Halloween Town, Oregon, real name Saint Helens, looked a little bit different this year, thanks to the pandemic. Our little hometown’s claim to fame is that it was the location where Halloween Town and Halloween Town II, Kalabar’s Revenge were filmed. For the entire month of October, the town is decorated with scarecrows and over-the-top Halloween displays. The visitors love it and the locals hate it. The downtown area sets up a number of attractions, including visits and photo opportunities with the Halloween Town actors, witches’ dance troops, a zombie survival 5k, and other Halloween-themed activities. This year, it felt like a hush fell over the town for the entire month of October. All the events and activities were scaled-back to meet COVID-19 guidelines. The weekend crowds were missing and everyone was asking if the holiday would be cancelled. No one can stop a holiday but it was a very transformed event. Anne has volunteered for the last five years in various capacities (The Fairy Festival, The Museum of Curiosities, and the Nacho Booth) but this year, she opted to stay home. It was a good decision.

As for Litzo business this week, Nancy finished the second chapter of our latest horror project, Area 25. Anne wrote another chapter in the third New Mother Earth science fiction series, bringing the total to 18. Eric got about 5 pages into his edits on those same chapters. Progress, while slow, is being made. No one is signing up for NaNoWriMo this year. We’ll keep with the steady pace for now. We’ll all be meeting up on Zoom this evening for our weekly meeting. We tend to do better when we are beholden to one another. It keeps us honest.

We hope you had a Happy Halloween. Fingers-crossed for a better November. Thanks for sticking with us.

Kind regards,

Anne, Nancy, and Eric