Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 72

On Retreat, part one

I’ve had the fantasy of running away for a long time.  In reality, my life is damn near perfect, but I love the idea of going away to write: no emails, no housework, no dishes, no litter boxes, no play dates, no driving.  No responsibilities, except to the muse.

My friend Martha had gone to a retreat center in southwestern Michigan.  Every time she told me about it, her voice grew misty.  She’d finished a book there.  She’d written chapters.  I wanted to drink from that well.

Both of us have big birthdays coming up. Originally, I’d thought about surprising her: just showing up on her doorstep and telling her to pack, not telling her where we were going. I realized that one of the best parts of retreating to write, even if it’s only for an afternoon, is the anticipation.  Your brain performs some kind of chemical magic as it prepares to conjure the words.  I didn’t want to cheat her of that.

I decided I’d take the novel I’ve been trying to overhaul for longer than I want to admit.  It’s my first novel, but I have not been able to find a home for it.  It’s not a YA, although the protagonist is young.  It’s not a romance, even though it’s about a straight couple getting to know each other.  I wrote it so long ago that I’ve changed, even though the heroine hasn’t grown up.

I love this book.  I needed to go to the middle of nowhere to clear away all the distractions in my life and figure it out. I couldn’t imagine going with better company.

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Weston Ochse, Last Man Standing

Wes on deployment in Afghanistan

Weston Ochse is the author of nine novels, most recently SEAL Team 666, which both the New York Post and USA Today called Recommended Reading. His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel. He’s also had published more than a hundred short stories, many of which appeared in anthologies, magazines, peered journals, and comic books. His short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Weston holds Bachelor’s Degrees in American Literature and Chinese Studies from Excelsior College and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from National University. He has been to more than fifty countries and speaks Chinese with questionable authority. He blogs at http://weston-ochse.blogspot.com/.

Q: Had you ever had a paranormal experience before you came to the Haunted Mansion?

WO: Yes, several times. But the very first one is the strangest, because it involves another person, who I didn’t even know was having the same experience.

In 1975, I was living in Hackettstown, New Jersey. We lived upstairs in a two-story home that had been converted to apartments. The home was at least a hundred years old. It was on the southwest corner of the intersections of Washington Avenue and Plane Street, across from the middle school.

A lot of things occurred when I lived at this place, but the most interesting is a dream I used to have there about an entity coming to get me from the attic. I lived in the back of the second story. My parents’ room was off the landing, between the hall that led to the kitchen and my room and the doorway to the attic. I used to have terrifying nightmares that something was coming down those stairs, turning the corner and coming for me. I’ve had this dream for years. I still have it. I had it when I was 21 and in Korea. I had it when I was 40. This dream still comes to me and I still wake up terrified.

One evening, about fifteen years ago, I was with my parents. We were waxing about old times and I mentioned that house. I think I’d just had a dream the night before. My mom stopped. She looked at my dad. And she said she had almost the same dream the night before. In fact, she’s been having the same dream over and over since we lived in that house. Whenever I dream one part, she dreams the other.

Have you guessed it yet? My mother’s been the one who kept the monster from getting me all of this time. Every time I dreamed of it coming down the stairs, she dreamed of holding it off and keeping it from me. Even now, years later.

I tried to Google Map the house to get a street view of it. There isn’t one. It’s still there, though. I wonder about those other folks who lived there after us. I wonder if they had someone to keep the entity from coming to get them, like I had my mother.

Q: Did anything spooky happen to you at the Mansion?

Photograph of Wes taken by Lisa Morton.

WO: Definitely. I think I’m what they call a sensitive. We’d go into a room and I’d feel something and the K2 meter would go off. If I didn’t feel something, it wouldn’t go off.

I can just tell if a place is weird or off or something. We were once looking at houses and I wouldn’t go into one. I wouldn’t even go inside of it. The realtor started to argue, but my wife jumped in: “Do you really want to try and sell us a house my husband won’t even go in?” The realtor saw the wisdom in this.

So I felt a lot of things in the Mansion. I witnessed even more. I’ve been to both iterations of the Haunted Mansion Retreat and could probably write a book about the house, there’s so much activity.

