Ghost Conventions - They're a Thing

For the past several years, my ghost-hunting/writer friend Sylvia Shults has been doing a presentation or two at the Psychic and Paranormal Expo out in either western Illinois or Iowa, and she has graciously invited me to tag along to share her vendor table and sell books. The Expo feels like coming home! There are aisles and aisles of vendors for Tarot card readings, mediums, crystals, art, jewelry, natural health and beauty products, angel readings, Reiki treatments, and all sorts of things that would drive the average skeptic screaming from the room but are a lot of fun for the rest of us. The best thing is eavesdropping on people talking about dead relatives visiting, auras, bad energy in their houses, and other topics that pull my focus as soon as I hear certain words. Like “ghost” or “medium.” People who stop at our table frequently will share a ghost story or strange experience with us, and that’s just awesome.

However, much as I love this Expo, I have realized there are conventions and conferences devoted strictly to the supernatural, and boy, would I love to go to one of those. (Bucket list, anyone?)

There’s a huge one in Sault Ste. Marie every year, and it costs megabucks and sells out in a flash. It’s already sold out for 2019 (it’s happening August 22-24) but I can understand why. In addition to presentations on things like paranormal investigation, psychic abilities, demonology, and UFOlogy, they have big-name guests. And I do mean big names: The Dead Files’ own Amy Allen; Ghost Hunters Grant Wilson, Steve Gonsalves, and Dave Tango; ex-Ghost Hunters turned Kindred Spirits Amy Bruni and Adam Berry; my favorite collector John Zaffis and his “tech guy” Brian Cano; even psychic Chip Coffey. And that’s just page one of their listings. Would I love to go to that? In a heartbeat.

There’s also something called The Horror Expo-Ireland and that sounds pretty amazing itself. Going to Ireland would be a dream. Going to Ireland and also attending The Horror Expo might sound like a nightmare, but it’s even dreamier for me. They last held it on Halloween, 2018, and I can’t find a listing for 2019 anywhere. But I did sign up for their updates, so we’ll see if I hear anything and I’ll be sure to share, in case any of you are wandering across the pond at an opportune time.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to a straight-up ghost convention was about six years ago. Sylvia was again doing a presentation and also helping out with a paranormal investigation down in Okawville, Illinois. Yes, that’s a real place. Everyone who signed up for her talk and for the investigation got to stay on-site of the event, which was taking place in the Original Springs Mineral Spa & Hotel. The hotel dates back to the nineteenth century and is haunted, so everyone joining in the fun got to stay overnight, eat one of the hotel’s famous fried-chicken dinners, and would then be equipped with investigative devices like EMF detectors. I’m sure someone had a spirit box or Ovilus as well.

Jim and I spent the night BEFORE the event (we were actually on our way to Springfield by way of Breese to take a look at the famous Cholera Cross), but we got to see Sylvia speak. Sorry to say we missed the chicken dinner!

It was fun watching everyone growing more and more excited as the time of the investigation drew closer. This was an enthusiastic bunch, primed for anything paranormal and gleeful with anticipation. I almost envied that. Almost: still not ready to go on a ghost hunt myself!

If that was just a small taste of the excitement generated at a ghost convention, I really want to go. I’ve done Comic Con and seen what those passionate about Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Game of Thrones can come up with in their native stomping grounds. They were a lot of fun, too. But I sure would love the opportunity to compare and contrast those super-fans with the followers of the paranormal.

Reading and Writing About Ghosts

I probably read at least four true ghost story books a year, sometimes (a lot) more, and sometimes less, depending on what I can find. I've been reading this material for so long that it can be difficult to find books with stories that I don't already know. For that reason, I now look for collections of tales shared by those who have experienced something paranormal, since those stories will be new to me.

Lately, though, I've been struggling to get through my beloved books, and I've been trying to figure out why. I think I might have an idea. If you have ever read any true ghost stories, you will know that they center around a place or an incident -- or even series of incidents-- that happened to someone. The story will include all the details that can make your hair stand on end or give you chills. That's the fun part! I think what's been on my mind is that most of these stories don't have any kind of resolution. Most of the time, no one ever finds out why this is happening. Why does this particular ghost haunt this place? Or person? Why does it disturb one special room, or do one specific action every night at ten o'clock? The details are always fascinating, but there are never, or rarely, any kind of explanation behind the haunting.

