Saturday Night Special presents: Halloween

ghost woman in an etherial dress descends a sinister staircase backlight in orange

Join us online for the 16th Annual SNS Halloween Reading, Open Mic
& Costume Party!

Featuring:
Drew Sage & Lauren C. Johnson

Theme: Halloween
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

Saturday, October 24, 2026
8:00pm Central Time

Online Event
Free Admission

Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

SNS Open Mic Sign Up

Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 879 0960 3094

Passcode:‍ ‍800908

Attend

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Author Bios

Lauren C. Johnson attributes her upbringing in Florida, America’s weirdest state, to her interest in the ecological and surreal. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Orion Magazine online, and others. She is the interviews editor for The Racket Journal and is a member of The Ruby, a Bay Area collective for women and non-binary artists and creatives. She earned her MFA in creative writing at American University and lives in San Francisco, where she is a co-host of Babylon Salon, a quarterly Bay Area reading series, and Club Chicxulub, a sci-fi and fantasy performance series. Her debut novel, The West Façade, was recently released from the Santa Fe Writers Project (SFWP) in 2026.

Andrew Powell (aka Drew Sage) was born in the UK to Jamaican parents who immigrated to the US in 1971. Mainly due to an overzealous 5th grade English teacher, Drew has been writing poetry since 1978. Smitten by the hip-hop bug in 1983, Drew incorporates wordplay into his writing. After graduating from Berkeley High School, Drew went on to earn B.A.'s in Broadcast Electronic Communication Arts and Black Studies from San Francisco State University and was the 1995 School of Ethnic Studies Hood Recipient. He is also a graduate of KPFA’s First Voice Apprenticeship. Last year, Drew had his first poem published by Decentered Arts in an anthology entitled “Poolside Poets, 2023-2025.” This year, Drew self-published his first book of poetry Chronicled Observations and Their Poetic Results.

Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me **Thursday** evening, **October 22**, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy where we can work together on our theme.
Write-In Details/ Sign Up

October Writing Prompt

For the 16th Annual Saturday Night Special Halloween Open Mic, we’re revisiting our classic themes, with some fresh inspiration.

Halloween gives us permission to make the ordinary strange. For one night, the dark outside the window might hold a ghost, a monster, a witch, or something we can’t explain. Costumes transform us. Stories give shape to our secret fears. Even the season's familiar symbols—pumpkins, candy, dry leaves, bonfires, black cats, and the long shadows of trees—reach toward the uncanny in tangled moonlight.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

Start with a monster: demons, zombies, vampires, sirens, witches, werewolves, ghosts, predators, clowns, the circus, the president, the horsemen of the apocalypse, blood-thirsty or benign creatures, Bigfoot, fairies, mutants, psychopaths, politicians, parents, screaming children, bullies, bosses, exes, societal cruelties, the misunderstood—What defines a monster? What monsters have you known? What monsters have you been? Were they real or imagined? Evil or misunderstood?
Start with a seasonal symbol: pumpkins, scarecrows, cemeteries, black cats, bats, harvest moons, apple cider, candy, hay rides, trick-or-treat. Choose something familiar and let the poem make it strange.
Tell a tiny Halloween story: What’s your best, craziest, strangest, or scariest Halloween story? A costume you wore, a party you attended, a door you knocked on, a trick that went wrong. Start with one small moment and see how much story it can hold.
Go dark, scary, gross, bizarre: What is grotesque? Unthinkable? What are you afraid of, and how might that fear become literal? Pool drains, sharks, heights, blood, poison, ants, failure, the sun, disfigurement, dying alone, or whatever makes your skin crawl.
Start with a spooky location: haunted house, graveyard, things in the woods, under the bed, outside the window, inside the house, in the past, in your dreams. Let the setting become a character.
Write a real ghost story: Have you ever seen a ghost? Experienced the supernatural? An apparition, poltergeist, possession, exorcism, bumps in the night? Or know someone who has? What happened? Or what might have happened?
Write to a ghost: What or whom have you lost? What would you say to their ghost?

Or something else! As ever, please feel free to follow whatever inspiration takes you! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

Below are some of my favorite Halloween poems and short stories on our theme to inspire you.