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It's the creepiest day and night of the year. We're going to hear some Edgar Allen Poe this evening to help usher in Halloween. Fans of frightening literature consider the Baltimore-based writer to be the most effectively scary story teller of all time. We'll hear some examples of his work that support that.

Nature writer Tim Traver's new book celebrates Cape Cod's Sippewisset salt marsh through personal memoir and scientific exploration. The book is called "Sippewisset: or, Life on a Salt Marsh", and it tells the tales of the swamp, from the microscopic organisms that filter out pollution to the people who make their living off the land. We'll talk with Tim about his new book and the important role of salt marshes in the ecological cycle.

Joyce Maynard is the author of several novels, including "To Die For," which was loosely based on the murder case involving Pamela Smart. She's a successful children's author, and she has a memoir under her belt too -- it recalls a period in her young life when she lived with the writer J.D. Salinger. Her brand new book is a non-fiction account of a murder that took place in Detroit. It's called Internal Combustion: The Story of a Marriage and a Murder in the Motor City. We'll talk with her about her work and her brief life with Salinger.

For 16 years, Liane Hansen has been delivering the news of the world, stories about changing trends in our society, and in societies across the globe. As host of National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday, she's kept us up to date on the latest news, introduced us to a huge variety of up and coming musicians, and of course, each week she helps us try to out-do Puzzle Master Will Shortz. Liane's a career journalist who began at NPR as a production assistant for All Things Considered in 1979, and she's been at the network ever since. Tonight on the Front Porch, we'll talk with her about her career and the state of radio journalism today.

Grayson Capps blends the soul and sensibility of New Orleans with music that's somewhere between Tom Waits and Hank Williams. He sings about booze, tramps and love -- whether it's the love of a woman or something more ethereal. Grayson is bringing his gritty blues folk up north for some gigs in New Hampshire and Vermont this weekend. He and his band join us on the Front Porch tonight for an in-studio performance.