Labor Day Thoughts

I had one of the best summers ever...

Fall Harvest-Berries from my Garden Plot

• Went to World Horror Con in New Orleans, which was also my 20th wedding anniversary.  
• Went on an art retreat. 
• Went to Fleischmann's River Run B&B. 
• Edited some fab novels for Damnation Books and finished a novel of my own--Perdita. 
• I did a chat over at Savvy Authors on "Writing Scary."

 Lot's of fun.

(Okay, I'm a trifle teary-eyed over the end of summer. Didn't get to the beach for one thing.)

Coming back to the chat at SA. I was wondering why I loved horror and dark fiction so much. And it came to me, this was the result of my grandmother and mother also being attracted to the dark side. My grandmom became ill when I was nine (and died when I was ten) but before then I'd go over to her place on the weekends. We'd go to the Saturday matinee in Port Chester to see totally inappropriate movies...horror movies. I remember seeing "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte;" "Shock Treatment" "Fearless Vampire Killers" and "The Creature From the Black Lagoon." The latter movie might have been appropriate, but the others were very disturbing films. I was seriously scared.

My mom was worse. When I was four years old we moved into a 250-year-old house. She and her theatre friends were excited to hold séances there. My mom communed with "spirits" and owned a Oiuja Board. Supposedly a man, his wife and a little dog all in ghost form shared our house. I didn't see the fun in this, and spent years huddling in my bed listening to heavy steps come up the stairs (old radiator pipes) and jumping from my doorway onto my bed so the thing under my bed couldn't grab my ankles. I didn't find ghosts entertaining and was constantly spooked. I remember mom taking me to NYC to see the movie, "Phantom of the Opera." I didn't care for it so much, though years later I found it to be great.

So yeah, I was weaned on dark stuff and grew up in a haunted house.  No surprise that I write dark fiction. Well, summer's almost over and I can try to look forward to autumn, usually my favorite time of the year but hard to appreciate after such a great summer.

How was your summer? I love to hear from you.