Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 73

The Haunted Mansion interviews: William Gilchrist, the Newest Poet

Newly minted poet William Gilchrist.

William Gilchrist is co-owner of Damnation Books LLC with his wife Kim Richards Gilchrist. He has a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from New Mexico State University. He works at Agilent Technologies. His poetry in The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two is his first published work. You can connect with him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/william.gilchrist.507.

Q: Had you ever had a paranormal experience before you stayed at the Haunted Mansion?

WG: If I had one, I was not aware of it. I am more likely to seek alternate explanations before believing things are a paranormal experience.

Q: Have you ever ghost-hunted anywhere else?

WG: Kim and I did take a Ghost Tour in Plymouth, Massachusetts. During the tour, we took lots of pictures. Most had those orbs that appear when you use a flash. After we zoomed in on one of the orbs, a ghostly face was visible. We have also done other ghost and catacomb tours.

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

William cleans up EVP recordings on his computer while Diane and Kristin of the GhostGirls look on. Photo by Sephera Giron.

WG: While I did hear some strange sounds, nothing was spooky enough to make me think it was a spirit.

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

WG: Well, this is an interesting question for me, because I do not feel like I get scared by much anymore. When I was a kid, movies like Jaws and Alien scared me, but now I can watch them and see good storytelling. I would have to say that the thing that scares me the most is fear of the unknown. 
 Right now, this is the fear of what people will think of my poetry—because writing poetry is something completely unexpected for me. I have no clue how good it is.

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

WG: I came to the retreat just for a vacation, with no desire to write anything. I even stated multiple times that I was not a writer. During one of the fabulous dinners, people were trying to create haiku. I tried to participate, but honestly failed miserably without the ability to write it down. After dinner, when I was able to type and evaluate the lines, I had a bit more success. This haiku sums up my weekend:

Man not a writer

Man creates his first haiku

Man now a poet

Inspiration for the other poems came from various horror-related topics and events during the weekend. Inspiration came from everyone at the mansion.

Kim and William dressed for dinner.

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

WG: I will be there, with a plan to work on something other than website code.

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

WG: I have had a story idea for the last two years, which I’ve tried to pass off to my wife. She keeps telling me to write it down, so this will be my next project. I will also do some more haiku as I get ideas for them.

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You can follow the unfolding plans for the next Haunted Mansion Retreat here: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/.

Haunted Mansion interviews: E. S. Magill

E.S. Magill, captured by Rena Mason

E.S. Magill is the editor of the anthologies The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One and Deep Cuts (co-edited with Angel Leigh McCoy and Chris Marrs). She is also a former columnist and reviews editor for Dark Wisdom magazine. Her most-current short fiction can be found in the Horror Writers Association’s anthology Blood Lite III. She has an M.A. in English, specializing in the postmodern gothic. By day, she teaches middle school English; night is a whole other story. Southern California is home to her and her husband Greg and their menagerie of cats and Corvettes.

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

ESM: In fact, I wrote an essay about my childhood paranormal experience for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two. It’s called “See Anything?” and explores that adage of “Seeing is believing.”

When I talk about the Haunted Mansion Retreats, people always want to know if I saw anything: ghostly apparitions, things moving around. I didn’t see anything paranormal that first weekend, only my roommate S.G. Browne freaking out in the middle of the night from having his own paranormal experience. Without giving away too much of my essay (which you can read in the anthology), I didn’t see anything during my childhood experience because I had my eyes squeezed shut—but to this day I wonder what I would have seen if I had opened my eyes.

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

ESM: Yes. It’s an experience that I don’t wish on anyone.

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

ESM: Nothing spooky happened to me, but I do have to say that we broke so many “horror movie rules.” The Mansion is beautiful—from the front. The grounds out back are creepy. After nightfall, a group of us traipsed out onto the darkened path—trees looming over us, bushes rustling—with nothing more than a weak flashlight and our cell phones to guide us.

S.G. Browne joins E.S. Magill for a beer before nightfall. Photo by Sephera Giron.

At the start of the path, there’s a meditation table that we pretended was a sacrificial altar. Some of the guys took turns lying down on it. We then made our way down to the crumbling, algae-fouled pond. Of course, we should have turned around and returned the way we came—but, no, we elected to take the path that went around the back of the Mansion—a path we didn’t have any experience with. During our adventure, we brazenly laughed about our defiance of all those laws of self-preservation we hold holy as horror writers. It was good, scary fun. S.G. Browne wrote an essay about it in The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One called “Haunted Mansion Rules and the Writers Who Mock Them.”

