Halloween, Samhain, All Hallow's Eve -- October 31st has many different meanings for artists and writers. This page explores a few of those meanings.

Many reject this holiday because of its association with horror-images and pagan symbols. Many embrace it for the same reasons, using this season as a time to confront both death and the shadows within us, on Samhain.

More commonly celebrated is Halloween: an amusement, a time to dress up as fanciful characters and eat candy, a time to share the thrill of ghost stories. Ghost and horror stories also serve other purposes.

For some writers and artists, horror is a means of catharsis, of venting pain, terror and outrage. It is deeply satisfying to create a character closely resembling someone you know and then have them torn apart by large monsters in explicit detail. And it probably saves a great deal of bloodshed in the physical world.

For others, it is also a way to confront both death and the shadows within us, and to test characters to the breaking point.

And for many, even in our technological culture, this is still a celebration, the beginning of the harvest season. Our Favorite October Recipes

In Mexico and other Hispanic cultures, this time of year sees many events like The Day of the Dead. On November 1st, many Hispanic families picnic together at the graves of their grandparents. Children suck on sugar-candies shaped like skulls. Some of us believe that mainstream American culture would be healthier if we had such festivals and acknowledged death and our own mortality more openly.
Peg's Page, poems for my mother

All Saint's Day