The Tumbleweed Halloween Spooktacular: Nightmares, Screams, Disgruntled Pumpkins

Lessons from a nightmare, a pumpkin grows wrong in all the right ways, and some spooky reads.

William Styron said the idea for Sophie's Choice came to him in a dream. I have often wished the plot of a National Book Award-winning novel would arrive, fully formed, during one of the afternoon naps I regularly take in lieu of writing. So far: No such luck. But, I did have a nightmare that gave me an idea for this month's Tumbleweed. Aim for the stars, and sometimes you hit the moon, etc.

This week I had an anxiety dream in which I'd filed a book review of a novel I cared about for a newspaper, but a new editor had been hired, and she planned to cut the review and me permanently from the freelance staff because she didn't feel the book was relevant. The book, for some reason, was set in Nebraska, and this was part of the editor's beef with it. This upset me; Nebraska is our neighboring state, dream me argued in my head. It’s right next door! Besides, people will want to read a good book, no matter where it's set. For some reason, I was granted one chance to meet with the editor to convince her about the importance of the book, and to convince her that what I did—reviewing books, writing them, reading them—was of any significance at all.

The newspaper was based in a downtown skyscraper with a shiny, granite-floor lobby, the way the Rocky Mountain News was before vulture capitalists bought it, sold off its real estate assets and shut it down. In the dream, the building housed a variety media headquarters. As I entered the expansive elevator to ascend to the editors’s floor, all the other people seemed to work in TV—they were attractive, polished, dressed in suits and heels. And I was wearing my work-from-home freelancer uniform: rainbow Crocs, an old concert t-shirt, pants with stains suspected to be guacamole. As the mirrors of that elevator reflected me, I realized I was out of place. I realized the meeting would not go well. But luckily my alarm went off so I didn't have to actually submit to the editor’s derision. (When you write fiction, you’re not allowed to end with “and then I woke up,” but this is nonfiction, so anything goes, suckers! I mean, dear, valued suckers who have honored me by reading to the end of paragraph three.)

It's funny that I would dream this because a similar situation has happened to me in real life only, oh, about six times. I have frequently worked for newspapers or websites that laid everyone off or disappeared entirely. This is why I always work about five simultaneous jobs (because really, anything could happen at any time to jobs 1 and 2 and 3…). And every time I send a piece of writing out into the world, it feels like I'm having to plead my case for it to exist.

Luckily, I never actually have to enter an elevator with shiny people and plead my case for existing to someone who disdains me. No, instead, I just hang out at home in my Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt, typing, waiting for rejections/firings/notices of security breaches to appear in my inbox. And that’s the beauty of my lifestyle: this nightmare could never come true, because I’m keeping my rainbow Crocs planted exactly where they belong, in the flood-ravaged basement office that I lurk in like a bridge troll.

In fact, this will be the basis of my new life philosophy: You Can’t Hurt Me Because I’m A Bridge Troll. Here in my subterranean lair, this year I’ve already received 52 rejections and 2 ghostings from jobs I’ve worked for years. It has only toughened my warty troll hide. It’s a bridge troll’s job to be stubborn, so I’m going to sit here, stubborn in my belief that my book-related activities matter. As long as I stay away from the three billy goats gruff, everything will be fine.

The Assorted Whimsy Portion of The Tumbleweed

• This is the best pumpkin I ever grew. He got stuck in the downspout as he formed, which gave him a sparkling personality. (Thanks to How Are You Peeling by Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann for the idea about using black eyed peas for eyes.)

This pumpkin insists that you get your act together.

• One of the places I teach has something called a “WTF Committee” that I receive emails about on occasion. I don’t know what it is—I’m just an adjunct.

  

  I do want to know if the person who invented the acronym was trolling their boss, or if they just aren’t familiar with the more common use of the abbreviation. I can think of a lot of items of concern to bring to a WTF Listening Session, though.

The Book Recommendation Portion of The Tumbleweed

I have been having a blast reading for the Southwest Books of the Year committee, and I came across a perfect book for Halloween, A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories, edited by Richard Z. Santos.

This spooky collection gives the Southwest's rich tradition of creepy folklore the starring role it deserves. La Llorona wails her way through a desert night in Flor Salcedo's "La Llorona Happenings," and a family of shapeshifting chupacabras uses their wiles to escape a border jail in V. Castro's "The Boy Called Chupa." Several authors re-envision classic tropes and characters through an eerie lens, including Rubén Degollado, whose story "Migrants" imagines zombies plaguing aspiring border-crossers and ends with a twist, and Estella Gonzalez's "Chola Salvation," which summons Frida Kahlo and the Virgen de Guadalupe, dressed as cholas, to mentor a teenage girl who desperately needs help. Lilliam Rivera delivers horror with a sci-fi twist in "Between Going and Staying," in which a professional mourner transforms herself into departed diva Selena.

Also! My awesome friend Rachel Horak Dempsey has a story about a haunted tumbleweed (no relation) called “The Wind Witch” in Along Harrowed Trails, an anthology of Old West horror from Timber Ghost Press.

Also! My other awesome friend Erika T. Wurth’s spooktacular book White Horse just came out in paperback. Keep the lights on while you read these, friends!

The Happenings & Links Portion of The Tumbleweed

• My first Fiction Four Pack at Lighthouse Writers Workshop this fall went so well, I’m offering another one. This four-week class, Special Topics in Fiction, will run on four consecutive Mondays beginning November 13 at Lighthouse HQ (3844 York Street) from 6:30-8:30 p.m. We’ll be learning about some tricky craft moves, including multiple timeline narratives, multiple perspectives, incorporating humor in your fiction, and more. Sign up on the Lighthouse website.

• The Colorado Writers Open House at the Nederland Community Library was so much fun! Sixty readers turned out to listen to stories and music.

  

  Me with my buddy Erika Krouse at the gorgeous Nederland Community Library.

• I figured out how to set up a nifty storefront on Bookshop with all the books I’ve recommended on The Tumbleweed.

  

• I got the chance to write an essay about the novels of Rose O’Neill, who was better known as an illustrator and the inventor of the Kewpie doll, for an exhibit featuring her work at the Sordoni Art Gallery at Wilkes University. My essay “Reenvisioning Rose O’Neill’s Comic Feminist Debut Novel, The Loves of Edwy,” is the first time my writing has appeared in a museum catalogue. And I got a Kewpie tote bag out of it.

  

  As always, The Tumbleweed welcomes your questions and comments about writing, reading, taco eating, the Denver Nuggets, rabbit wrangling, Deion Sanders, and baby seals.