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

Photo taken by E.S. Magill

ESM: The Mansion itself. I’ve recently discovered that I’m one of those writers really influenced by setting, by actually visiting a place. The Mansion is absolutely ripe for this kind of inspiration.

In my essay “Coming Home” in Year One, I draw parallels between the Mansion, our experiences, and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Not only is this the greatest haunted house novel ever written, but also an exploration of how environment impacts personality and behavior.

Both fiction pieces I did are direct products of setting. What’s great about these anthologies is there are photographs, so our readers can actually see what inspired us.

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

ESM: My current plans are to attend the next retreat. Unlike conventions, we actually write. And writing with other writers is powerful. I find my work infused with this incredible synergistic energy.

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

ESM: First order of business is to finish the novel I’ve been working on for a zillion years. In addition to that, my co-editors (Angel Leigh McCoy and Chris Marrs) and I released an anthology this year, Deep Cuts, and we’re actively promoting that. Plus, we’re contemplating doing a Deep Cuts 2. So the coming year will be a busy one.

Keep up with her:

Check out her blog at www.esmagill.com.

Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/E.S.-Magill/e/B00820NTO4

The Deep Cuts site: www.deepcuts111.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/esmagill?ref=tn_tnmn

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

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Chris Marrs

Polaroid of Chris Marrs taken by Rain Graves, in case she vanished over the course of the Haunted Mansion Retreat.

Chris Marrs lives on the West Coast of British Columbia. She tends bar during the day to keep her kids fed, watered, and sheltered, then spends the nights writing, usually accompanied by copious amounts of coffee and sometimes a little wine. In 2012, Chris had three pieces of flash fiction published and one short story. Early 2013 saw the release of Deep Cuts, an anthology she edited with Angel McCoy and Eunice Magill to honor women in horror. The stories for the book were selected during the 2012 Haunted Mansion Writers Retreat. You can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/chris.marrs.14 where she sometimes “likes” more than posts or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Chris_Marrs.

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

CM: Yes, I had a couple of experiences one may classify as paranormal, but—with the exception of one—they could be explained away. The one that couldn’t occurred when I was still married. My then-husband and I had recently moved into a new house and were sitting on the couch watching TV one night when we caught movement in the hallway. We looked over and saw a little boy in black pajamas lurking there. Our son was four at the time, so I assumed it was him and told him it was too late for him to be up: “Head for bed.” The boy disappeared. I turned to my husband and frowned, then got up to go check on our son and tuck him in, if he needed it. Once I entered his room, though, he was flat on his back, sound asleep. He was wearing white pajamas with little red cars on them.

A couple of weeks later, I was talking to the neighbor and she asked all the usual “getting to know a new neighbor” questions. Through the conversation, I learned a family with three boys had lived there before us and one of the boy’s friends was always coming over. It was like a second home for him. Unfortunately, the friend had been killed when a negligent bus driver pulled away from the curb as the boy crossed the street. The driver couldn’t stop in time. From what I gathered, the boy still came to the house on occasion to “visit” his friend. We weren’t the only ones to see him.

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

CM: Ah, our haunted shower curtain—which is not very spooky, but was definitely entertaining. I roomed with Angel and Eunice and access to one of the communal bathrooms was through our room. The bathroom had two metal shower-stalls sitting side by side, with those plastic shower curtains on little metal hooks.

Anyway, I’d been standing at the sink, washing my hands, when I heard a “clink-clink” behind me. I turned around and the shower curtain on the right side was a quarter of the way open. Weird, I thought, since I knew it’d been closed all the way. I shut it and went out to tell Angel and Eunice.

Shortly after, Wes came in to use the washroom and we told him. He kinda scoffed, then carried on. A couple of minutes later, he came out and asked me to tell him, again, what happened. I did, then asked why? He said he’d just experienced the same thing—was it with the shower curtain on the right? I laughed and said, “That’d be the one.” It became a bit of a running joke for the rest of the weekend, one of those slightly uneasy jokes.

Chris, E.S. Magill, and Angel Leigh McCoy editing Deep Cuts at the Haunted Mansion. Photo by Sephera Giron.

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

CM: There wasn’t any one thing that inspired “A Prisoner in the Spaces between Time,” more like a bunch of little random thoughts that came together. One was a voice on an EVP recording that said, “Get the chains!” Also, I wondered what if they—the ghosts—are stuck in time and can hear us: how would they react? Would they think they’re going insane? Do they know they’re dead?

The atmosphere of the Mansion was very inspirational. I’d walk through it alone and wonder at all it had seen and heard throughout the years.

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

CM: I would love to be able to attend the next Haunted Mansion Retreat. It was a wonderful experience and gave me the freedom to write without having to worry about kids or a day job. We’ll have to see if I can swing it.

