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Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

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Halloween 2022: Day 11

Song: “Wind and Rain” Quote: So she pushed her into the river to drown.
Oh, the wind and rain!
And watched her as she floated down…
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain! Read the complete lyrics. Listen to Crooked Still’s performance…
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eldritchhobbit

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It’s almost October, which means it’s almost time to start my annual re-reading of one of my…

ALT It’s almost October, which means it’s almost time to start my annual re-reading of one of my all-time favorite books, A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. With 31 chapters, one for each day of the month, it is a fantastic mash-up of creepy seasonal goodness wrapped into a compelling story, a kind of literary advent calendar for Halloween.
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!                                                           Today’s text is “It’s Halloween” from The Philadelphia Inquirer on 10/31/1898. Read the article here. Quote: “Goblins and fairies, good and evil, will be running amuck to-night, if the old Halloween traditions do not fail…. Every one may be both superstitious and sentimental to-night.” ALT It’s Halloween headline: “Goblins and Fairies Will Be Roaming Abroad Tonight”
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<p>It’s not every day that you and your b...

It’s not every day that you and your brilliant co-editor Emily Strand submit your completed book to your publisher, but today is that day for me! More information on STAR WARS: ESSAYS EXPLORING A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY, the sibling to our previously-submitted and also-forthcoming academic anthology STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER, will be coming soon! ALT
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 20

Today we begin the final part of our countdown this year with texts (that are available online) about Halloween itself! Today’s work is Halloween, A Romaunt, with Lays, Meditative and Devotional (1845) by H.S. Parsons. Read it here. Quote: If souls, once more, to these their haunts on earth, Can come, dear Lady, from the Spirit-land, I ask’d thee,—would it spoil thine hour of mirth, To see some sudden shape before thee stand! And a cold shudder told me, and thine hand Press’d dearer to mine own. But then said I, Oh! if thy friend were dead, and could command Some midnight hour to visit thee; reply, Say, would it grieve thee, Love, if love could never die! ALT
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 26

Today’s text is “Hallowe’en Activities” from The News-Pilot on 10/29/1928. Read the article here. Quote: Goblins gobble and werewolves howl; Banshees shriek and cry and scream Ululations, while the mournful owl Makes many fitful mortals dream. Hallowe'en Activities (With an Owl and Witch)
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Halloween 2022: Day 27

Song: “Down in the Willow Garden” Quote: My father often told me
That money would set me free, If I’d but murder that dear little girl
Whose name was Rose Connolly. Read the complete lyrics. Listen to the performance of Tim O'Brien & Paul Brady…
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 21

Today’s text is Myra’s Well: A Tale of All-Hallow-E’en (1883) by George Francis Dawson. Read it here. Quote: It is the night of all nights of the year, When ghosts and warlocks haunt the troubled earth, And disembodied spirits visit us— Spirits of good and evil from the dead, Fresh from the angel hosts and from the damned, And from the vast profound betwixt the two… ALT
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Halloween 2022: Day 7

Song: “Pretty Polly” Quote: Polly, Pretty Polly, your guess is about right: I dug on your grave the biggest part of last night. Read the complete lyrics. Listen to the performance of Ralph Stanley & Patty Loveless:
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 5

Dark Academia novel: Promise Boys by Nick Brooks (2023) From the cover: Perfection. Excellence. Discipline. Murder. Quote: Sometimes what’s obvious takes a while to see – the person who pulls a trigger doesn’t just disappear into the dark. They are right here among us once we decide we’re ready to question everything we think we know. They’re always closer than you think. ALT
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 28

Today’s text is “Halloween Lore Told” from The Butte Daily Post on 10/31/1931. Read the article here. Quote: “Halloween, the night of black hours, ‘when churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead.’ will be celebrated in traditional style when the sun goes down… legend has it, the lake of hades freezes, and friends skate across to stalk the world unchallenged. Evil will possess the shadows until cock-crow.” ALT Halloween Lore Told
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Free Online Star Trek and Star Wars Book Events!

