Happy Halloween, everyone!

Even for those of you who don’t dress up anymore (or never have), the theme of getting as creative as possible with costumes is probably not news to you. Honestly, that’s always been my favorite part of Halloween – the vast array of options to both be and observe.

It’s much the same with writing. When both creating and consuming literature, I love my diverse genres, characters and settings. Perhaps, then, it comes as little surprise that I’m pretty darn excited by the diverse new voices in fiction today. Non European-based/Anglosphere cultures are finally seeing encouragement to branch out into historically male/Western genres such as Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Not only is this heartening in terms of inclusion but for fantastical genres in particular, just think of the slew of new mythical creatures this could invite – I mean, ever heard of an Aswang? It’s A Filipino vampire that feeds on victims using its three-foot-long tongue. Or the HeiBai Wuchang? According to Chinese tradition, those are the black and white ghosts that guard graveyards at night. And if you’ve spent any time listening to the r/nosleep podcasts on deep woods exploration in North America, what about Wendigos?

What neat mythical creatures have you all fascinated? I want to learn about more of these guys!