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

CM: I’m working on a novella for JournalStone’s Double Down program. Gene O’Neill asked me to participate and our novellas will be paired together. I’m very excited to be working with him, as I’ve long admired his writing. I have a few short stories coming out as well. “Paper and Pencil, Skin and Ink” will appear in A Darke Phantastique, edited by Jason Brock. “How to Save a Life” will come out in Nightscape Press’ Best of Volume One, and “Twisted Sister” has been accepted for an upcoming issue of Dark Discoveries magazine. My novella, Everything Leads Back to Alice, is coming soon from Bad Moon Books.

You can follow the unfolding plans for the next Haunted Mansion Retreat here: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/.

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Stacey Graham, Veteran Ghost-Hunter

Photo of Stacey Graham taken by Sephera Giron.

Stacey Graham joined the Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat for the first time in 2012. She is the brains behind the Zombie Tarot, author of quirky books such as the Girls’ Ghost Hunting Guide, and the upcoming Haunted Stuff: Demonic Dolls, Screaming Skulls, and Other Creepy Collectibles (Llewellyn 2014). She’s also the mouthpiece for Undead Fred at the Zombie Dating Guide website. Please visit her website at staceyigraham.com, her Late Bloomer blog at staceyigraham.blogspot.com, or catch up with her on Facebook at facebook.com/authorstaceygraham or on Twitter at twitter.com/staceyigraham. She lives outside of Washington, D.C. with her husband and five children.

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

Stacey in the blue joins Diane of the GhostGirls, Christian Colvin, and Sephera Giron ghost-hunting at the Mansion. Photo by Nichole Boscia.

SG: I’ve been chasing ghosts for over 20 years, both as an investigator/researcher and as a writer of ghost stories. While in the field, I’ve had my hair pulled, my nose tweaked, and something breathe heavily in my ear. I’ve seen many odd things on investigations, but I’m still waiting for a floating head.

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

SG: The morning after I arrived, I descended the stairs to meet everyone for breakfast. I passed a mustachioed man on the steps and moved out of the way for him to pass me by the banister. Later, I realized we had no such guest staying at the Mansion.

On the morning we left the house, I was awakened around 5:30 a.m. by the sound of furniture moving directly below my room, in the dining room. It was quite loud and involved heavy tables, glassware, and chairs being thrown around the room. This lasted for over an hour. When I went downstairs with a friend, we discovered nothing had been moved in the dining area.

At the last retreat, Rain Graves took polaroids of all the attendees in case they vanished in the course of the weekend.

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

SG: I’ve always wanted to write about séances. I thought I’d spice it up with a little ’50s pimento dip and see what the ladies could get up to. I write horror lite and always throw in a good dose of humor in my stories.

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

SG: Llewellyn Publishing will release my next book in August 2014. It’s called Haunted Stuff: Demonic Dolls, Screaming Skulls, and Other Creepy Collectibles, about haunted objects. Some of my, and writer S.G. Browne‘s, experiences at the Mansion are featured in the chapter on haunted hotels.

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You can keep up with plans for the next Haunted Mansion Retreat here: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Christian Colvin, Skeptical Poet

Christian, standing, with Diane of the GhostGirls, Stacey Graham, and Sephera Giron ghost-hunting at the Mansion. Photo by Nichole Boscia.

Christian Colvin is survivor of both Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreats. He also contributed poems to both volumes of The Haunted Mansion Project. In addition, his poems have  appeared in Polyphony, Nightstalkers, and have won awards from John Wood College and from the Virginia Poetry Society. He and his wife live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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

A. I once spent a weekend watching a trance channeler work. It was an eye-opening experience—unless that individual was a much better actress than I thought she was!

Q. Have you ever ghost-hunted anywhere else?

A. My sister once swore the museum where she worked was haunted. I wasn’t present during her experience, but I spent a few weeks there later and found no indication of paranormal activity whatsoever. I’m a skeptic. Although I believe hauntings (for instance) are within the realm of possibility, I also believe the great majority of ghost “sightings” have far better explanations than ghosts. For example, what my sister thought was a ghost was probably the wind rattling the shutters. Other likely explanations for “paranormal” events involve suggestibility, earthquakes, hoaxes, dreams, controlled substances, ungrounded electrical wires, and so on. One should always examine all the evidence before drawing a conclusion.

Polaroid taken by Rain Graves at the Haunted Mansion, in case Chris vanished during the weekend.

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

A. Other than the drive up, no—but my friend Dan did have a hair-raising experience. (Editor’s note: see yesterday’s interview!)