Free Online Star Trek and Star Wars Book Events! Everyone is welcome! I’m delighted to announce a weekend of free online events celebrating two anthologies from Vernon Press, Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away, edited by Emily Strand and Yours Truly. We hope you’ll join us! Register for Sept. 9 event here. Register for Sept. 10 event here. See more about the books here. ALT
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Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 29

Today’s text is “Hallowe’en – A Holiday of Traditions” from The Stoughton Courier on 11/1/1907. Read the article here. Quote: “From time out of mind this has been heralded as a night when witches, devils and other mischief-making beings go abroad on their baneful midnight errands…. The traditions of Hallowe’en also teach that on no other night in the twelve-month do such supernatural influences prevail as after dark on the final day of October.” ALT Hallowe'en - A Holiday of Traditions
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Dark Academia Works Inspired by True Crime Cases?

Hello, all! I am looking for recommendations of Dark Academia works (novels, short stories, films, television series) based on true crime. I would be grateful for any suggestions for my list. Thank you! I am intentionally casting my net widely, defining the Dark Academic genre (as opposed to the aesthetic) as one that focuses on an academic setting and educational experience, employs Gothic modes of storytelling, cultivates a dark mood by contemplating the subject of death, and offers critique for interrogating imbalances and abuses of power.* ALT Below the cut is my current list of Dark Academia Works Inspired by True Crime Cases. All suggestions are welcome! Dark Academia Works Inspired/Informed by True Crime Cases Note 1: “True crime” is defined here as a specific case (for example, a murder or missing person’s case), not as a larger historical event (for example, the Salem Witch Trials or the Opium Wars) or an amalgam of cases (for example, general hazing in fraternities).
Note 2: This list is in chronological order based on the true crime case.
Note 3: Some works that aren’t fully DA but incorporate DA sections are included. TRUE CRIME: 1897 disappearance of student Bertha Mellish from Mount Holyoke College
DA novels: The Button Field by Gail Husch (2014)
Killingly by Katharine Beutner (2023) TRUE CRIME: 1924 killing of Bobby Franks by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb
DA Novels: Compulsion by Meyer Levin (1956)
Nothing but the Night by James Yaffe (1957)
Little Brother Fate by Mary-Carter Roberts (1957)
These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever (2020)
Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed (2022)
Jazzed by Jill Dearman (2022)
DA films: Rope (1948), Compulsion (1959), and Murder by Numbers (2002) TRUE CRIME: 1932 kidnapping and killing of Charles Lindbergh, Jr.; 1933 kidnapping and killing of Brooke Hart; and 1932-1934 crime spree of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow
DA novels: Truly Devious books by Maureen Johnson (especially the first trilogy, 2018-2020) TRUE CRIME: 1944 killing of David Kammerer by Columbia University student Lucien Carr
DA film:
Kill Your Darlings (2013) TRUE CRIME: 1946 disappearance of student Paula Jean Welden from Bennington College
DA novels:
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson (1951)
Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh (1952)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
Shirley by Susan Scarf Merrell (2014)
Quantum Girl Theory by Erin Kate Ryan (2022) TRUE CRIME: 1973 killing of student Cynthia Hellman at Randolph-Macon Women’s College
DA novel:
Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison (2019) TRUE CRIME: 1978 killing of students Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy and attack of students Kathy Kleiner and Karen Chandler by Ted Bundy at Florida State University
DA novel:
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (2023) TRUE CRIME: 1985 killing of Derek and Nancy Haysom by University of Virginia students Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Söring
DA novel:
With a Kiss We Die by L.R. Dorn (2023) TRUE CRIME: 1999 killing of student Hae Min Lee from Woodlawn High School (by Adnan Syed? debated)
DA novel:
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (2023) TRUE CRIME: 2022 killing of students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin from the University of Idaho (by Washington State University student Bryan Kohberger? currently awaiting trial)
DA novel:
This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead (2025) *(I go into this definition in further detail in my segment here on the StarShipSofa podcast, my graduate course on Dark Academia, and my 2023 academic essay “Dark Arts and Secret Histories: Investigating Dark Academia.”)
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 3

Dark Academia novel: Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella (2020) Quote: It was the place where Eric had eaten his last meal, dreamed his last dream, taken his last breath. The sight of the red brick dormitories, a picture postcard of collegiate perfection to so many, made her heart pound. For her, it wasn’t a college, it was a haunted house. ALT
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The Button Field

I’m currently reading a fascinating book called The Button Field: A Novel by Gail Husch (2014). It’s based on an actual unsolved mystery, the disappearance of student Bertha Mellish from Mount Holyoke College in 1897. ALTALT
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