For our group post this Halloween, John Clark suggested we post about the Halloween costume we’d wear if we dared. So below, you will find some of our ideas. Do you have a dream costume? One you always wanted to wear? One you wore? One you will wear this year to answer the door? Please share with us.

Kate Flora: If I weren’t old and round and wrinkled, I would finally channel my inner Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys. That slinky red dress she wore as she sprawled across the piano. Maybe it’s because, like many, I’ve always had a secret desire to be a torch singer. Not very likely, since despite twelve years in the church choir I sing like a frog recovering from a cold, but a girl can dream, right?

I’m still someone who’d like princess costumes and floor-length fancy dresses. At least once, when I got the lifetime achievement award at the New England Crime Bake, I did get a tiara. That was fun.

Me in my tiara with the fabulous Walter Mosley

John Clark: Tony Bennett has nothing on me. He might have left his heart in San Francisco, but I have him beat. I took that famous chainsaw from the slasher film, cut up my self-consciousness into a dozen pieces and sold them through Uncle Henry’s. When I was the librarian in Boothbay Harbor, I marched in a parade as a hard-boiled mystery (alas no photo is available). I do have my award winning photo when I volunteered as Maine’s Porn Czar.

And I’ve been known to channel Rocky

If I could go as anything this year, I’d like to go as a banned book, maybe wearing only strategically placed copies of Gender Queer and Catcher In the Rye.

Charlene D’Avanzo: This is my dream/nightmare costume which I actually wore as a kid for one of my mother’s gigs (truly).

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: The first image that came to mind was one of myself as a vampire. Then I added in the costume worn by Elvira. There are two problems that turn this dream into a nightmare. I would be able to keep the fangs in or the dress up!

Maggie Robinson: Like Kate, I’m all about the tiaras, and I actually have a gorgeous, glittering one that was given to me last year for my birthday. (This year, I got a baseball cap. Not sure of that progression, LOL.) If I were dressing up, I’d repeat a favorite outfit from a few years ago that I wore at a conference when I went to such things. I’d haul out a heavily-beaded black cocktail dress I’ve had for years and vamp it up with a 1920s headband, gloves, and a rope of pearls. I’d pretend I was a character from the Lady Adelaide series…or perhaps someone from the new Lady May books, coming in 2024!

Matt Cost has been Barbie and Tinky-Winky in years past. This year I plan to go to a Halloween Party in the EVERY-WRITER dream role of Stephen King. Maybe in the future I will go as one of the characters I’ve created. Goff Langdon. Clay Wolfe. 8 Ballo. Late thought, but interesting.