Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

In a dark, dark mobile home, there was a dark, dark cupboard... And in that dark, dark cupboard, there was a dark, dark shelf... And on that dark, dark shelf, there was a goofy, rainbow-colored record player... And in that goofy, rainbow-colored record player, there was... THIS RECORD! I've spilled a lot of virtual ink in my numerous online missives about scary stories, particularly Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and its two sequels . But Alvin Schwartz was not the only author to produce collections of scary stories for younger audiences, and he certainly wasn't the first. Maria Leach, for example, had been doing an excellent job laying the groundwork for macabre collections to come in her compendiums of chilling folklore like Whistle in the Graveyard . And then there's this curious little number: 1970's Scholastic release The Haunted House and Other Spooky Poems and Tales . I was introduced to The Haunted House long before I ever read it. In fact,

Even though my ostensible first novel only came out a few years ago, I've been writing ever since my chubby little fingers were capable of scrawling squiggly approximations of letters. I distinctly remember some of my school journal entries being succinct fictional works, many of which involved Godzilla or a sentient puddle of acid with grizzly bear arms named Gory Glob. Eventually, I took the next step and started creating full-length works. That's right, Henry Garrison wasn't actually my first book...not by a long shot. Don't believe me? Well check this out! That, my friends, is the cover of my first book, Nightmares and Other Tales . If you aren't familiar with the 1993 best seller charts, you'll just have to take my word for it when I say that this baby was lighting them up . And with a cover like this, how could it not? I mean, you've got a tombstone with a spider and slime AND a spooky monster claw poking out from behind it. You've got a

          It's October again, the leaves are changing colors, and if the latest Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer is any indication, people are really into pumpkin. Seriously, like 80% of that thing is ads for pumpkin-flavored foods. Now, this is cool with me, since I'm quite the squashophile myself. You may recall an article I wrote last year, about the release of the O.G. game-changing jack-o'-lantern carving book, Carve-O-Lantern (if you need a refresher, here's the link ). Seeing as how I just scratched the surface of the Carve-O-Lantern universe in that article, it's high time I wrote a follow-up where I can really give you the inside scoop on the product line. So, uh, here is that follow-up.      Indulge me for a moment in an extended simile: Carve-O-Lantern is like the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering . It's true! Both are products that arrived on the scene relatively unheralded, only to become massive successes. Both are icons in their r

     As I continue my quest to present the world's most thorough and scholarly examination of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series of youth horror books (having already written Power Rankings articles for the first and second books as well as an opinion piece about the audio books ), I would be remiss to ignore another book that is closely related to the series in spirit if not name. If I'm going to write this series of articles, after all, I must do it correctly. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.      So imagine: you're a folklorist that enjoys frightening children, and you're doing a pretty bang-up job of ensuring that the nation's youth can only slumber in nightmare-haunted fits and starts. But there's a problem: what about the particularly young children? The ones that can read but whose parents still shield them from imagery of blood-soaked corpses? What is to be done about them? The answer to these questions is fright t

I wrote this many years ago for my Myspace blog. I am reprinting it here since it is not particularly easy to access Myspace blogs these days, and my Scary Stories Power Rankings post has gotten me so much traffic that I feel this is something people may be interested in.    Today I am going to voice a complaint I have held within for several years. That's not entirely true; I have complained about it to others, but it is an obscure and perhaps inconsequential complaint that I doubt anyone remembers. Specifically, I would like to complain about the drop in quality between the audio book version of the first volume of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , and the latter two volumes, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , and Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones . Yep, when I said “specifically,” I meant it. It doesn't get any more specific than this, folks. The quality of the books themselves is outstanding; I dare say I wouldn't be the person I am