But let me key in on only one thing: the shadow person. We were in the room Scott Browne normally stays in, the one where he was shaken awake, as witnessed by Eunice Magill. Rain Graves was with me. She sat on the bed and I stood. I said there was something in the bathroom. The door was halfway open and it was dark. We began to look at it. The way the door hung, there was a triangular shadow on the floor. I stared at that.

“There’s something coming,” I said. Then, after a few moments: “Look at the shadow. It’s changing.”

Sure enough, the triangular shadow—which had previously sharp edges and corners—was beginning to round. It was filling out as if more shadow was coming out of the bathroom.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a shadow person,” Rain said, with the occult authority to which I’ve become accustomed.

We watched as the shadow moved from the bathroom to two feet into the room. Then it started forming upwards. I didn’t feel threatened. I’ve only felt malevolence three times in that house. All the rest was benign.

It got to knee height and I couldn’t help myself. I asked, “What do we do if it forms all the way?”

She looked at me and said, “I don’t know.”

So much for her all-knowing authority. We watched it continue to form. It wasn’t a fast process. From the start to where it got to just above the knees took ten minutes.

Then Dan Weidman opened the door to the hall and poked his head in. “What’s going on?” he asked.

And like that, the shadow person was gone. The shadow of the door was once again a triangle with sharp lines and corners.

I think the entity, whatever it was, trusted us. I think it knew we meant no harm. But when Dan came, it frightened it.

And that’s just one of the things that happened.

 

Rain Graves and Wes at work in the Safe Room at the Mansion. Photograph by Sephera Giron.

Q: What inspired the pieces you wrote for the books?

WO: “Ghost Meter Blues,” the piece I wrote for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One, was based on the idea of the K2 meter and that it can read energy. Well, what if you went to a haunted house with your wife and she came back haunted. The only way you could tell is with the meter. What if you walked down the street to see who else was haunted and discovered a lot of people were? I loved playing with those ideas and the story scared me.

“Forever Beneath the Scorpion Tree,” my piece in The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two, first appeared in my collection Multiplex Fandango. It’s the story of a ghost who haunts the desert border area between the US and Mexico. She was a Chinese girl and it’s written from her point of view as a ghost who doesn’t know she’s a ghost. It’s a really haunting tale.

Q: Do you expect to come back to the next Haunted Mansion Retreat in 2015?

WO: ABSOLUTELY!

Q: What’s coming up for you next writing-wise?

WO: My next SEAL Team 666 novel, Age of Blood, is coming out from Thomas Dunne Books in October. I’m currently on a military deployment to Afghanistan and working on a novel for Solaris Books called Grunt Life.

Q: Thanks for being a part of this!

WO: No, thank you for having me. I am sorry it took so long.

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The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One

The Haunted Mansion Project – Year One by E.S. Magill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Two years ago, Rain Graves invited a bunch of horror writers to join her for a weekend in a haunted house. There was little programing but vast stretches of time in which to write or hang out with the other writers. Wine was consumed. Past ghostly experiences were confessed. There were tarot readings and K-II meters to play with and professional ghost hunters came with their laser webs and multi-spectrum video cameras. Ghostly voices were captured on tape.

Mostly, though, there were 10 of us rattling around in a big old house. The days were pleasant and peaceful. The evenings…those were interesting. I could watch the tension mount as we prepared to face whatever survived in the house and roamed the night.

The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One collects the ghost hunters’ report, nonfiction experiences of the writers who survived the retreat, and fiction and poetry written during or inspired by our adventures in the house.

My favorite story may be E. S. Magill’s “Not a Drop to Drink,” which more than does justice to the creepy spring-fed pool on the property. S. G. Browne’s “In the Night, In the Dark” is the story that raised goose bumps and made me doubt my resolve to go back to the house in September. Rain’s “The Old House” went in an unexpected direction, but Yvonne Navarro’s “Depictions,” while one of the darkest stories in the book, ended just the way I wanted it to. I didn’t expect Weston Ochse’s “Ghost Meter Blues” to make me laugh, but that was just what I needed to break the tension.

I’m really pleased to have an essay and a short story included in this book — and honored to be holding down the last slot in the table of contents. I always felt, among the crowd at the first Haunted Mansion Retreat, that I would be the Final Girl.

You can get your own copy here.

View all my reviews on Goodreads.

