{"id":9323,"date":"2021-10-20T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9323"},"modified":"2022-01-13T08:32:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T13:32:07","slug":"a-question-of-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9323","title":{"rendered":"A Question of Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/15511803586_6d5675a3b7_z.jpg?resize=302%2C312&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"pumpkin, book art\" class=\"wp-image-4975\" width=\"302\" height=\"312\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our house is full of masks. They\u2019re from 19<sup>th<\/sup> century China, modern Venice, the Northwest Indians, Mexico, Ecuador, Indonesia, and most of all, Africa. They make a dramatic display and watch television with us in our family room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, as I cast my attention forward to forthcoming holidays and focused on Halloween, the theme of masks\u2014what they hide, what they reveal, and their impact on wearer and viewer\u2014came naturally to mind. I\u2019m so pleased that <em>Kings River Life<\/em> has included this story in its <a href=\"https:\/\/kingsriverlife.com\/10\/16\/a-question-of-identity-halloween-short-story\/\">MysteryRatsMaze<\/a> page\u2014a great place to find new short stories any time of year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The jumping-off place for this story was wondering what would happen if children\u2019s families recognized them by their Halloween costumes and not their true selves? How confusing would that be? In my story, Jen and Tamika, nine-year-old best friends, play a trick on their parents and switch costumes\u2014costumes that arrived mysteriously in the girls\u2019 rooms, no one sure where they came from, but part of busy families\u2019 \u201cwhatever.\u201d And the parents don\u2019t notice: right costume, wrong girl. Now, that\u2019s confusing. Jen and Tamika don\u2019t know what to think. Do their parents know what\u2019s going on and have turned the tables on them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When they put that bit of confusion to rights, Jen and Tamika display evidence that these costumes have some other, potentially darker powers as well. You, the reader, will have your own \u201cwhat happens next?\u201d ideas, and they may not be pretty. It all does take place around All Hallows Eve, after all, when all manner of strange events can occur.<a href=\"https:\/\/kingsriverlife.com\/10\/16\/a-question-of-identity-halloween-short-story\/\">Read \u201cA Question of Identity\u201d for free here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/15881887828_0babb70a69_z.jpg?resize=320%2C240&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"tiger, mask\" class=\"wp-image-4350\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our house is full of masks. They\u2019re from 19th century China, modern Venice, the Northwest Indians, Mexico, Ecuador, Indonesia, and most of all, Africa. They make a dramatic display and watch television with us in our family room. So, as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9323\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Question of Identity - my short story about what happens when the Halloween costume starts to dominate the wearer!\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1160,120,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror","category-short-story","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2qn","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9324,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9323\/revisions\/9324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}