I think that may be why I write what I do: it lets me gather all the untidy and unexplained bits together and resolve them into one nice coherent story. By the time a reader finishes one of my books, if she or he doesn't understand the story behind the ghost, then I haven't done my job. 

I am currently reading a book of shared ghost stories that was put out by podcasters Tony and Jenny Brueski. Their podcast is called Real Ghost Stories Online and is centered around supernatural experiences that are called in by listeners. And the stories are both fascinating and frightening. But of course, for the majority of the tales, there is no explanation that can be shared. People move into houses and start experiencing unworldly occurrences, and who knows why that is happening?

The Dead Files, my favorite reality paranormal TV show, usually resolves the story, or at least a great deal of it, by the end. So did The Haunting of... with medium Kim Russo. And so did The Haunted Collector. Those shows are always at the top of my list and I think it's because they usually had some sort of conclusion. Don't get me wrong, though. I do still enjoy stories that investigate but do not present an explanation for what is going on in a haunted place. I liked Ghost Hunters and Celebrity Ghost Stories. I like Ghostly Encounters. And on a lighter note, I totally loved The Lowe Files! Those are sort of like "The-Journey-is-The-Point" kind of narratives and are fun in their own right. But I think that the ones that also have an explanation hit a different note with me, and so I go from "That was fun!" to "That was fun and really, really satisfying!" Since we're talking about the supernatural here, even I admit that sounds ridiculous, but there it is.

And so I guess I write my own stories so that there is a known beginning, middle, and end to the main haunting in my novel. (I qualify that because the ghost stories that my characters tell on Thursday night are closer to reality and frequently have no explanation.) But the novels I write will include a resolution to the ghost story. Cassie Valentine and Michael Penfield make sure of that.

And I guess that's the beauty of fiction. It lets me resolve, tidy, satisfy, and complete the story so that everyone goes away with a sense of completion. Unfortunately, life just isn't quite like that.

Serial Haunters

A few years ago, I dragged Jim out to see a presentation being given by Jason Hawes and Steve Gonsalves of Ghost Hunters. Jim's a good sport about it and went along willingly. Little did he know this was to be the first of many such lectures, but more about those at a later date, perhaps.

At any event, Mr. Hawes and Mr. Gonsalves turned out to be very funny and entertaining, even while they were talking about investigating haunted houses and dark entities and frightening personal experiences. They showed film clips - including a spoof on Ghost Hunters as done by South Park - of various unexplained occurrences in their quest to document paranormal activities. They played recordings of EVP's (electronic voice phenomena), some of which were pretty chilling. And they spent a nice amount of time taking questions from the audience. In other words, it was a well-rounded, informative, and entertaining evening.

But there was one thing that Mr. Hawes talked about that stuck in my mind and still pops up from time to time. He said that during his travels all over the country to investigate the other-worldly and help people deal with frightening and possibly even malevolent forces, he ran across something that seemed to affect children from all parts of the U.S. It didn't matter what state or city these children came from, and it wasn't something that he started out looking for. But he said that a number of children that he interviewed, usually regarding the particular problem in their houses, all mentioned a particular ghost. The reason it struck him was that the description of this ghost was always the same. The children described it as male and then they would talk about the clothing he wore. And in instance after instance, in city after city, the descriptions were identical across the board.

And then Mr. Hawes said that at some point, he wanted to look into this particular phenomenon, because what he was hearing -and documenting- seemed to be a particular entity that was literally criss-crossing the country and appearing to different children.

We all pretty much know what a serial killer is. So could there be such a thing as a serial haunter? An entity that chooses its intended "hauntee" (always a child) and then pops in to freak them out? I don't remember Mr. Hawes suggesting that this apparition did more than show up, but I don't think the children felt it to be a comfortable presence. That said, could this thing be targeting a specific type of child? Certainly, one who is sensitive enough to see it, but maybe something else? Again, Mr. Hawes didn't specify. He did say he wanted to keep some details to himself because he was working on this as a long-term project. So maybe there were some common denominators that he never mentioned.

The more I think about this, the more disturbing it gets.

