I am thrilled to have interviewed author Katie L. Carroll, who shared with us details of her writing life, her book ‘Grammy’s Halloween Scare‘, which was released on 30th July 2024, and answered a few fun questions. This post contains affiliate links.

Award-winning author Katie L. Carroll began writing after her 16-year-old sister, Kylene, unexpectedly passed away. Since then writing has taken her to many wonderful places—both real and imagined. She is the author of 12 books (and counting) for kids, teens, and those who are young at heart.

Back in elementary school music class, there was this folk song we used to sing around Halloween called “Skin and Bones.” It was about an old lady who lived by a graveyard, and it had this great jump scare at the end. The first two books in the Family Holiday Tales are based off the familiar holiday classics of “The Night Before Christmas” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” While “Skin and Bones” is more obscure, it was a perfect fit for a tale about a witchy Grammy on Halloween.

Since picture books are so short, there’s far less plotting involved than with a novel. The plot for Grammy’s Halloween Scare came together as I drafted the book, first by hand in my notebook. Eventually I typed up a version I was pretty happy with and sent it off to my critique group. The plot continued to evolve over several rounds until I finally settled on the version you read (or sing!) in the final book.

The title of Grammy’s Halloween Scare came about as I revised with my critique group. It originally didn’t have a title and was simply known as Scared Grandma on Halloween. I knew that wasn’t catchy enough for a sing-along story, so I played around with the different words
until finding a combo that worked.

Grammy doesn’t have a name in the book, and she was originally referred to as Grandma. The sing-song nature of the story leant itself to Grammy rather than Grandma. The only other named character in the book is Grammy’s black cat. While thinking of things that rhymed with Halloween, the perfect name of Jellybean just popped into my mind.

The bulk of my research was delving into the origin of the folk song “Skin and Bones.” I found many versions of the song, each one more haunting than the next. One of my favorites was from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz, illustrated by Stephen Gammell. In the audiobook, it’s sung by George S. Irving in his rich, haunting voice. Though I was never able to trace the folk song back to a particular origin, it was clear from my research that it would be okay for me to use it as the basis for Grammy’s Halloween Scare without having to worry about copyright infringement.

One of the goals of the Family Holiday Tales series was to create picture books that both kids and adults can enjoy together. It was always my intention to cover different holidays with different family members. Halloween is my favorite holiday, so it was a natural choice once I moved away from the Christmas books.

As soon I sent off the second book in the series, Daddy’s 12 Days of Christmas, to my illustrator Phoebe Cho, I started thinking about book three. That would have been some time in late 2022. Then I did all those rounds of critiques on the text before Phoebe started work on the illustrations. All in, it was about a year and a half from starting it to publication.

I think the title of Grammy’s Halloween Scare works really well for this!

For me, the hardest part of being a writer is all the non-writer stuff. In today’s publishing climate, authors have to be so much more than writers. The marketing is particularly a challenge. It’s a whole new level of putting yourself and your work out there, and it’s time-consuming.

Grammy’s Halloween Scare is just so fun to read (or sing!). If you like Halloween, witches, and the whole fall vibes thing, it’s a great book to read yourself or share with a young person. It’s especially fun as a sing-along in a classroom, library, or bookstore story time.

I do! Last year for Christmas, my oldest son got me a little dragon buddy as my witch’s familiar. Her name is Azul.

I’m a mom of three kids, so I have to be flexible when it comes to writing time and routine. I have this writing hack of pairing up each of my stories with a different ambient sound that fits the theme of the book. When I put the sound on, it signals to my brain that it’s time to work on this particular book. I had a witch’s autumn kitchen I would listen to while working on Grammy’s Halloween Scare.

I most often write at my kitchen table. If the weather is nice, I go outside on my deck and write there.

I’d love it for Grammy’s Halloween Scare to be made into a movie. I think Catherine O’Hara would make the perfect Grammy! As for me, I’d probably cameo as a parent dressed as a witch while giving out Halloween candy to the kiddos.

“Why wasn’t I in the Grammy’s Halloween Scare?” I think the owl would be jealous that crows, cats, and spiders made it into the book, but no owls.

A big thank you to Katie L. Carroll for sharing her writing life with us and for a wonderful interview.