Hi! Kim Fielding here, and it’s October. Yay! This is possibly my favorite month. My older daughter was born in October. The weather here in the middle of California becomes less like an oven—we even got a little rain last week. And of course, there’s the best of all holidays, Halloween. Last year I had to teach on Halloween night, which was actually kind of cool because I was teaching a class about serial killers and the class was at our satellite campus, which was formerly the state’s largest mental hospital. But I missed all the trick-or-treaters, which was sad. We usually get a couple hundred or so.

Celebrating Halloween was more challenging when I was a kid. I spent my first nine years in the burbs of Chicago, which meant I usually had to wear a coat over my costume. Then we moved to Oregon, where the weather was warmer but wetter. In graduate school, I lived in Nebraska. One year there was such a big blizzard on October 31 that the mayor rescheduled Halloween! Of course, this meant that we were all snowed in and bored—so we ate all the candy intended for trick-or-treaters. Then we had to go out and buy more when the snow melted a couple of days later.

Where I live now, though, late October is generally crisp without being cold, and it’s usually also dry. Perfect. Which is why I don’t complain when teenagers continue trick-or-treating even when they’re technically a little old for it. As long as they’re in costume and polite, I hand over the candy. In fact, my older daughter continued the practice until she was 18, and my younger one, who’s 15, has every intention of hitting up the neighbors for treats this year.

I love how Halloween allows us to be so creative. On that night, some people even feel comfortable openly showing aspects of themselves they might normally keep hidden. Two years ago, a pair of 16-year-old boys showed up at the door in cheerleader costumes—short skirts, pom-poms, pigtails, makeup. As they were walking away, one of them leaned over and planted a kiss on the other’s cheek. In our relatively conservative town, they might not have felt comfortable doing this on any other night. But this was Halloween.

I’m totally into Halloween decorations too. If you know me, this is no surprise. After all, I have a skull tattoo on one leg and a giant skull and crossbones on my car’s roof. Halloween means skulls and skeletons everywhere! Not to mention vampires, zombies, witches, ghosts, and all manner of other creatures that go bump in the night. And if you know my writing, you know how much I love monsters.

And of course Halloween means food. Not just chocolate, which is good enough. But caramel apples. Spooky-themed cakes and cookies. Hot mulled cider. And maybe an assortment of appropriate adult beverages as well.

Finally, Halloween is an excuse to watch scary movies and read scary books. So now is your turn to share. What should we all be watching and reading this month?

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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.

After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her husband, her two daughters, and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.

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