So let's get to something a little closer to home. Some years ago, I was watching an episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories. Anyone remember that one? I loved that show! Anyway, the celebrity story being presented that night was told by Carnie Wilson, of Wilson-Phillips fame. Apparently, when Carnie moved into her first apartment, she did not want to sleep alone on her first night in a new place, so she invited her sister, Wendy, to join her. During the middle of the night, Carnie woke up to see a tall, thin man standing in her doorway. She described him as having a long coat, almost like a frock coat, and a tall hat, and he was looking at her. So she did what most of us would do: she pulled the covers over her head. After waiting for a few minutes, she peeped out from under the covers, and there he was, standing beside the bed and bending over to look at her. (I would have had a heart attack on the spot, but Carnie Wilson was young and in good health when this happened.)

She told Wendy about it the next day, telling her sister that she had had a very strange dream and then describing this nocturnal visitor in detail. And Wendy said, "Oh, yeah, he's been following me around for a while." To which Carnie understandably replied, "And you didn't think to TELL me about that???" 

The story is pretty creepy. Who wants to wake up in the middle of the night and see an apparition, first in the doorway, and then bending over your bed to look at you? (I think she said she pulled the covers right back over her head and somehow eventually fell asleep again. I applaud her for being able to do that!)

Here's where it gets creepier. My nephew's wife woke up one night to see a tall, thin man in a long coat and a tall hat, standing in the doorway of their bedroom and did exactly what Carnie Wilson did: she pulled the covers over her head. And when she peeked out, there he was, bending over the bed, looking down at her. After admitting she let out a little shriek, she pulled the covers back over herself, and moved closer to her sleeping husband, eventually falling asleep again. (I applaud her as well.)

Now, I had heard my niece-in-law's story at least a year, or year and a half, before I ever saw Carnie Wilson's Celebrity Ghost Story. Our family experience happened in Illinois. Carnie Wilson's happened in California. 

Again, an entity who criss-crosses the country and pops in on young women? Could there be such a thing as a serial haunter?

Oh, the story ideas that gives me...

Say It Ain't So

So I am recording and watching the last season of SyFy's original paranormal reality show, Ghost Hunters, and loving and mourning every second of it. I was a little late coming to the show (maybe by about two years or so) but I became an avid and regular fan inside of one viewing. I watched every Ghost Hunter and Ghost Hunter International show that I could find. I bought the books written by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson. I even dragged Jim along to see Jason Hawes and Steve Gonsalves do a presentation down in Joliet, Illinois. I am a fan-girl of the first order.

So I am a bit sad that the show is coming to an end. As far as I'm concerned, Ghost Hunters was an original and set the bar (and the requirements) for every paranormal investigation reality show that followed in its wake. And there were a lot: A Haunting; Paranormal State; Ghost Adventurers; Ghost Mine; Ghost Asylum; Deep South Paranormal; Haunted Alaska - what am  I missing? Any show that includes investigation seems to owe at least a partial debt to Ghost Hunters. They were the ones who introduced all of us to things like EMF detectors, Rem-Pods, laser grids, infrared cameras, and stationary video cameras set up to catch every nuance of a possible haunting.

And Ghost Hunters, at least to me, proved how seriously people took their trade by being invited to investigate not only personal homes, but historical sites like Gettysburg and the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, among a whole slew of others. The fact that a such locations would invite The Atlantic Paranormal Society in to investigate possible hauntings says quite a lot about the group.

In addition to all the super scientific equipment, the investigators themselves were great about injecting humor and a light-hearted element into the shows they taped, saving each episode from becoming overly serious or full of self-importance. There were wise-cracks and in-jokes for long-time viewers, and even some silliness, although maybe that was just the staff getting slap-happy from staying up all those night and wandering around in the dark with infrared vision. Whatever it was, it worked.

I guess that Mr. Hawes has suggested that there is still more out there for them to do. He is quoted as saying something about "huge things to come," so I hope that's true.

In the meantime, I'll watch the last episodes and catch repeats if they have them so that I can remember the group of people who let me tag along on their investigations in the best way possible: in the comfort and safety of my own home -with all the lights on.

Thanks, gang.

Hunting in the Dark of Night - Not Me!

Watching paranormal reality shows is one of my life's pleasures, even though Jim likes to say they really have nothing to do with reality.. (He's not that big a skeptic, he just likes to hassle me.) This is not news to anyone who reads this blog, even if just occasionally. So while I was musing over past episodes of Ghost Hunters, The Haunted Collector, and The Dead Files, I began to wonder: why do they do all their investigating in the dark?

