With Halloween just behind us, there's still one Auburnian who keeps the spirit of the holiday alive all year. George Silliman, a local artist, uses his talent to design illustrations for short stories appearing in national magazines, such as The Writers Post Journal, Tales of the Tailsman and Black Petals.

“It's Halloween every day for me,” he said.

Silliman, who began drawing at the age of 3, has been fascinated by the macabre side of life. He “tries to take the every day living experiences and pull the dark side out of them and put them on paper.”

His mentor was William Nick Johns, art director of Black Petals magazine.

“He took me under his wing and helped me to refine my drawing style,” he said.

Six months after he began working with Johns, his work was published in Black Petals Magazine, and his talent was noticed by publishers of other magazines.

Receiving short stories written by various authors, from magazine publishers, he reads them thoroughly, then designs the appropriate art work to be published along with them.

Silliman calls himself a traditional artist, using black on white and colored pencils.

As always, I'm waiting to hear from you if you have an interesting story or experience to tell me about. Please call me at 576-9989.

Tom DeFurio is former town

supervisor for Sennett