Susan Sontag in a bear costume, photographed by Annie Leibovitz.
Flavorwire has a slideshow of “20 Photos of Famous Authors in Awesome Costumes.” Among my favorites are Susan Sontag dressed as a teddy bear, Jeffrey Eugenides as Henry James (from a Vogue photoshoot!), and Maya Angelou in a stunning slitted dress as “Miss Calypso.”
Tegan as Black Stache
For Halloween, I’ve dressed as characters from books. I can only find photographic documentation of a few. One is my costume as Black Stache from Peter and the Starcatchers that I wore while working the Queen Anne Merchants’ annual trick-or-treat; a hook would have made it significantly harder to give out 1,000 pieces of candy.
Tegan as Terfle
Another is my costume as Terfle, the pet ladybug from Time Stops for No Mouse and the other Hermux Tantamoq books by Michael Hoeye (an Oregon author). I believe this was before the first Ladybug Girl book by David Soman and Jacky Davis, but I did wear a Terfle collar to help customers understand the specificity of my costume.
I’ve seen wonderful book-inspired costumes like Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables, a family of Sneetches, and plenty of Cats-in-the-Hats and Things 1 and 2. My hubby and I once dressed as characters from The Great Gatsby. We still see a steady stream of Harrys and Hermiones, and a young friend confided that she’ll be Nancy Drew this year.
Costumes inspired by “The Great Gatsby”
In one of my more obscure costumes, I dressed as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring by covering myself with fake dead songbirds and printouts of the chemical formulas for different pesticides. That took some explaining, but not as much as you might think since I was taking a forest ecology class at the time.
I’ve never dressed as an author, though. What authors would work for a Halloween costume? How (aside from offering to sign copies of “your” book) would you let people know who you were dressed as?
Have you worn literary-inspired costumes?
I appeared at one costume party as Tyrone Slothrop from Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow–military fatigues worn with a Hawaiian shirt, a superhero cape bearing a large “R” for “Raketemensch,” a Viking helmet with the horns removed, and a rubber pig nose. Of course, no one knew who in the hell I was supposed to be. Thankfully, there are no photos.
More convincingly, I’ve also dressed as Anton Chekhov. Almost the entire 19th-century ensemble was drawn right from my closet. Always on the cusp of fashion, I am. I was thinking of repeating the costume, but at this point I’d have to pass as “Anton Chekhov If He’d Lived.” I’m pretty sure I’m older now than he ever got to be.
Fabulous, James! As you can probably tell, I almost always choose the kinds of costumes I have to explain. Yours sound like great conversation starters for sure.
Now I wonder what you’re going to be THIS year…
Last year to hand out candy for Annie Bloom’s Books, I dressed up as Poe’s raven – I made a raven mask from construction paper and ribbons, and dressed in a lot of black semi-Victorian clothing. I was surprised by how little explaining I had to do!
This year, I’ve made a dress and tiara out of pages from an advanced reader’s copy of a book, to be a book fairy (not sure what to do for wings yet, so this may transition into the Queen of Reading). My main concern is how I’m going to keep warm – paper isn’t terribly insulating, and we stand out in front of the store for max candy distribution 🙂
Last year, I dressed up as the Man in the Yellow Hat and my 2 year old buddy dressed as Curious George. I sewed the monkey costume and dyed thrift store finds to make the yellow outfit. The hardest part was sewing felt to a straw cowboy hat. We had fun trick or treating around the neighborhood. The parents and children all recognized us.