Turns out I am not the only one who asked that question. I googled it, in fact, and was surprised at the number of hits that turned up. Skeptics as well as believers both agree that investigating in the dark adds to the "creepiness" factor of paranormal TV shows. No argument there. However, their thoughts take different paths immediately after that. The skeptics say that the darkness makes it easier to fake everything that turns up on camera. The believers have a whole list of reasons why they hunt -and film- in the dark, i.e., at night. 

That list includes: Less people around, therefore less interference both in general and in terms of energy; less electricity being used, therefore less interference in terms of electromagnetic fields; lots of ghost hunters have day jobs and hunting is a hobby, so there's really no choice with that; businesses being investigated can't close their doors to the public so investigations must take place after business hours; ghost hunters who have the high-tech instruments read a spectrum of light anyway, and some things are better seen on infrared; some say that since people are NOT nocturnal, their senses are on higher alert at night and in the dark, so they become more sensitive to even mild disturbances that might be ignored during the day.  I think that about covers it.

My friend Sylvia Shults is a ghost hunter/paranormal investigator, with a specialty in the Peoria State Mental Hospital. (She has written a book about it called Fractured Spirits and was even on Ghost Hunters!) All of her investigations have been at night (she has three jobs; this is a hobby.) She has also invited me along but since this is a volunteer as opposed to a high-paying endeavor (read: "I don't know if you could pay me enough to go there") I don't think I'll be going with her any time soon. She is currently working with a group that investigates all manner of hauntings, but I'd have to interview her and get back to you for more details on that.

The point is, her group also investigates almost exclusively at night. For them, the reasons seem to be the day job thing, and also the heightened sensitivity thing. I will take her word for it.

If hauntings exist, people say, then shouldn't they also be happening during the day? And the short answer is, of course they should. I know lots of stuff happened at my old house during the day, although even those spirits liked night hours. I could -and did- time the most disturbed hours in that house and they were between 10:30 pm and 1:30 am, with many and varied cameo appearances at other times. But I could count on things happening between the above-stated hours. Count on it. Despite the spirit behavior in my house, hauntings are not relegated to overnight hours. They can and do happen at any hour of the day, and people who look into these things will agree with that.

Still, the best hours for investigating the spirit world, even if just for how it looks on camera, seem to be at night. Night is the time of sleep, at one time referred to as "little death," and night is the world claimed by all the scary things, from ghosts, vampires, and werewolves to evil people doing evil things without the sun to reveal them. Night is the time I do not work on my books. Just because.

Some ghost-story writer, huh? I don't write at night. I don't read scary stories at night. And I don't watch my reality TV shows at night, either. The dark may put people on high alert and lead to heightened sensitivity, but in my case, it also leads to a heightened imagination. So I let the paranormal investigators have their day jobs and go hunting at night. I have my day job -and then I turn to the safety of mundane things and try to get a good night's sleep...

PS. Here's a pic of my favorite hunters:

Like Dr. Evil Says

 

I want to watch a ghost story.

I want to see a really good ghost story movie because I haven't seen one in a long, long time. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that all the scary movies I have watched lately have been horror/demon type stories, as opposed to horror/haunting stories. I probably missed something, but I feel like the last true ghost story I watched was The Others, and that goes back fourteen (count 'em) years already. 

There have been a couple I watched that came from Japan, The Grudge being the most notable. But even that, disturbing as it was, rated more on my horror scale than on my ghost story scale. My favorite haunted house/ghost story movies are still The Haunting (the 1963 version, done in black and white and starring Julie Harris), The Changeling (1980, with George C. Scott), and probably The Sixth Sense (no notes needed). I like these films, these stories, because they are purely about ghosts, and not always malevolent ones. I don't cotton to the movies where the spirits in the story are beyond vengeful. I don't like slasher films made out of ghosts. I admit Nightmare on Elm Street is hair-raising, but it's still not my idea of the ideal ghost story. Maybe people think ghost stories just for the sake of the hauntings are boring?