The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two

The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two by Loren Rhoads

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is another case where I’m biased: I edited this for Damnation Books after the second Haunted Mansion Writers Retreat in 2012. However, if you like your ghost stories inspired by some real-life ghost hunting, this is the book for you. Real horror writers faced real horrors, then transmuted those experiences into poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. My favorite facet of the book is that you can see how the same event inspired several authors.

I won’t select a favorite this time, because that would be like choosing one of my children over another.  I do however what to mention that this book gave me bad dreams while I was editing it — not because the task was unpleasant or the authors difficult to work with, but because it triggered my PTSD from staying twice in the house.  Some of these stories are really scary.  Luckily, some of them are also funny.

You can get your own copy here.

View all my reviews on Goodreads.

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Loren Rhoads, the Final Girl

Loren writing in the Safe Room. Photo by Kim Richards.

This is the last of the Haunted Mansion interviews, so I’m going to interview myself here.  Pardon me if I slip daintily into the 3rd person…

Loren Rhoads survived both Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreats by being convinced she was the Final Girl. She was honored to be asked to edit The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two and follow in the footsteps of E.S. Magill. Loren’s ghost stories have appeared in the books Sins of the Sirens, Demon Lovers, and The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One. Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel, a collection of her cemetery travel essays, just came out from Western Legends Press in May.

Q: Had you ever had a paranormal experience before you came to the Haunted Mansion?

LR: My friend Blair died at home, in his bed, after a horrific struggle with AIDS. Blair was a very strong-willed man who swore he could come back, if at all possible. It wasn’t a surprise that his husband saw shadows and felt phantom drafts after Blair’s death, but I never expected to see Blair myself. I was in their house alone one day, hanging out with their cats, when I saw Blair. He lay in bed, ankles crossed, hands behind his head. He wore black jeans, a red flannel shirt, and the biggest grin. He knew he’d startled me.

I never saw him again, but I didn’t doubt ghosts after that either.

Q: Did anything spooky happen to you at the Mansion?

LR: The first year, a ghost touched my hair just before I drifted off to sleep. I wrote the experience up for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One.

In 2012, I got chilled on Thursday night and just could not get warm. By dawn, I ended up wearing all the clothes I’d brought for the weekend. I don’t know if that chill had a supernatural cause, but that was one of the longest, most miserable nights of my life.

Loren working at the Sacrificial Table. Photo by Sephera Giron.

Q: What inspired the pieces you wrote for the books?

LR: “A Curiosity of Shadows” in Year One was inspired by the range of entities that inhabit the house, from the malevolent shadows that shook people awake to the angry ghosts who seemed to take pleasure in shouting at the GhostGirls to the gentle touch I felt.

My new story, “Here There Be Monsters,” came from something the caretaker said. When someone asked if he was ever afraid of the things in the house, he said, “No. The really frightening things are outside, in the woods.”

Q: Do you expect to come back to the next Haunted Mansion Retreat in 2015?

LR: I hope to. I treasure the friendships I’ve made at the Mansion, and the solitude and the inspiration. The nights are hard, though. The things that happened to Dan last time really frightened me.

Q: What’s coming up for you next writing-wise?

Good times at the Haunted Mansion. Photo by Fran Friel.

LR: A collection of my memoir essays called This Morbid Life will be out later this year from Renaissance Books. I’ve also just signed a contract for my first novel, co-written with Brian Thomas, to be published by Black Bed Sheet Books in November. It’s called As Above, So Below. You can keep up with my adventures here on this blog.

You can also follow the plans as they unfold for the next Haunted Mansion Retreat at http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/.

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Kristin Galvin, GhostGirl

Kristin Galvin (K. from the GhostGirls) is originally from Soldotna, Alaska and currently resides in Santa Clara, California. She is a neuroscience major working toward a career in clinical research. She hopes her experiences in paranormal investigation will lead to a better understanding of the human mind and how it understands the concept of life after death. Her other passions include fitness, bartending, heavy metal music, tattoos, drawing, and advocating to end BSL (Breed-Specific Legislation) against pit bulls.

Q: Had you ever had a paranormal experience before you came to the Haunted Mansion?

KG: I’ve had multiple paranormal experiences before the Haunted Mansion, which is what had inspired me to join GhostGirls.

Q: Did anything spooky happen to you at the Mansion?

Some of the GhostGirls’ equipment. Photo by Loren Rhoads.

Q: What inspired “Exhale the Vile,” the poem you wrote for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two?

