Samhain Screams will be released on the 17th of October—but the Kindle version is available for pre-order today at just $1.99 instead of $3.99. You can also add the anthology to your Goodreads list. Our aim is quite simply to make Halloween 2025 the spookiest ever with this anthology featuring twenty scary tales handpicked by Greg Chapman and Cameron Trost. Do you dare peek into the troubled minds of our contributing authors?
Hi Matthew,
What does Halloween mean to you and how do you celebrate it?
Like many people, I see it as a celebration of all things dark and spooky, so I love it! I could put together a book solely consisting of stories I wrote that are set on Halloween – the latest, even more recent than “Hauntology” (which I wrote in April this year), is a seasonal-themed slasher for another anthology. My partner Meg (the award-winning cover artist Red Wallflower) and I like to do something special for Halloween, even if it’s just staying in with a pumpkin pie she’s baked and some horror flicks. In the past, we’ve gone out to cinema screenings or goth events, and two years ago, we carved pumpkins together for the first time (see accompanying pic). Naturally, hers was great and mine looked terrible.
Will you be donning a scary costume this Halloween?
I doubt it. I don’t really dress up for it, unless you count that year I wore a skirt and steel-capped boots to DecaDanse.
Without giving too much away, is there a story behind your contribution to this anthology?
I’ve talked about the tale’s genesis in other promotional materials for the book, so what else can I say? Well… one of the central images in “Hauntology” is an advertising photo featuring a smiling woman. That image comes straight from a 7/11 on Hindley Street here in Adelaide whose window signage really needs to be updated. In fact, Meg and I both took photos of it, entirely independently, because something about it spoke to us… and here it is, given a new and very eerie home…
Do you have a favourite Halloween tale?
Meg and I watch something spooky and/or fun every year – last year, I believe it was Young Frankenstein. But in terms of Halloween stories that have really stuck with me, I’d have to say The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949). It’s a Disney animated short about Ichabod Crane’s run-in with the Headless Horseman that I saw a few times as a child – at school, no less. The chase scene that comprises the last section of the film is fairly intense for a children’s movie! I actually referenced this film in that slasher story I mentioned earlier, though I ended up cutting that line in the edit.
Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?
I’ve written at least one song that would make a great addition to any Halloween playlist. Check out “Cemetery Girl”, from Blood Red Renaissance’s debut album Champagne Tragedy. Unlike the left-field rock and metal that dominates that record, this song is a graveyard waltz that opens with an organ sample from The Black Cat (1934) and features me playing theremin and fire extinguisher. I last performed it at the book launch for my first horror collection, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, in an acoustic variant featuring accordion.
What are you working on at the moment? What are you writing?
I’ve spent this year working on short fiction, turning out some great stuff (including “Hauntology”, if I do say so myself), but now it’s time to turn back to my current novel, which I began in Canberra at Conflux last year. I worked on it every day for two months until other book-editing obligations forced me to put it aside halfway through the first draft, and now I’m keen to read it over and pick up where I left off. It touches on many of my recurring themes – abandoned places, street art, fractured love, loneliness, and punk-rock defiance, to name a few. It’s going to be very heartfelt and very creepy. Its working title is Desolation.
Thanks for playing along!
Photo credit: Red Wallflower