Q. What inspired the piece you wrote for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two?

A. I’m a scholar of mythology and it’s fascinating how a person’s belief system informs the way they see the world. I remember watching a movie several years ago set in the Middle Ages, in which a woman takes her sick child to the village recluse. As the village priest watches from behind a tree, the recluse calls upon ancestral spirits to cure the child. Everyone present witnessed the same event and saw something different. The recluse practiced the religion her parents had taught her. The mother thought the recluse was a witch performing magic. The priest saw a heretic.

There are many ways to interpret the Sekhmet myth. She’s a war goddess; one meaning of her story is that war is hell. Even warriors on the just side can commit atrocities they’d never dream of in any other context. Sekhmet’s a lioness; the myth warns that lionesses are dangerous predators! The myth also cautions against the hubris that caused Sekhmet’s wrath. Regardless, though the myth seems brutal to us today, it made sense to the ancient Egyptians.

On the topic of paranormal experiences, I’d been working on the poem for several hours when I heard Rain Graves talking about Sekhmet in the next room over. Unlike Ra and Osiris, Sekhmet isn’t well known today. I hadn’t mentioned my poem to anyone and suddenly heard its central figure being discussed a few yards away. Was it coincidence? It was certainly surprising.

Christian, William Gilchrist, and Fran Friel wooing the muse in the parlor at the Haunted Mansion. Photo by Kim Richards.

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

A. Who knows what the future may bring?

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

A. I’m presently looking for a publisher for my fantasy novel, The Tarnished Quest. I hope to start the next book in the series in the next month or two… and who knows? Perhaps Sekhmet will be involved.

Find out more about Christian Colvin’s work at:

His personal page: http://mystarion.home.comcast.net/

A page on his book of political satire in verse: http://cyroth.home.comcast.net/

His Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mystarion

Keep up with developments for the 2015 Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Dan Weidman, Survivor

Rain Graves took polaroids of all the Haunted Mansion attendees, in case any of us vanished over the weekend.

Dan Weidman is a supernatural enthusiast. He is a survivor of both Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreats and contributed poetry to both volumes of The Haunted Mansion Project. He continues his horror-writing journey by pursuing many creative outlets. The lifelong friendships he made during the Haunted Mansion Weekends continue to help him as he searches for answers to the unknown.

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

DW: Yes, I’ve had experiences where I sensed that something supernatural was near. The hairs on the back of the neck stood on end or I had the feeling that someone was watching me when I was the only one there. (Editor’s note: Dan wrote about this in detail in his essay “My Possession” in The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two.)

Q: Have you ever ghost-hunted anywhere else?

DW: I have only ghost-hunted at this house, both in 2010 and 2012.

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

DW: Yes. For lack of a better explanation, I was possessed. This was the scariest supernatural experience I have ever had. Both my nonfiction essay and a fictional poem in The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two were inspired by my experience. They have helped me to begin making sense of it.

Scott Weidman, Dan Weidman, Sephera Giron, and S.G. Browne, taken by S.G. Browne.

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

DW: I have plans to go back. However, I am currently still learning. If I do not feel comfortable or knowledgeable enough to overcome my fear by 2015, I will not go.

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

DW: I am working on a novel that will hopefully be finished next year.

Follow along as the 2015 Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat comes together: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/2013/06/official-dates-for-haunted-mansion.html

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Yvonne Navarro, Painter

Photo of Yvonne Navarro by Dolli Nickel.

Survivor of two Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreats, Yvonne Navarro lives in southern Arizona and works on historic Fort Huachuca. She’s had 22 novels and well over 100 short stories published, about everything from vampires to psychologically disturbed husbands. Her work has won the Bram Stoker Award, plus a number of other writing awards. Visit her at www.yvonnenavarro.com or www.facebook.com/yvonne.navarro.001 to keep up with a crazy life that includes her husband, author Weston Ochse, three Great Danes (Goblin, Ghost, and Ghoulie), a parakeet named BirdZilla, painting, and lots of white zinfandel. Her most recent work is Concrete Savior, the second book in the Dark Redemption series.

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

YN: Yes, and it wasn’t a pleasant one, either. I fictionalized it in a story called “The House on Chadwell Drive” that I wrote for a 1997 UK anthology called Dancing with the Dark. Besides the house being haunted by a very unfriendly entity (said to be the ghost of the former owner, a vicious old woman), the scariest thing that ever happened to me occurred in that house. I woke up in the middle of night and opened my eyes to realize that everything in my line of sight was warped somehow: the window on the right wall was stretched at an angle in front of me from the lower left to the upper right. I was terrified… and paralyzed. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. The next thing I knew, it was morning. The last thing I remembered about the night before was babbling the Lord’s Prayer in my mind.

