My Halloweensie entry

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and Susannah Hill's annual contest is one of my favorite events! Here's my entry:

 Halloweensie Treats (78words)

By Deborah Holt Williams

Halloween’s upon us

And I really love to cook.

Welcome to my kitchen!

Here’s the steps I took.

I thought I’d treat my family

To my candy apple stew.

But it tasted kinda nasty

When I added cobwebs, too.

So then I thought I’d treat them

To a tasty pumpkin potion.

Pumpkin in the microwave—

Kabam! Orange explosion!

Yikes! The pumpkin’s flaming!

Here’s a handy treating trick:

Got fire? Go get marshmallows,

And roast them on a stick!

My Kidlit Writing Fall Frenzy entry

    Thank you, Kaitlyn Leann Sanchez and Lydia Lukidis for setting up this contest! I tip my (black and pointy) hat to you both. The idea is to write a story under 200 words based on one of the pictures they posted. I chose this picture:
  

Alas, Poor Gerald by Deborah Holt Williams (Lucky)

     My husband Gerald said I shouldn’t celebrate Halloween this year. “Why can’t you be like the other wives?” he asked. Bah! He knew what I was when he married me. And up until this year when we moved to Suburbia, he’s always accepted that, on this one special night, I can be who I truly am. Go a little batty! Reach for the skies! But now, he wants me to blend in with our boring neighbors. Stay home and hand out candy to greedy brats in Kmart costumes and surly teens who don’t even dress up. Not my cup of brew, Gerald, thank you very much. Ah, Gerald. Poor Gerald. You never saw it coming, blessed be. But you’ll make a lovely decoration for the front porch. Gotta fly!

Rewarding!

Five years ago, to celebrate finishing chemo, I treated myself to a Highlights workshop. This year, I'm celebrating an important 5 year milestone. If Triple Negative Breast Cancer doesn't return in 5 years, there's a good chance it never will. So how did I treat myself this year? With another Highlights workshop! It rained all day the first day, but the faculty was fabulous (authors Lesa Cline-Ransome and Donna Janelle Bowman, and agent Marie Lamba) and they showed us so many ways to write a picture book biography beyond birth to death. The next day, rainbows and sunshine! I'm trying to find the seed in my biography, and I hope to write like rainbows are shooting out of my fingers!