Hoodrat Halloween is a tribute to Robert E. Howard, who, when I was a boy adrift among meat marionettes dangling spectrally as they lurched across the world—never knowing, that in their sleep, they had been bought and sold—pried my eyes and thrilled my soul with wonderful lies...told in the still voice of terrible truth.

This crooked tale was inspired by Howard’s works Black Canaan, The Pool of the Black One, Beyond the Black River and Kelly The Conjure-Man. It formed in my mind during a walk through the back streets and alleys of the Cedonia section of Northeast Baltimore one autumn night, and from the memory of a meeting in the Pennsylvania woods between two girls and “The Ugly Man” of Moger Drive.

-Wednesday, October 5, 2015