KG: I was inspired by the battle that all those who have witnessed paranormal activity in their lives face: the battle of their mind. It’s hard sometimes to differentiate between what tricks our minds play on us and what really is there happening in front of us. Did a shadow just move — or are my eyes playing tricks on me? Was that noise from another world — or was that just my imagination?

Q: Do you expect to come back to the next Haunted Mansion Retreat in 2015?

KG: Right now I do plan on attending the HMR 2015.

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You can find out more information about the next retreat — and keep up on GhostGirls’ investigation of the Mansion the by following the Haunted Mansion blog at http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/.

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Kay Sundstrom, Poet Fatale

Kay Sundstrom was registered for the 2012 Haunted Mansion Retreat, but wasn’t able to join us. She’s one of the two contributors to The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two that I haven’t met yet.

Kay received a Stegner Fellowship in poetry from Stanford University. She’s been published in various magazines and anthologies. She was born in Southern California and now lives in Keaau, Hawaii.

Q: Have you ever had a paranormal experience?

KS: The first was when I was eight. I was playing hide-and-seek with my friend Patty. The house was dark, except for my mother’s sewing room. I was searching for Patty in the back part of this sprawling house when I heard a voice saying, “I’m here, I’m here,” in a dry whisper. I thought it was Patty, so I followed the voice until I was in between the wall and my parents’ bed. There was noting there. It may seem silly, but I felt evil. I was stunned, then I ran screaming. As it turned out, Patty was hiding in my mother’s sewing room on the opposite side of this long house. Both she and my mother said that neither one of them said anything.

When I was 22, I participated in my first Wiccan circle. I simply remember blacking out. Everyone else in the circle said—very sincerely—that I simply stood there with a blank look on my face and answered questions that I couldn’t have known the answers to in a voice not like my own. I was out, so I don’t know if what they said was authentic.

Q: What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?

KS: The Whaley House in San Diego is reputed to be very haunted for such a staid, respectable matron of a house. From I have read, she is a boarding house for ghosts.

Besides other reported ghosts, there is “Yankee Jim,” James (aka Santiago) Robinson. He was convicted of attempted grand larceny in 1852. They dragged him out and hung him on a gallows off the back of a wagon in the yard. The local newspaper reported that he “kept his feet in the wagon as long as possible.” The other ghosts are much more tame, but then, they have less to complain about.

For some reckless reason, I decided to visit the Whaley House on Halloween night with a group of friends. At one point, I felt I was being choked. I was gagging, which I thought was horribly unfair, since I felt pity for the poor man. In a horribly embarrassing moment, I started screaming like a banshee. The docent simply looked bored.

Q: Have you ever ghost-hunted anywhere else?

KS: I have never officially gone ghost-hunting, but I do love older places: houses, cemeteries, churches, historical museums. Yes, they can be menacing at times, but other times there is something reassuring that other individuals’ hands have used a spindle, loom, compass, or cornhusk doll. Maybe time is not completely linear. Maybe a thread connects us.

Q: What inspired the poem you wrote for The Haunted Mansion Project?

KS: “Possession” was initiated by the image of an albino snake and a terrified, desolated bride waiting. Then my weird little mind did what it does and I got caught up in images and trying to find a way to fuse them. Often my writing deals with women who have been abused and retribution. Also, I simply love images. One of my mentors said he thought I thought in images. They are breath, although that may sound too sentimental.

In some of my writing, I have fused Mad King George, Mayan myth, asylums, dirt-poor sharecroppers, and the Vestal Virgins. In one of the novels I am working on, a very dark urban fantasy, I am attempting and hopefully will succeed on fusing five distinct eras into a coherent whole. But sometimes I feel I am juggling five china plates, desperately hoping that none will break, while keeping up a patter, like a Barnum & Bailey performer competing with the “The Wild Alligator Man from Bora, Bora: Touch his teeth if you dare.”

Q: What’s coming up for you next writing-wise?

KS: I am working on two other novels, around 15 short stories in various stages of completion, and a swarm of poems and short shorts. What I need to do is to focus and simply finish what needs to be completed and then edit the hell out of it. But I also need to submit. I have only done so maybe five times in the last ten years. They were accepted, which was wonderful, but I am still very nervous. I think I am less nervous about ghosts than I am about submitting.

Q: Do you expect to come to the next Haunted Mansion Retreat in 2015?

