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What would I do if I knew the world would be ending in six months?

Hell, I don’t know. Weep, I guess. Weep a lot. So much weeping. And I would say “shit” a good many times. And eat lots of peaches. And pizza. I would use drugs. In tandem. Cognac sipped in between huffs of paint. I would watch no reruns of Quincy. I would eat lobster for breakfast. Naked. No more shaving.

I would set a goal to see how fat I could get before the world ended and then do everything possible to meet that goal. This would involve large amounts of pie. The preferred pie would be lemon meringue, but every kind of pie would be on my radar, save mincemeat. Hell, even mincemeat. Sniff enough glue and probably even mincemeat tastes good. I don’t even know what mincemeat is.

Music would be listened to, and it would be loud. The Smiths, mostly. I would stop worrying about getting a melanoma. Probably I would engage in some self-delusion regarding the afterlife, skim through Buddhist texts, dream of reincarnation as a molecule in Saturn’s outer ring. I’d fart freely, and with passion. Snorkeling would take center stage; tennis put on the back burner.

If I knew the world were ending in six months, I’d read a lot about dinosaurs and scarf Kobe beef sliders, dance to New Order, watch Candy Stripers III and some of the other soft porn I’ve missed. I’d let my ear hair grow willy-nilly and try to braid it into something startling.

Jay Wexler is the author of The Odd Clauses and The Adventures of Ed Tuttle, Associate Justice, and Other Stories. Photo via http://bit.ly/SxkwVj.

It's almost Halloween, which means for us bibliophiles it's a time for reading horror novels and celebrating the Neil Gaiman created holiday All Hallow's Read! It's the very best of the scary and the literary.

Way back in 2010 (eons ago) Neil Gaiman wrote a blog post about how there aren't enough holidays revolving around the giving of books and since Halloween was right around the corner, All Hallow's Read was born. The premise is simple: gift a scary (age appropriate) book on October 31st.

While it would be fun to give every trick-or-treater a book, it also runs the risk of being not very cost effective so here are some tips for having a fiscally responsible All Hallow's Read.

Fall is here. That means cool weather, changing foliage, and enjoying harvest festivals, hayrides, and corn mazes. 

Well, for some of us anyway. 

Me? I don't do corn mazes. Have you ever seen Children of the Corn? No thanks. I'll hang out with that guy wearing flannel making apple cider, because there is always a guy doing that.

You go ahead, but before you do, learn how to survive if you find children in those cornfields, thanks to the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Guide: Paranormal by David Borgenicht and Ben H. Winters.

Fall is here. That means cool weather, changing foliage, and enjoying harvest festivals, hayrides, and corn mazes. 

Well, for some of us anyway. 

Me? I don't do corn mazes. Have you ever seen Children of the Corn? No thanks. I'll hang out with that guy wearing flannel making apple cider, because there is always a guy doing that.

You go ahead, but before you do, learn how to survive if you find children in those cornfields, thanks to the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Guide: Paranormal by David Borgenicht and Ben H. Winters.

So Halloween is almost here.

Busy parents everywhere are scrambling for costumes for their kids and attempting to convince them that yes, they can totally wear that costume from last year, no one is going to remember (NO OMG THEY TOTALLY WILL MOM AND DAD!). And chances are if you waited this long, all that’s going to be left are hundreds of Angry Birds outfits.

Luckily, for the literary minded, there are plenty of DIY solutions for the crafty costume maker. Below, I’ve rounded up some of my favorites from around the ol’ Internet. Enjoy!

Photo by Pierre Tourigny

It’s the time of year when people are going to Halloween parties. The Jack-O-Lanterns are carved and lit, the punch is full of dried ice and the candy bowl packed. There is something missing though. No Halloween festivities are complete without a kick-ass playlist full of creepy songs. I know that there are some tried and true songs of the season i.e. Monster Mash, Thriller, I Put A Spell on You and anything from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.