Fortnight of Fright: Guest Post from Author Jessica Spotswood!

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Welcome to our second annual FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT event!
October 17th – October 31st, 2013

Last year, Alyssa (Books Take You Places) and I really bonded over our mutual love of Halloween and came up with the idea for A FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT: a two-week long event celebrating everything Halloween and horror-related! We decided to bring it back again this year and we have a TON of fun Halloween things planned for you!

Today I am SO excited to host author Jessica Spotswood whom you may know from her books BORN WICKED and STARCURSED (and book three SISTER’S FATE is out August 2014)! She’s sharing with us her mom’s recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins (which sound FABULOUS) and of course, her favorite witches of all time! Take it away, Jessica!

In honor of Halloween, here’s one of my favorite recipes: my mom’s recipe for chocolate chip pumpkin muffins.  

3c. flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1.5 cups vegetable oil or applesauce
16 oz can pumpkin
2 cups chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in eggs, vegetable oil/applesauce, and pumpkin. Mix until everything’s incorporated but be careful not to overmix. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into greased muffin tins and bake 16-20 minutes at 400 degrees. (Makes about 36 depending on muffin size)

And here’s a list of my top 7 (seems a good witchy number) favorite witches — the Cahill sisters not included, of course! 

  1. Hermione Granger  (Harry Potter series)
  2. Luna Lovegood (ditto)
  3. Willow (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
  4. Samantha Stevens (Bewitched – I loved watching reruns of that show when I was little!)
  5. The three witches from Macbeth
  6. The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz
  7. Kat Stephenson from Stephanie Burgis’s Kat, Incorrigible series 

Honorable mention: the New Orleans witches from the new show The Originals (the Vampire Diaries spinoff) seem to have potential! 

We also had Jessica answer some quick and fun Halloween Q&A! We like getting to know authors a little bit more, especially when it has to do with their Halloween preferences 🙂

HALLOWEEN Q&A

Why do you love Halloween? It’s a good excuse to dress up, eat candy, and have a party!

Do you have any fun Halloween memories?  Yes! We used to go up to my grandparents’ cabin in the woods and carve pumpkins and walk down to the lake, where people would gather to set the pumpkins afloat on a giant raft as an offering to the Hairy Hand of Fuller Lake (a local ghost story).

What was the best costume you ever had? (Or if you don’t have one, someone else’s): I like this picture (see attached) of me and my sisters from 1990. I’m the genie (with blue eyeshadow?), my sister S is the pumpkin, and A is the witch. 

Sisters Hween 90

Do you prefer mild scares or hair raising horror? Mild scares — more psychological horror than gross-out stuff. My favorite recent scary book was April Genevieve Tucholke’s Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. There’s this scene with spooky children in a graveyard that totally creeped me out!

FAVORITES

Halloween Candy? Reese’s peanut butter cups

Paranormal creature? (ghouls, gobilins, vampires, witches, etc) Witches, of course!

Halloween Movie? Scream is probably my favorite scary movie.

Halloween TV episodes or TV Shows? My fave scary shows are The Vampire Diaries and its spin-off, The Originals! I don’t know if they are truly “scary” so much as “excuses to watch cute guys” though.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SC cover2Jessica Spotswood is the author of the Cahill Witch Chronicles: BORN WICKED (2012), STAR CURSED (2013), and SISTERS’ FATE (August 2014). She grew up in a tiny, one-stoplight town in Pennsylvania, where she could be found swimming, playing clarinet, memorizing lines for the school play, or – most often – with her nose in a book. Now Jess lives in Washington, DC with her playwright husband and a cuddly cat named Monkey. She can be found doing yoga, teaching writing workshops for teens, or – most often – with her nose in a book. Some things never change.

Find Jess online!
Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Cahill Witch Inspiration Pinboard

Another BIG BIG thank you to Jessica Spotswood! It was such a pleasure to have her fun thoughts on Halloween and share a delicious recipe with us (which I most certainly am trying!!) — If you haven’t read her books yet, I highly recommend them! They’re absolutely wonderful!

Hi, I'm Brittany!
Hi, I'm Brittany!

I'm an avid reader, candle-maker, and audiobook lover! Here you'll find book reviews, fun blog posts, and my other loves of photography & craft beer!

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2 thoughts on “Fortnight of Fright: Guest Post from Author Jessica Spotswood!

  1. Amanda

    I LOVE JESSICA SPOTSWOOD! I just finished “Star Cursed” last week (SO GOOD) so what fun timing for me to read all of her favorite Halloween traditions! That picture is so cute, gotta love that 90s blue eyeshadow! Also, that Halloween tradition of setting the pumpkins afloat is so cool! Although I love living in a big city it must be fun to have small-town local ghost stories like that, I didn’t have anything like that growing up.

    Reply

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