KS: I dearly hope to attend in 2015, if I can.

Interested in the next Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat? You can follow updates at http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/.

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Fran Friel

Fran Friel is a two-time Bram Stoker Award Finalist and winner of the Black Quill Award. She enjoys life by the sea on the Central Coast of California with her lovely Scottish husband and her doting dog. She also serves as full-time staff for Alice the Cat. You can follow Fran’s latest writing adventures at her homepage, Facebook, Twitter, and her blog, Fran Friel’s Yada Feast.

Q: Had you ever had a paranormal experience before you came to the Haunted Mansion?

FF: One of my earliest paranormal experiences was as a small child. It started when I was about six years old. Every night when I went to bed, there was a tapping on the wall behind the head of my bed. I told my parents about it and they tried to assuage me by saying, “It must be termites. Just ignore it.” Even at that young age, I knew it couldn’t be termites, unless they were wielding little ball-peen hammers behind my wall.

This went on for quite a while. The tapping was insistent and I could feel it was meant for me. After months of being terrified and not sleeping well, a thought suddenly came over me one night: it was my granddad. He had helped my father build that house and he died before I was born. In the simplicity of a child’s mind, I knew he was just trying to get my attention. When I realized this, a great calm came over me and I simply said, “Hello, Granddad. I know it’s you. Thank you for watching over me.”

After that, the tapping ceased. Either it was indeed Granddad and he was satisfied by my response, or it was the “termites,” who just so happened to coincidentally wear themselves out that very same night.

Angel Leigh McCoy (left) and Fran Friel channeling their muses at the Haunted Mansion. Photo by Lisa Morton.

Q: What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?

FF: For a number of years, I lived in quarters with my family at the US Military Academy at West Point in New York State. It’s a beautiful place, steeped in tradition, with a long history of ghost sightings and hauntings. We lived in townhouse-type quarters literally called Grey Ghost. I suspect the name was referring to the Long Grey Line, a term used to describe the lineage of the Corps of Cadets and their traditional grey uniforms.

Anyway, during our stay in those quarters, I began waking up at 4:22 a.m. to the image of a contorted face floating across the bedroom. It was bodiless—just the head. It didn’t say anything. It didn’t threaten me, but it was horrifying to look at and disconcerting to wake to nearly every night. The haunting stopped when we moved to different quarters.

The connection to West Point is often very profound for the graduates and soldiers stationed there. I suspect that lost spirits who were West Point officers, soldiers, and grads return to this place, because of its great importance during their lives.

What inspired the story you wrote for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two?

My wonderful roommate at the Haunted Mansion, Rena Mason, and I were housed in the back corner of the building, just above the chicken coop. I strolled out on the balcony early one morning and heard the clucking and vocalizations of the chickens. In the right state of mind, the soft braying sounds of the chickens could be construed as the voices of ghosts taunting their victims. My story, “The Whispers of Chickens,” was born.

Christian Colvin, William Gilchrist, and Fran Friel hard at work at the Haunted Mansion. Photo by Kim Richards.

Q: Do you expect to come back to the next Haunted Mansion Retreat in 2015?

FF: If I get up the courage to face the ghosties (and the chickens) again, I’ll be there for sure. It was marvelous spending time with my fellow writers in such a beautiful, albeit haunted, setting.

Q: What’s coming up for you next writing-wise?

FF: Most recently, I’ve had the privilege of being invited to write for the anthology, Barbers and Beauties. The theme is Beauty in all its dark and lovely expressions. The book is a collection of novellas written by four men and four women in the form of a flipbook. Reading the book from the front gives you four tales by the men. Flipping the book over and reading the book from the back gives you four additional stories from the women. In fact, the front of the book is really determined by where you, the reader, decide to start reading.

The other writers in the book include Gary Braunbeck, Tim Lebbon, Kealan Patrick Burke, Lee Thomas, Lisa Morton, Rhodi Hawk, and Roberta Lannes. I’m honored to be included in such an illustrious group of writers, some of whom I’ve idolized for years. And the wonderful cover art was done as individual portraits painted and compiled by the very talented Cortney Skinner.

Barbers and Beauties can be found at Hummingbird Press: http://hummingbirdhousepress.com/store.shtml

Additionally, I’m working on a dark fantasy story for a British anthology on the subject of Chance, edited by Alex Davis. The anthology is slated for publication in 2014. My story includes mystical artifacts, childhood horrors, adult regrets, the price of magic, and mice. The working title is “The Words of Wishing.”

