Bobbi A. Chukran's Blog

 

"Where oh where did October go?" a good friend asked me earlier today. Good question. It seems like it raced by and made my head spin. I've been keeping incredibly busy with writing, indie publishing projects, subbing a few things to other mystery and weird story markets. Since I turned 70 back in February (gulp) I feel an even greater urgency to get things done and OUT there.

This has been a good month for me publication wise. Ironically, a story I subbed a year ago suddenly turned up in Myster...

 

Note to Reader: After seeing Pinterest was trending VERY high for “Halloween pumpkin carving ideas” I decided to write this short story about what might happen on a spooky Halloween night. Enjoy! bc

How NOT to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin

Bobbi A. Chukran

Gourmet-level Pinterest-ready pumpkin carving requires precision, patience, and a vegetable that doesn’t possess a strong will to live. Apparently the pumpkin I brought home from the farmer’s market was not that vegetable.

To properly carve a Hallowe...

 Dear Friends & Spooks!

Want a few pleasant shivers? Read some classic ghostly short stories during the Halloween season!

I love classic ghostly fiction because, basically, it’s spooky! I think the best ghost stories thrill readers because these tales transform the "terrifying unknown" into an exploration of human emotion and memory. While modern ghost stories can lean heavily on violence and gore, classic ghost stories by authors like E.F. Benson, M.R. James, Shirley Jackson and Edith Wharton are...

 Now available for the Kindle! Just in time for Halloween...

Who's Snatching Aunt Jewel's Pumpkins?

Something mysterious is lurking around Aunt Jewel's farmhouse in Nameless, Texas—and her Halloween pumpkins are disappearing one by one!

Is it a prankster, a pumpkin thief, or a genuine porch phantom?

Aunt Jewel intends to find out!

Aunt Jewel & the Nameless Pumpkin Phantom by Bobbi A. Chukran is another quirky, spooky Halloween short story with Texas charm, mysterious mischief, and a touch of the supe...

 In Which I Wax Eloquent about my Love for Cylindrical Orange (and Blue) Gourds!

Dear Folks,

It’s finally October, my favorite month of the year! The air is crisp, the leaves are turning crunchy, and society has finally given me permission to drop all pretense and reveal my true form: an obsessed pumpkin lover!

I don’t just like pumpkins. I am spiritually, emotionally, and physically insane about them. If you poked me right now, there is a very high probability I would bleed orange. (And that has N...

 Folkses!

Just in time for Halloween, a story I've been working on for two years. In addition to my modern day "Nameless, Texas" short mystery stories, I also write weird western stories set in 1880s Nameless! The coming of Halloween inspired me to ease a bit into the folklore of Jack-O'-Lanterns. If it's supernatural AND a tall tale, I love it.
 I finally got a cover I love, and that shrieks "fun, campy, slightly vintage and very weirdly western," y'all!  It's FREE on Kindle Unlimited right now, ...

 Originally published in Kings River Life magazine, here's a short little spooky Halloween story for your shivery enjoyment! Happy Trails from Nameless, Texas!

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One night while laying in a cold, dark hospital room I spied the Angel of Death or was it the Grim Reaper? wisping down the hallway and into the room across the way, the inhabitant a white haired grandmother  who had gone in for a routine procedure.

Never mind that I was stoned out of my mind on morphine, prescribed by the doctor, that ...

 

Artwork by Bobbi A. Chukran

 Dear friends,

Back in 2012, I published my first collection of short stories, HALLOWEEN THIRTEEN for the Kindle. I was finally able to upgrade the cover (BIG upgrade!), do a few tweaks and edits and reissue it for Halloween 2026! Available this week on Amazon. I hope to offer it in paperback, too, soon.

Slip into the shadows…Some Halloween tales are frightening. Some are funny. And some are just plain strange.

Step into a world where ordinary takes an unexpected turn—where a lonely highway can lea...

Hello friends!

I just finished uploading my most recent short spooky tale to Amazon for the Kindle. It's a traditional gothic ghost story set somewhere in England in a haunted (maybe) manor on a rocky coast. Yes, proper spooky! 

The dead rarely speak. But sometimes they return to be heard.

Years after the death of his wife, Eleanor, Thomas Sutton lives alone in a crumbling manor by the sea, haunted by memories—and by a secret he has carefully kept buried.

Everyone believes Eleanor died during the ch...