Happy Halloween! Due to the NY whiteout on Saturday and a lingering cold, it was a pretty low-key holiday for me—I did get to dress up briefly as Florence Welch, but most of the weekend consisted of spooky movies (Halloween, Hocus Pocus) and Isaak Dinesen’s Seven Gothic Tales.

Luckily there are some dark and disturbing events this week to keep the holiday rolling—readings that include Joyce Carol Oates, Chuck Palahniuk, and Gregory Maguire (Wicked).

MONDAY: If I could choose any writer to trade scary stories with, it’d definitely be Joyce Carol Oates. Oates recently edited an anthology called New Jersey Noir, and she’ll be discussing it with contributors Edmund White and Michael Carroll.

TUESDAY: I remember going to a Chuck Palahniuk reading in college where, due to graphic content, people literally got up and left halfway through.  (I believe the story was about a town’s toxic holes that melted peoples’ faces off.) Best known for Fight Club, Chuck will read from his newest, Damned, about a 13-year-old’s experiences in hell.

WEDNESDAY: The Mysterious Bookshop (sweet name, right?) will host a night of up-and-coming mystery writers, including Duane Swierczynski, Megan Abbott and Q.R. Markham.

(Mindy Kaling will also be reading from her memoir Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me?. Not that she’s in any way scary, but her book title is one of our most common Fears, right?)

THURSDAY: Debut novelists Alexi Zentner and Téa Obreht will chat with Darrin Strauss. Both books (Tea’s was recently nominated for the National Book Award!) deal with unsettling family myths.

FRIDAY: Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, will read from the fourth book in the series, Out of Oz.

Enjoy your week!