let me write the name of our press.) So for people who don’t know, it’s “mister io” press, written as one word, so take that, computer!
LOL Good to know I’m not the only one who cusses at my computer, Vinnie. Can’t wait to read the post about the Dead Writers party. And you make an awesome Emily Dickinson!
Thanks, Kass. It’s funny how my laptop insists on the autocorrect, whereas with my desktop computer I can override it. To the best of my knowledge, they are running the same programs.
Shannon, what author would you dress as?
Love the Emily Dickinson costume! I should dress up as Jane Austen sometime! 😀
Thanks, Jess. I can’t wait to see which dead authors show up at the party–maybe Jane Austen will be there.