I can also be found blogging at Amazing Stories. Right now I’m doing the ASM Blog Horde Interview series—attempting to interview all 100+ ASM bloggers. You can follow my antics at ASM here: http://amazingstoriesmag.com/authors/fran-friel/

Thanks so much for the opportunity to talk with you, Loren. The Haunted Mansion Retreat is a singular experience, one that I will remember and cherish for a lifetime and beyond.

You can follow the plans for the 2015 Haunted Mansion Retreat as they unfold here: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/.

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Angel Leigh McCoy, Editrix

Angel Leigh McCoy is a narrative designer on the PC game Guild Wars 2. Recently, she co-edited Deep Cuts, a horror anthology, and she produces WilyWriters.com, an audio speculative fiction e-zine. Her short fiction appears in numerous publications and you can learn more at www.AngelMcCoy.com. She is an active member of HWA and SFWA.

Q: Had you ever had a paranormal experience before you came to the Haunted Mansion?

ALM: I have, actually. I used to have a close friend who was a trance medium. He had several personalities who spoke through him when he entered a trance. I spent several years living next door to him, so I had numerous encounters that could not be explained. It was an eye-opening time for me, as I realized just how big the universe is and just how little we understand about it. I spoke to several individual personalities through him, though I hesitate to say who or what they were.

Possessions always leave you wondering if it’s real, faked, or some kind of hallucination. The conclusion I’ve come to through my experiences is that we don’t know. It could be any of the above. And that, in and of itself, is pretty scary.

We’re always left—after experiences like these—to rely on faith, belief, or intuition. No one has yet to find concrete proof that what seems to be happening really is. For now, we speculate. One day, I imagine the proof will surface, and then it’ll all just be mundane. We may even be disappointed when we learn what’s really been scaring us in the dark.

Q: What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?

ALM: I’ll point to an experience I had during the same period of my life when I knew the trance medium. It happened just as I was falling asleep. I “saw” blood, a great splash of blood. Suddenly I was wide awake and my heart was pounding. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that something bad had happened. I noted the time. It was the middle of the night, around 3 a.m. I paced and paced, unable to relax, much less go back to sleep.

Less than an hour later, I received a phone call from my mother. My brother had been in a car accident. He had hit a telephone pole and was badly injured. My mother received the call from the police right around the time of my vision.

That wasn’t an encounter with a ghost, but it made it clear to me that there’s a connection between us and the people we love that goes beyond the physical. I believe (again with belief, faith, or intuition) that I had sensed my mother’s reaction to the news and known something terrible had happened. I just didn’t know what or to whom. That was a very long night.

The Haunted Mansion Writers at work in the Safe Room. Photo by Sephera Giron. Angel is on the left in her sweater.

Q: What inspired “Purgatory,” the story you wrote for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two?

ALM: I wanted to tie my story strongly to the “people” who were emerging in the recordings and the imaginings of those staying in the house. I wanted to bring them to life and explore one possible explanation for how we could record their voices in real life.

The events I describe and the character histories have nothing to do with the Mansion. That came entirely from my imagination, but the character names and some of their personalities were drawn directly from the transcripts of the house recordings. [Editor’s note: the GhostGirls and several other attendees of the 2012 Haunted Mansion Retreat recorded EVPs. Nichole Boscia talked about one of the real-time EVPs she heard when I interviewed her.]

The fact that you can hear the voices in the recordings is deeply interesting to me. I don’t deny that it could be sound waves from media or from previous conversations by living folks who passed through the house, or from ghosts watching us from the other side. I have no idea what they are, but they sure got my imagination going.

Angel lurking in the woods. Photo by Rena Mason.

Q: Do you expect to come back to the next Haunted Mansion Retreat in 2015?

ALM: I’m not sure if I’ll be able to, but I would love to. We’ll have to see.

Q: What’s coming up for you next writing-wise?

ALM: I’m working on a collection of short horror stories that will be released later this year or early next year. It includes some of my darkest stories to date and will be my first collection ever!

You can keep up-to-date with Angel’s projects at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angel.mccoy

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngelMcCoy

Follow the development of the 2015 Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat:  http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com