Dear Reader:

Another October has rolled around and once again the weather in the northern hemisphere is taking a turn for the chilly. Wild winds whip through wet branches, slapping time to the skeletal clacking of blackened limbs with the last lilt of sagging, wilting leaves. Evenings come sooner and nights last longer this time of year, as we watch the vibrant greens of summer flare into deep, screaming, primary colors in a hopeless attempt by dying trees to draw life's flickering attention for a moment longer, a little more warmth before winter's razor bite.

What to wear? Be a ghost? A vampire? Frankenstein's misunderstood monster or the wolf man? It didn't matter what you decided, the fact was that for one day a year you got to pretend to be somebody else and be rewarded with bags of candy and money and everything important to pint sized bandits out to garner all the loot possible in one short night.

Whether we trace the magic back to Druidic festivals or race memories, mass hysteria or psychotic intervals in our otherwise ordered lives, adults seem to need a reason to rekindle those feelings from childhood, or at the very least to acknowledge they exist still. Let them have reign, indulge them for a little while. Nobody's watching.

The city streets will soon be teeming with all manner of strange creatures seeking ransom for good behavior, goodies to forefend fiendish pranks. Candy, or the goblins will soap your windows and egg your doors. Diminutive, costumed crooks practicing parentally condoned extortion in the name of Pictish legend, Druid lore and Elfin fun. Yes, Hallowe'en is here again and it's time for Trick or Treat.

But it's no trick that Writer's Cramp has compiled another delightful treat for you this year. It's a pleasure.

We introduce two new writers to our ranks, Will Creedle and Bryce Giroux both explode onto our pages with major works of horror to tickle your tingler bone and JB Pravda has haunted our pages with not one, but two new terrifying treats. We also reach back into the vaults of Hallowe'ens Past to share a treat or two and possibly a trick from the likes of Ann Huseman, Sharon K. Gilbert, J. M. Heluk, Derek P. Gilbert and JB Pravda once again.

You can also find a number of treats burried behind some of the animated creatures on the front page.

The chill is in the air and the clouds are lowering, quiet breezes whisper the leaves to soft agitation and spirits are loosed once again to devil our perceptions and tickle our hearts with delicious dread. Wild winds, now, whip through wet branches, slapping dreadful time to the skeletal clacking of blackened limbs, footsteps dog you, dragging through the wilting leaves. Evenings creep up behind you and nights last longer this time of year, and we once again offer you the best fiction on the Internet. To keep you company on these cold wet windy nights.

Happy Hallowe'en! Enjoy.

Robert Liberty,
Publishing Editor