Catherine Greenfeder

Category: My Books

Total 16 Posts

Halloween: Pumpkins and Ghost Stories

By • October 16, 2023

Last month I traveled to Maine to visit relatives and do a little hiking.  While there I stopped at a gardening shop which sold souvenirs, local produce including maple syrup, blackberry and blueberry jams, and pumpkins. So, I walked about looking for the best pumpkin to bring home. I found a nice, round one with a strong stem. Thus, I bought my first pumpkin of the season before heading back to New Jersey.

Then I volunteered at a thrift store and food pantry in Montclair, New Jersey.

Hundreds of pumpkins in all sizes amassed together on the lawn outside the church. Proceeds from their sale were to help provide services for Navajo. So, I bought another pumpkin, another medium sized one with a nice, round head for carving and lighting up.

I prefer to go to those pick-your-own pumpkins and apples places, but I took the easier route by buying off the lawn.  

 

 

Why are pumpkins used on Halloween?

Long ago in Ireland, people took turnips or other root vegetables, hollowed them out, and carved hideous faces on them to frighten away evil spirits. When Irish immigrants came to America in the early 1800’s, they used pumpkins to create jack-o-lanterns. The name Jack came from an Irish folktale about a stingy man named Jack. The tradition of carving faces on pumpkins, or painting them was born.

Where did Halloween come from?

Halloween, itself, has its roots in the ancient Celtic celebration of Samhain which marked the end of the harvest season in Ireland. Bonfires were lit, and people dressed in costumes. Today, Samhain is still celebrated all over Ireland. Some of the rituals associated with it include dancing, feasting, taking nature walks, and building altars to honor one’s ancestors.

How come ghosts are associated with Halloween?

There is an ancient belief that the veil between the living and those who have gone to spirit, is thinnest during Halloween. It is also felt that this is a good time for divination, or fortune telling. Halloween is “All Hallow’s Eve”, the day before the Christian remembrance and holy day of obligation of All Saint’s Day, which is November 1. In Mexico, the celebration of The Day of the Dead or El Dia del Muerto, is November 1 to November 2, which are recognized as All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day in Christian beliefs. Tales about ghosts have been around for thousands of years and have come from all parts of the world.

I have had a few paranormal experiences, which are experiences which are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. I stayed overnight at a haunted inn in Sweden. Although nothing very unusual happened, there were some strange occurrences, like water dripping from a faucet at odd times and what seemed like a shadow passing the doorway. The room had witnessed the tragic suicide of a young man who’d been jilted a century earlier by a former inn owner’s daughter. During an overnight stay years ago at the Parador de Carmona, a lovely and ancient castle near Seville, Spain. A gust of wind blew in despite the windows being shut, and I thought that I heard sounds of an army charging outside the castle walls. Vivid imagination? Maybe or maybe not. I’ve spoken to people who claim to have had similar experiences and have sensed the presence of departed loved ones or had premonitions which later happened.

Ghosts are considered to be the soul or the spirit of a human or a non-human animal, who has died but has not gone to an eternal rest. In 2018, a yearly survey asking people in the United States about their belief in the paranormal, found that 58 percent of those polled believed in “haunted places”. In addition, “one in five people in another survey conducted by Pew Research Center, in Washington, D.C., said that “they’ve seen or been in the presence of a ghost”.

A Kiss Out of Time book coverMy young adult books, A Kiss Out of Time and the sequel A Dance Out of Time features ghosts, a fortune teller, and a psychic teenager who tries to help troubled ghosts cross over to the Other Side and find eternal peace. 

So, do you have a favorite Halloween tradition? Do you believe in ghosts? Write a comment, and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

In the spirit of Halloween, I will be treating the first three who respond with an appropriate comment to a copy of each of these books. 

Thank you. — Cathy G.

When Characters Speak

By • April 18, 2023

When my son was a small boy, I enjoyed reading story books aloud to him, and I believe that he appreciated it. I also enjoyed listening to stories read aloud when I was a child. As a former educator, I often read aloud or had my students read aloud some of the stories we would later discuss in class. There is something about hearing the story read aloud that makes it come alive to a reader.

