William Cook

Dear Readers, First, let me say how truly grateful I am for your ongoing support as subscribers to my personal website here at www.williamcookwriter.com . Your enthusiasm for my writing means the world to me, and I’m excited to share a brand-new chapter with you. I’m thrilled to announce the launch of my new Substack newsletter, Grey Matter Dispatch .   Grey Matter Dispatch  is for readers, writers, and collectors who share my passion for the macabre. Each post is designed to give you something new — whether it’s a story update, horror news, or a trip into the genre’s rich history. Dark stories, strange finds, and a peek into my world as a horror writer — all delivered to your inbox. Here’s what you can look forward to: Updates on my writing projects – news on my upcoming horror fiction, poetry, and releases. Insights into the horror world – posts about horror culture, films, and the genre’s darker corners. Publishing and writing tips – advice, behind-the-scenes notes...

Well, I hope you all had a fright-filled Halloween and Samhain season this year. Halloween is a relatively new event in New Zealand cultural history and so the scares don’t come out en masse as they do in the USA. When I was a kid, my pals and I would make absurd effigies of ‘Guy Fawkes’ on November the 5 th . We’d stuff an old pair of overalls with rags and rolled-up newspaper and then push it around in a heavy-steel wheelbarrow, chanting “Guy! Guy! Money for the Guy. If you don’t have any money, then a smile will do. If you don’t have a smile, then God bless you!” Depending on who it was we’d usually give them this spiel, but if we didn’t like them we’d throw in a few other choice lines to give the chant a bit more pep. People would give us apples and lollies (candy) and sometimes loose-change and we’d all huddle round as the sun was going down and count our loot. If we had enough, we’d race down to the corner store (we call it a ‘dairy’ over here) and buy a swag of ‘Double Happys’...