So lately, I have been confining my ghost story viewing to things like Ghost Hunters and The Dead Files with occasional forays into A Haunting, Paranormal Witness, Paranormal Survivor, an occasional Haunted Highway, and when I can find one that I haven't already seen, Haunted History. Sometimes SyFy will do me a huge favor and repeat an old Haunted Collector, but for the most part, I'm in a ghost desert here. Cue to Dr. Evil imploring, "Throw me a bone, people." There's just not enough of the good ghost stuff out there.

The spark of hope lies in the fact that we are now in October, and programming will set its sights on appropriate Halloween fare. So more of my favorite shows are coming back this month: Supernatural and Grimm being the headliners. I love me some Winchester and Castiel stories, but boy, I wish they'd do one that was just a stand-alone ghost story, because the only other show that did such high-quality stand-alone ghost stories was The X-Files (golem, anyone?)

(Maybe that's not quite accurate. There was a short-lived British series on ABC back in the late Sixties called Journey to the Unknown that featured one-hour long supernatural stories each Thursday, and they grew progressively more frightening each week. Try watching that and going to sleep in a haunted house afterward! But boy, they were amazing and imaginative and truly scary and I miss that.)

Still, the old hope springs eternal. I am hoping that this month will bring me some good, chilling stuff having to do with haunted houses, or visitations, or apparitions in the mirror, or unexplained appearances on security cameras. My writing self lives for that stuff. I'll have to start looking for the paranormal offerings and specials that I hope will be coming up as we get closer to Halloween. I hope.

Throw me a bone, people.

Paranormal Reality TV and Research

I am addicted to quite a few paranormal reality TV shows. I guess that juxtaposing "paranormal" and "reality" would look like an oxymoron to quite a few people, but I'm an unapologetic believer so I'm fine using that phrase to describe what I watch. I call it "research."

I don't know if anyone reading this routinely sits down with the same shows, but I'll bet most of those who do aren't also sitting there with a notebook and a pen. I'm not kidding about the research. I've gotten amazing history tips from John Zaffis, The Haunted Collector. His show not only featured all of the client interviews, night vigils, cameras, recording equipment, and ruh-roh! moments as every worthy paranormal investigative show should, it also delved into researching the history of the site and the object/s he was investigating. And from that aspect of each show, I have learned about small pox, blood-letting, and 19th century cavalry uniforms, among other things. I also have a notebook with lists of bizarre details that are too good to forget about entirely; who knows when one of them will pop up in a Bridgeton Park Cemetery Book? I LOVE my research!

I have purchased the books written by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson to give me something to do between seasons of Ghost Hunters, another one of my obsessions. (I only know one other person who dragged her husband out to hear Jason and fellow hunter Steve Gonsalves do a presentation at the haunted Rialto Theater in Joliet.) 

I watched Psychic Kids for years until it went away. I couldn't talk my husband into going to see Chip Coffey in person, so I brought my daughter and we teamed up with my friend, the one I ran into  -with her husband- at the Hawes/Gonsalves presentation. Psychic Kids taught me how paranormal experiences can differ so much from one person to the next, depending on the way the ability manifests for each particular psychic. And I also got to watch, on many a show, the interactions between a psychically-gifted child and a non-believing parent, interactions that help spur the conflict I write between Cassie and her mother.

I also regularly tune in to The Haunting Of... ,The Dead Files, Haunted History, and Ghostly Encounters. I would be watching Celebrity Ghost Stories if I could only find it on my service. I sometimes watch A Haunting. And I mourn the disappearances of The Haunted Collector and Psychic Kids.

I know I have written about all of this before and apologize to anyone who feels this column is a repeat. To help make this new again, I'll include this little tidbit: I only ever write my stories during the day. This dates back to when I wrote for a community newspaper and did the true ghost stories Halloween article. Something got very interested in what I was doing and made such a crashing disturbance in the garage that I thought the shelf had come off the wall. I was home alone when that happened, and I realized I could handle it during the day, but probably not at night... 

I know I've also mentioned that when I write about ghosts, my house comes to life. Things shift and bang. I sometimes hear footsteps coming down the hall toward my office. There are miscellaneous rustlings and shufflings coming from other rooms. It all stops when I stop writing, but it always happens. Even my husband has heard it and asked me, "What is that?" "Nothing, dear, just the usual when I'm working."