I recently adapted my novel, Sacred Fires, for audio book format. I used AI for narration on Google Play. It proved an interesting experience as I went through the text of my novel and had various voices for the different characters. It also reminded me of how when I am in the draft stage of a story, I feel as if the characters speak to me. Strange as that might sound to someone who doesn’t write fiction, it helps with creating a story.

When I taught writing, I had a student who mentioned that I told the class about characters speaking to the writer. At first she didn’t believe that until it happened to her as she wrote her own short story. What do the characters speak about? They might speak about the events, how they’re feeling, or give the dialogue.

Since I’ve been writing for quite awhile, and I have written and published a variety of books including young adult, paranormal romance, and historical romance, I’ve learned to tune into the characters as they speak.

So, it felt thrilling to use technology, AI,  to assign various voices to the various characters in Sacred Fires. Hearing them made the story come alive, and it was a lot of fun. I’m hoping that book will appeal to those who enjoy hearing stories read aloud, or those who find it easier to listen to an audio book.

https://play.google.com/store/books/category/audiobooks?hl=en_US&gl=US

Writer’s Tools: A Room of One’s Own

By • February 8, 2023

 

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

 

 

While it’s necessary to have money, as a writer you don’t have to have a room of your own to write, but it helps! I recently converted a spare bedroom into my “writing room”, and it provides the space where I can go when I need to plot my stories, type drafts and revisions of works-in-progress, and meet on a Zoom with other writers. In a way, it’s become my “home office” as well as the guest room.

Since I sometimes like to listen to music while I write, I have an I-pod, a 33 rpm record player, downloads on my laptop and my phone. I’ve created playlists, too, for certain stories that I’m working on. Sometimes the music is background noise. I have a Mr. Coffee mug warmer which helps a lot when I need a cup o’ Joe to keep on keepin’ on. By the way, according to an article by Brooke Nelson in Reader’s Digest, dated November 24, 2022, the phrase cup of Joe might have its basis in linguistics. “Joe” is the simplified form of the word “jamoke,” which began as a nickname for coffee in the 19th century, a portmanteau of the coffee beans “Java,” and “mocha.” Therefore, “cup of jamoke” may have become shortened to a “cup of Joe.”

I’m a pencil and pen connoisseur and have included Blackwing pencils, dainty looking Vera Bradley pencils, gel pens of assorted colors, purple Pentel RSVP pens which are my favorites, and Bic Ball 3 in jade and blue. While I do most of my writing, as I am doing now, on my laptop, I enjoy using colorful pens and pencils for note taking, line editing, and filling out forms for writing. As for notebooks, there are so many types that I’ve used from those black and white composition books like the ones which I used in elementary school to ingrained, leather bound notebooks.  I have notebooks with subject dividers for various tasks including journals, writing projects, writing workshops, research, and much more. Having been a teacher for over two decades, I had to be fairly organized and notebooks became a must. As a writer, even with the computer and the apps on my phone, I like to have notebooks.

These are tools which are useful for writing and for being in the room of my own, but the work must be done. Like a lot of other writers, my laptop is my most important tool. I knew a few writers when I started out writing more seriously who refused to type up their drafts and wrote long-hand. My first book, Wildflowers, is one which I wrote long-hand in a yellow 3-ring binder while commuting to my job as a copywriter for J.C. Penney in New York City. I wrote furiously as the bus meandered through the interstate traffic, through the Lincoln Tunnel, and deposited its passengers at the Port Authority Terminal of Manhattan. Those were before the invention of personal computers, even before the cell phones, so I am dating myself. Had it not been, though, for those notebooks and pens or pencils, I wouldn’t have had my earliest material for that book.

As for a room of one’s own as Virginia Woolf suggested in her book, A Room of One’s Own, it’s not necessary.  I wrote on a bus, in a coffee shop, dictated on a tape recorder while driving my car, during my lunchtime breaks at work, even on long walks through parks. Once again, it’s the idea that to be a writer, one must write wherever and whenever one can.

So, where do you write? Do you need a “room of one’s own”? Comments are welcome.

 

Meet the Author

Catherine Greenfeder

Catherine Greenfeder

Romance Novelist

My Books

Wildflowers

Angels Among Us

Sacred Fires

A Kiss Out of Time, a Georginas Ghost Story

A Dance Out of Time, a Georginas Ghost Story

© 2025 Catherine Greenfeder.  All Right Reserved.