TODAY’S BREW: it should be pumpkin, but I’m going with the underrated cinnamon
By Julie
HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD, IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR
*builds a cabinet of curiosities, drinks pumpkin beer out of a black cat’s severed head*
Like any creep of a writer, I goddamn adore October. Orange is my favorite color. Pumpkin is my favorite flavor. Sweatpant weather is my favorite weather. I could keep going, but you know the autumn drill.
READ MY NEW BOOK, THE AUTUMN DRILL. No, I joke.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to this October, and you should too because I will bully you into it.
- HALLOWEEN WARS on the Food Network. My youngest boy is obsessed with this show, and as a child with OCD, the first season he saw it, I had to record every one so he could watch them daily until the following October. But I like it too.
- MY ACTUAL CABINET OF CURIOSITIES. Realized I basically live in a cabinet of curiosities because I love weird plants, creepy old books, a heap of old stuff, skeletons, scary animals, oddities of the medical variety, and other Gothic and emo stuff. I embrace it. So I really went all out and just made one. I’ll take pictures.
- THE PUMPKIN SPOOKTACULAR AT ROGER WILLIAMS PARK ZOO WHICH IS NO LONGER CALLED THE PUMPKIN SPOOKTACULAR BUT THAT’S WHAT I WILL CONTINUE TO CALL IT. https://youtu.be/W2PYfNIeRuQ We go as a family every year, and it’s chilly and eerie and there’s pumpkin beer with cinnamon on top and hot chocolate and popcorn and it’s what Halloween was meant for.
- THERE IS A NEW PUMPKIN SPOOKTACULAR THAT ISN’T ACTUALLY CALLED THAT WHICH I WILL GO TO because it’s at the Odd Pet Vet/New England Wildlife Center and I love it there, and they take care of animals that need it.. http://www.newildlife.org/2017/09/newc-night-of-a-thousand-faces-2017/
- HEDGE ACADEMY. I started running a course for our elementary school that I call “Writing Outside the Box,” and it is just so inspiring to watch a group of young kids with crazy talent and drive write whatever they want, and be so eager to share it. It amazes me the amount of writing and illustrating talent comes from them, and I love having a part in it.
- THE GIFTED. I love X-Men. I fell in love with the comics as a teenager and LOVE digging in to the mythos and storylines like falling down a rabbit hole. So to see this tv show after having loved Legion, and looking so forward to getting into The Inhumans, because Black Bolt and Medusa, I’m ready to geek out hard.
- WHILE WE’RE ON IT, AMERICAN HORROR STORY FOREVER. FOREVERRRRRR. I’ve been obsessed since season 1. I know you guys are too. Tell me which season was your favorite, it was Coven, I know it was. Though I loved Asylum and Hotel.
- GOTHAM. I so love this show. Penguin is my boo.
- HALLOWEEN JUNK JOURNAL SUPPLIES. This will be a post or two all to itself. When I was writing THE WIND BETWEEN WORLDS, I stumbled upon this junk journaling thing with this incredible spellbook/scrapbook on Etsy. It was everything my book was, and it’s become an incredible inspiration to me in my writing since. To collect all the things that make me think of my book, jot down ideas, my favorite quotes, and make it into this sort of grimoire is uplifting.
- OH YEAH, THE WIND BETWEEN WORLDS. This was my first venture into YA, though I personally find RUNNING HOME to be waaaayyyyy less racy than this book. Want the blurb? I give you the blurb:
Sixteen-year-old Celeste is the Witch of Stars and leader of her coven, the Five Poisons. But Celeste feels her greatest powers are in chewing anxiety pills and stress-eating. Uniting the vicious witches who share nothing but their unique forms of magic and a list of family dysfunctions is fruitless. The Poisons see only weakness in Celeste, for stifling her magic upon her mommy’s request. Using magic drains their mothers, the Elementals, but Celeste is the only one of the Poisons who doesn’t want her mother dead.
When a demon breaks through The Chains, the magical veil into the human world, Celeste tries proving herself to her coven by confronting him on her own. Through his eyes she discovers that the Elementals have been feeding the Poisons lies about demons, magic, their heritage, and the coven’s purpose. Worse yet, the abuse, manipulation and oppression Celeste’s coven has suffered at their mothers’ hands was more than tough love; it was to strengthen the girls’ powers for a Halloween harvest, to weave their souls into The Chains that they serve.
Celeste will do anything to save the Poisons, from traversing the wicked realm of The Gone, following the demon who’s shown her the truth, to waging war upon the Elementals. But to end the grisly cycle the Elementals have created means the Witch of Stars must either show her mother mercy and live in the false world she knows, or sacrifice herself in ways no magic can reverse.
Obviously, she gets released on Halloween, all fingers crossed. I’ll give you everything you need to know this month.
- TRICK OR TREATING. We get a group upwards of ten kids sometimes to go trick or treating, and we generally end up at the PTA co-presidents’ house, which is the most Halloweeny of any house, complete with smoking cocktails and gourmet creepy treats and all our kids play in the pitch black backyard. I love our neighborhood so much.
- MY HYSTERECTOMY. Didn’t see that coming, did you? After YEARS upon YEARS of being beaten by fibroid tumors the size of the super size oranges, I’ve had enough. Naturally, I schedule this surgery on Friday the 13th. Hashtag Halloween Hysterectomy.
- OH, OF COURSE, HUNDREDS OF HORROR MOVIES. Looking forward to multiple viewings of The Ring, Thirteen Ghosts, House on Haunted Hill, Silent Hill, all the hills, Lost Boys, Nightmare on Elm Street, and any others I can jam in there.
- HALLOWEEN COMIC FEST. https://www.halloweencomicfest.com/ Any questions? (I do so look forward to all the David S. Pumpkins things.)
Okay, I’ll stop now, but I could keep going because I didn’t even venture into pumpkin picking, farm stands, and blood.
But this month I’m overjoyed to release THE WIND BETWEEN WORLDS, for you all to become familiar with the book that I’ve had in my dirty clutches for too long. The Poisons birthdays are all on Halloween, naturally, and Celeste, my Witch of Stars is in love with autumn just like I am. I may or may not have bought an army issue messenger bag with pumpkins handpainted on it because I knew she would have one. OH, if you want to explore the world a bit, the book and its sequel and prequel have about a hundred boards on my Pinterest. The Witch of Sweets, the Witch of Empty Things, The Demon Prince, they all get one. https://www.pinterest.com/hutchingsjulie/
Okay, okay, I have to stop now, but enjoy your October, everyone! And PLEASE. DO TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS WHAT YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT OCTOBER AND HALLOWEEN. I always need new suggestions!!!
JULIE HUTCHINGS 