So here's my little tidbit: lately, while I sit with the remote in hand, watching my DVR'd paranormal reality shows, the house behaves the way it does when I'm writing. I can't decide it it's because restless spirits like watching shows about themselves, or it they're trying to get me off the couch and back to the keyboard. Whatever it is, it sure adds that little extra to the show I'm watching. And if I write down a description of the particular rustling or other disturbance I hear, that becomes part of my research, too.

They're Really Normal in Person!

A few weeks ago, I dragged Jim off to the Rialto Theater in Joliet, Illinois to listen to a presentation by Jason Hawes and Steve Gonsalves. Anyone who watches reality paranormal shows will recognize the names of two Ghost Hunters, one founder, and one former tech manager/now a lead investigator. And both of them are extremely funny.

The Rialto Theater was the perfect setting for them: they had done an investigation of the venue on their show some years ago and found evidence of paranormal activity. Some of it in the balcony. Which, interestingly enough, is where I bought seats. I assured my husband that we were sitting in a haunted balcony and he nodded and grunted and went off in search of something cold to drink.

Now, I love Ghost Hunters. I have two favorite ghost-seeking shows and Ghost Hunters is one of them. The Haunted Collector is the other, and we were lucky enough to go see John Zaffis at Harper Community College last year. Now it was time to see Jason Hawes and Steve Gonsalves and I looked forward to the event from the time I had purchased the tickets months earlier.

And they didn't disappoint. They introduced themselves (as if anyone in that audience needed an introduction. Well, maybe spouses that had been dragged along...) and did a great presentation that showcased some of their more spine-tingling EVP sessions. These included one from the Rialto Theater of a little boy's voice assuring us that he wasn't Kevin, as the theater staff had taken to calling the little ghost boy who wanders the place. The boy never did tell us his real name, but the soft-spoken and dead reassurance was still enough to bring up goose bumps.

They gave examples of things that can be mistaken for hauntings; banging pipes and other house-settling type noises; wind and drafts; squeaky old floors. And then they gave examples of things that just couldn't be explained; a figure gliding from one side of the camera's range to the other, a shadow showing up in a picture that wasn't visible at the time the picture was taken, a hotel room light turning itself on with a very audible click -this following footsteps entering the room. In other words, they shared a lot of the material I watch endless paranormal TV to see. Hauntings.

They ended the evening with questions from the audience, and then bid us all good night. It was a great show, and well worth the ticket and the longish drive to get there.

And the icing on the cake was running into a couple of friends unexpectedly. Now, I have known these two since we were all in high school; she was one of my best friends and he was one of my first crushes. They have been married to each other for well over 30 years now, and meeting up with them was as much fun as finding out that she is as into this stuff as I am. Future plans include ghost tours that we can enjoy while our husbands commiserate with each other and talk about techie things!

All in all, a great event and a fond memory, not the least of which was discovering that despite a larger than life TV presence, these two guys were like any two guys you might meet on the job or at a neighbor's barbecue. See, not all paranormal believers are that weird. A lot of us are really normal in person!

I'm Baaaccckkk!

So it turns out that people don't like reading the same blog post for four months solid! Go figure!

I wish I could say I had one big dandy excuse for my four-month absence, but actually it was a bunch of little excuses instead: finishing up the latest novel, Dead Voices; thumb surgery that precluded all writing including keyboarding; 1.5 other procedures; life. I know, I know, writers get around all this sort of thing and produce anyhow, but I had a choice between the novel and the blog and I sacrificed the blog to get the novel finished. And I hope you like it!

But back to my normal topics of conversation. Scary stuff.

Last month, I signed Jim and myself up for a two-part class with Ursula Bielski, author of Chicago Haunts and co-author of Graveyards of Chicago. Like me, Ms. Bielski grew up in a haunted house on the north side of Chicago. Like me, she is passionately devoted to all things paranormal and enjoys getting together with other like-minded individuals. Unlike me, she runs tours and also does paranormal investigation. Her presentations were interesting those two nights, especially with the added attraction of an overhead light that would blink, go off, or flare-up on its own while she lectured. Undoubtedly this was a faulty light bulb but it made things more fun!

But Ms. Bielski's class was just one of the many events I've got going the first part of this year, to feed my obsession and hopefully to inspire future books, as well. In a couple of weeks, I'm dragging Jim to see Jason Hawes and Steve Gonsalves of Ghost Hunters at the (haunted) Rialto Theater in Joliet. I watch the show, I've read their books, and I can't wait! Hopefully they are as entertaining in person as they are on TV. And Jim and I are sitting up in the balcony: maybe we'll get a visit from someone on the other side?

