Blog-o-ween 2023: First Things First...

Well, well, well...if it isn’t that time o’ the year again. Time when the air becomes cooler, the days shorter, the nights longer, and the pumpkin spice flavoring more ubiquitous.

You people are sick.

That’s right, kiddies, tomorrow is the first of October, which means it’s time to prepare yourselves for another month-long blog slog through a gauntlet of ghosts, ghoulies, mummies, bats, basement dwellers, attic inhabitants, crypt keepers, bloodsuckers, braineaters, geeks, freaks, and other creepy-crawlies that stalk the moors at night and go “AH-OOO!” at the moon.

Which, of course, means it’s Halloween and, of course, time for LARPing Real Life’s Blog-o-ween 2023!

For the past few years, we here at LARPCO have dedicated ourselves to bringing you the very best of the spooky season. We’ve watched scary movies together and huddled around the Philco to listen to old-time radio’s greatest thrills and chills. This year, we are bringing a touch of class to the proceedings. This year, LARPing Real Life’s Blog-o-ween will be of a decidedly literary bent. This October, we are focusing on some of our favorite horror short stories. There will be favorites, old and new. There will be the occasional radio adaptation, as well as well-known classics mixed with a few new additions to the canon.

For the most part, these stories will be found on-line in their entirety, thanks to sites like the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg. There will be links to the texts in each post so that you can read along with everyone else.

For newer stories that have not yet entered the light and crossed over to the “other side” of the public domain, we urge you to try your local library. In this time of book bans, book burnings, and other real life horrors, your local library needs a lot of love and support. I can’t think of a better way than by checking out some scary stories! Many libraries allow their patrons to check out e-books via platforms like Hoopla and Libby. If you have an up-to-date library card and access to a computer, a tablet, or even your phone, then you can enjoy thousands of books, comics, audiobooks, music, and movies.

As a little taste of what is coming your way over the next thirty-one days, let me share a little something with you. Every year for at least the past decade, I have read Stephen King’s novel ’Salem’s Lot. I think it is the perfect book to take with you into the October Country. This year is no different. Tomorrow, I’ll be cracking open my paperback once again and joining Ben Mears, Mark Petrie, and their fellow Fearless Vampire Hunters as they go head to head against the despicable bloodsucker Barlow and his henchman, Straker. If you’d like to join me, grab your own copy of ’Salem’s Lot and read along.

If you don’t have the time to dedicate to a novel, maybe I can interest you in a BBC Four radio adaptation? In 1995, writer Gregory Evans adapted King’s novel into a seven-part radio drama complete with a large cast of actors and excellent use of sound design. You can find all seven parts here on the Internet Archive.

While you while away the hours following the adventures of vampires in small-town America, I hope you are prepared for what lies in wait for you during the rest of the month. See you back here tomorrow...and in the words of Raymond, the host of radio’s Inner Sanctum...