Happy Halloween 2025! More from My Spooky-Fun Neighborhood

This month, in the blocks around my Northfield home, all is sheer drama. From the golden and scarlet foliage, accented with brilliant green grass, to the frolic of quirky and sedate seasonal decor. Here, one can peek through the autumnal gold to see past the white-painted ribs of the porch balustrade to urns mounded up with plumb pumpkins.

Elsewhere? Well, beware! A residence might have transformed into a pirate ship, or a mighty chicken might leap into your line of sight, or you might need to dodge a giant sticky web, or a garden might suddenly sprout a crop of mock-gravestones…

On the hinge of the seasons, before the clocks roll back, I wish you all the treats you can hold!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

LESLIE

Happy Halloween Countdown 2025

Welcome to my spooky-fun neighborhood…nothing scarier than candy and creativity…nothing bare bones about celebrating Halloween in Northfield, Minnesota!

Hoping your enjoy these ten images, and that your autumn is filled with every delightful pop-up surprise!

MOCKINGHEART REVIEW Has Just Published Its Fall 2025 Issue and Includes My Poem, “Ships”

“Autumn Joy in Our Garden” (Leslie Schultz, October 2025)

For me, the publication of a new issue of MockingHeart Review is always an event, and that is even more true on those occasions when the journal includes one of my own poems, as it does this time, because I am truly happy to be in company with so many talented poets and artists.

To find my poem, “Ships”, inspired by childhood memories of the Coos River in Oregon, click HERE.

Even better, to look at the entire issue, chockful of poems and art work, go to the home page of MockingHeart Review, click on “Volume 10, Issue 3”. I think you will find it an oasis of insight and beauty.

Wishing you a splendid autumn day!

LESLIE

“Fall Fruit, Northfield, MN” (Leslie Schultz, October 2025)

MEZZO CAMMIN Releases Its Summer 2025 Issue, and It Contains Two Poems By Me: “Wondering…” and “Saxophone”

For me, it is always a cause for celebration when a new issue of Mezzo Cammin is published. And I am especially joyful about having two poems included in the Summer 2025 issue. Both my poems are about memory: “Wondering…” and “Saxophone.” What I shall remember about this issue of the journal is the splendid poetic company my own poems keep.

You will have your own favorites, I know. While I am still reading and savoring the offerings in this issue, today I am wowed by Katie Hartsock’s poem for the luminous Rhina Espaillat; Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas’s poem, “The Chapel Wife,”; and a long-form poem, “Strange Hero,” by Julia Griffin, whose shorter, keenly made poems I have come to look forward to in the journal, Light.

(To learn more about Ken McCullough’s work,including his collection, Dark Stars, which inspired my poem, “Saxophone,” take a look at his website.)

“View to the East” (photograph by Leslie Schultz)