Authors Electric

A surreal memoir in Catamaran I get melancholy on Halloween. I love its makebelieve and mockery of darkness and death. In my parental days I loved taking the kids trick-or-treating, earnest in their costumes, carried on by my grandchildren and great grandchildren today, carried on when my eldest daughter Alicia Sammons builds her family altar and does herself up for La Dia de Los Muertos, November 2.  At the same time, I relive sad memories of the real thing - my mother dying in a San Francisco hospital the morning before Halloween some thirty years ago.  I remember taking a granddaughter and my youngest daughter, both age 7, trick-or-treating, giggling in their costumes the following evening as if nothing had happened, as my mother - a perpetual prankster - would have insisted.  The experience culminated months of watching my mother slip away. It cut deep. She had raised me in fiercely loving, but inconsistent ways. She hadn't been perfect, but done her damn best. ...

That time of year again. Mwouhahahahaha it’s that time of year again. (Ghostly laugh, in case you didn’t realise. Please be chilled.) Death’s heads and giant spiders’ webs festooning perfectly respectable garden walls, glow-in-the-dark stickers and beetles lighting up ceilings, shops groaning with a sugar fest the Like of Witch No Sane Adult Would Deem Suitable for their Little Darlings, and everywhere, everywhere, orange. Pumpkins, masks, tee shirts, costumes, all in the ghastly colour combination of dayglo orange and midnight black. Spiders' webs festoon garden walls. follow link for licence  You may glean from this – and from my odd previous mention of the subject – that I’m not a fan of Halloween.  When I was young, ooh, I dunno, a couple of centuries ago, Halloween in Britain barely existed. We made toffee apples and played apple bobbing, and my mother did something clever with apple peel, throwing it over my 5 year old shoulder to see the letter shape it made where it f...

What does BBC Radio 4’s long-running, much-loved soap opera about Everyday Farming Folk have against Hallowe’en? BBC Radio 4's The Archers The Archers began on 1st January 1951, as a 15-minute daily serial intended to spread the word about new developments in farming. It centred on 3 or 4 farming families, most of whom were called Archer, with the addition of the Aldridges at the posh end of the scale, balanced by the Grundys and Horrobins at the other. The characters took off, and a wealth of other storylines got woven in, some for comic effect, some for their gripping dramatic pull, but most as vehicles for messages about Good Social Behaviour. No one is ever racist, for instance, except in a clumsy way, because unless one of the villagers says something objectionable (and, needless to say, quite out of character), how are we, the listeners, to grasp that a newcomer to the Ambridge village is from an ethnic minority? Halloween pumpkins... at least they're not plastic. Photo ...

Grinning orange faces... all over till next year.  Photo by Toni Cuenca:  https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-jack-o-lanterns-619424 / Aaand... it’s all over for another year.  Those grinning orange faces, shop window displays full of pointy hats and broomsticks, estate agents advertising haunted shacks (actually, that one’s quite fun), groups of black and orange-clad children roaming the streets for sugar highs – all vanished into thin air on the stroke of midnight last night as the Feast of All Saints began. Much as I love pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie, over the years I greet the arrival of this day with increasing relief. About to be vanquished by the Forces of Good. Photo by Mike Jones: https://www.pexels.com/ photo/ young-girls-in-witch-costumes- covering-faces-with-balloons-9740365/ Why? Well, it’s not for religious reasons. All that dressing up as devils and witches and dancing around on All Hallows’ Eve goes back a long way, signifying the devil’s last grasp at power...

 I had the idea for the following story when listening to a programme on the radio. The music was Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, but it was the interval feature that really piqued my interest, talking about the great writers of Gothic fiction. The premise dropped into my mind almost immediately, and the subject matter gave me an opportunity to try and write in that style. It was harder than I'd expected - much more exposition and over-writing than contemporary fiction; once I finished the first draft, the challenge was to pull back some of the padding, but still try and retain a sense of the period. I thought this might make an interesting read for Halloween, so without further ado, please enjoy 'Reflections'.   Reflections There are moments in one's life when two unrelated and seemingly disparate ideas come together in a moment that makes one sit up and take notice. Out of such moments can come great works of science, or art, or literature; it all depends ...

   Halloween seems bigger than ever, but in a secular, post-modern society, is it necessary? If so, how? What’s it  about ? Why is it thought suitable for  children ? Our ancient ancestors tamed scary things with myth and ritual. Halloween, with witches, ghosts, and the undead, is the festival of fear: of the unknown, of the different, as the long dark nights begin. If Halloween’s origins are from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain – a time to scare away ghosts and spirits – then why in a secular age has it become, and remained, so popular? So, is Halloween, with ghosts and hideous zombies or ‘the un-dead’ among the popular costumes, a festival about death? Until recently, everyone knew what death was about, because they saw it. The painter Munch (famous for  The Scream ) was deeply affected by witnessing the deaths (from TB) of his mother and his beloved sister: he painted the scene several times, trying to make sense of it. Now, worldwide, there is a ...