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Horror Expo Ireland 2016
I’m pleased to announce I’ll be a guest at the inaugural Horror Expo Ireland event, which is taking place at The Freemasons Grand Lodge, Molesworth St, Dublin on Sunday, 30 October 2016. There’s a terrific line-up of guests, and it should be a fun event in a splendid building. Tickets go on sale at 6pm on Thursday, 7 July (and there’s a limit of 250 Tickets) via Eventbrite. Get them while you can!
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Halloween in London
I’m off to London today, and tomorrow I’ll be attending the première performance of The Hallowe’en Sessions in the Leicester Square Theatre. It’s a rather surreal experience to type those words. The effect of writing is often only felt many months (or years) after you have gestated and laboured over an idea. Due to the passage of time these projects can become rather abstract, especially as you continue to work on other stories. Then, whosh, it manifests suddenly as a concrete form, and you come to the work as fresh as everyone else (except with way more nervousness). Tickets have been selling well, and the closing night performance, and Hallowe’en…
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skeleton bread
This is the current window display in The Gourmet Tart in Galway city. I snapped it quickly this evening, grateful that the grotesque diorama had not been dismantled yet in favour of a cheery Yule decoration. I particularly like the skeletons bursting out of their bread coffins. This is one of the reasons why I like this season the best…
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All Hallow's Read
A new tradition for Halloween evolved this week via an idea Neil Gaiman proposed called ‘All Hallow’s Read‘. It’s a simple concept: give a friend/colleague/family member a scary book to read for Halloween. It’s not only to promote book-giving and reading, but also to remind us that the tradition of telling scary stories on his holiday run deep. You could make it as easy as giving a friend your favourite scary book, or perhaps you could read out frightful tales on Halloween to family members. It’s a fine idea. In a few years I hope this tradition cements so deeply in our culture that we will believe it was always…
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moana lisa
The above image is part of a Halloween display in a local supermarket. I assume the portrait is called ‘Moana Lisa’, well it is in my imagination! What you can’t tell from this shot is that this aisle had its own sound effects: coffin doors creaking, chains clattering and screams. When I was on the other side of the section the eerie caterwauling seeped through the canned goods and was somewhat disquieting, which made me grin. It was better than the usual muzak. It should not come as a surprise that I like Halloween, or Samhain, as it’s known here. I have great memories of the holiday as a child,…