Also, I've been invited to share a book-selling table with colleague Sylvia Shults, author of Fractured Spirits, at the Quad Cities Psychic and Paranormal Expo in Moline on May 3. Fractured Spirits is the story of the Peoria State Hospital, a facility for the mentally ill, that closed its doors in 1973. Sylvia, who is a paranormal investigator as well as a writer, has researched, visited, investigated, and generally become an expert in both the physical and the supernatural history of the extremely haunted grounds of the old hospital. She's a great speaker and a terrific writer. Come and see us if you're around! We love to chat. We love to swap ghost stories. And as always, I offer a basic 10-minute or so palm analysis (okay, okay, palm-reading) to anyone who buys one of my books! Maybe one of Sylvia's books, too, depending on time.

Some time after that, during the summer, Jim and I have been invited to visit Williamsburg, Virginia. Can't wait to get there! The history, the site, the ghosts! And yes, they do ghost tours, and yes, you bet Jim and I are going on one or two.

So hopefully, with all this going on, there will be more regular posts to this site. I know people are stopping by to check it out and I am rightfully embarrassed that I haven't been good about putting up new material. So please take this as my apology and hopefully, I can get this blog back on its very haunted path!

Oh, and one more thing: read Dead Voices!

My Kind of Town

 

Normally, the next word in the line "My kind of town" is "Chicago," and normally, that would apply to me. I grew up in Chicago and have called it, and the area around it, my home for my entire life. But last week, my husband and I were treated to another town that is definitely one of my kind, as they say.

Welcome to Savannah, Georgia, the most haunted city in America. When I first read that claim, I was somewhat skeptical. I know, me skeptical? What's up with that? But I was thinking, how could Savannah possibly be more haunted than New Orleans? Or Washington, DC? Or St. Augustine? San Francisco? Even my own stomping grounds, Chicago? We've had so many disasters here it's not even funny. But when we took a ghost tour of the historic district, well, I guess I found out.

For one thing, Savannah is a massive burial ground. Literally. The city is built on a burial ground and even if you haven't seen the movie "Poltergeist," I'm willing to bet you know that such a site choice does not have the makings for a peaceful, placid kind of place. Secondly, there is all kinds of history in Savannah, from the first encounter with the indigenous people, through the Revolutionary War, piracy, slavery, and the Civil War. There is more history there than you can shake a stick at, and why would you want to? You might accidentally invite something, if you shake a stick at it.

No kidding. The ghost tour Jim and I booked stopped off at some of the more disturbed locations in the city. The Pirate house, where people were literally shanghaid into service on the seas. Or simply murdered, if that's what suited the folks behind these goings-on. The Sorrel-Weed house, that was featured on one of my favorite TV shows, Ghost Hunters. It was the site of the show's first live Halloween broadcast and some of what occurred that night was enough to drive away at least one of the site's employees, we were told. The house on Abercorn that is owned but not lived in. No one is allowed to live in it. Women are even cautioned against approaching the place, it is so malevolent. I'm not an idiot- I kept my distance from the place. Dave, our tour guide, told story after story as we drove through and around the historic district, and encouraged picture taking just to see what would wind up on the photos. (And for the second time in our ghost-tour taking history, Jim captured something in a picture that we can't quite explain. LOVE IT!!!)

But the one, true reason Savannah is my kind of town? People talk about ghosts there the same way they talk about the weather. I have a belief that everyone has a ghost story. The folks there seem to have several apiece, some more than that, and they aren't shy about sharing their tales. There's no hesitation before they launch into their narratives. There is no embarrassment or quick peeks to see if you are looking at them with skeptical eyes or disdainful expressions. No, they just tell you what they saw, when, where, and then go right on with the conversation about restaurants or sweet tea or what have you. And I REALLY LOVE THAT.

We were only there for a couple of nights and we both agree we'd go back in a heartbeat. We both want to know more of the history. I know Jim wants to explore the river and maybe eat more of their amazing seafood. And me? I want as many ghost stories as I can handle. Absolutely my kind of town.

(Pictures from the Savannah, Georgia Photo Album website. Top: Bonaventure Cemetery. Below that: Madison Square-Poetter Hall)