I lived in that house for six months and things just kept escalating. No one could stay on the second floor for more than a few minutes, dogs wouldn’t go up there, no one could go in the basement, footsteps were always overhead, on and on. It was terrifying.

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

YN: Not the second time, but definitely during the first visit. Right from the start, my husband (author Weston Ochse) and I had the door to the Murder Stairs slam shut in front of us when we were still a good ten feet away from it. I had a lot of not-so-good feelings of being watched while I was there. Then another door to a closet in one of the side bedrooms on the third floor slammed shut when I looked in the room. I investigated it anyway and discovered it was solidly bolted and blocked shut.

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

Yvonne hard at work in her third-floor studio. Photo by Sephera Giron.

YN: I didn’t do much creatively during my first visit, except take a lot of photos and write a few blog posts. The first time I saw the atrium on the third floor, though, I wished I had brought my paints. I knew that if we ever came back, I would. I wondered how the house would react to someone who wanted to do that but was being punished for it by someone else. Thus “Depictions” was born. (Editor’s note: for The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two, Yvonne wrote about actually painting alone on the third floor.)

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

YN: Absolutely! Wes and I have already confirmed that we’ll be there.

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

Photo of Yvonne by Rena Mason.

YN: Right now I’m contracted to write a novelette in a comic-based world, so I’ve been immersed in that up to my eyeballs. I’ve got a couple of novel pitches out in the world, and we’ll see what happens to those. I have ideas for a couple of different things that could each develop into multiple-book series. So many ideas, so little me!

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

The Haunted Mansion interviews: Kim Richards

Kim Richards, escorted by Wiliiam Gilchrist, at the Haunted Mansion. Photo by Dan Weidman.

Kim Richards is an editor, author, and small press publisher. Born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico, she presently lives in Northern California with her husband and two feline supervisors. Kim found both Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreats very inspirational and fun. She contributed short stories to both volumes of the Haunted Mansion Project.

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

KR: I’ve never had paranormal experiences, outside of feeling a protective (angelic) presence when I was young and during my second marriage, which was abusive. Thank God, I have a wonderful husband now. I do get premonitions, as my great grandmother called them, where I feel something happening to someone or is about to happen to someone.

Q: Have you ever ghost-hunted anywhere else?

KR: A few years back, my husband’s company sent him to Boston for a year. I went to visit him and we did a ghost/cemetery tour in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We picked up quite a few orbs in photos. We also did a ghost tour of Gettysburg the year we went to Horrorfind.

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

KR: The first year, I thought I heard someone walking between the beds in the middle of the night. I didn’t see anything, though. Now, I wonder if what I heard was the person rooming next to me walking around in his room. I’ll never know for sure.

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

KR: During Year One of the retreat, someone told us hippies lived on the property in the Sixties. Then during Year Two, I listened to Dan talk about his possession experience. The depth of his belief was so profound to me. I wondered if it were possible to create an evil entity just by believing strongly it existed. I combined the two elements and wrote “Manifestation.” It’s a story set in the Sixties where a young man—suffering from PTSD (yeah, I know they didn’t call it that back then) from the Vietnam War—tries to join a hippie commune. What his fear and anxiety create threatens them all. I had a lot of fun with this story.

Kim and Sephera Giron, photographed by William Gilchrist.

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

KR: Oh, yes. William and I have already paid for it.

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

KR: 
I have several novels in various stages of revision. I’ve hesitated to publish them through our own company for fear of putting a self-pub stigma on my authors. However, I’ve come to realize I was only getting in my own way. I plan to finish these up, polish them up, and submit them to our acquisitions editor. We’ll see what happens from there.

I also have a novel I started the first year of the Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat that I want to finish up. It’s based on the same time period as the actual house and is about the creation of a haunted mansion from the ground up. It starts with workers dying during the construction. I’m learning a lot of Northern California history from the research.

Keep up with her at www.kim-richards.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kim_Richards

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kim.richards.3517

Blog: http://kim-richards.blogspot.com/

Damnation Books homepage: www.damnationbooks.com

You can follow the unfolding plans for the next Haunted Mansion Retreat here: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/.

The Haunted Mansion Interviews: Rena Mason, Fresh Blood

Photo of Rena Mason by Stacy Scranton.

Rena Mason attended her first Haunted Mansion Retreat in September 2012. She is a Sin City horror author of both short and long fiction. Nightscape Press released her debut novel, The Evolutionist, in March 2013. JournalStone Press published her most recent novella, East End Girls, in June. To learn more about Rena and her work visit her website: renamasonwrites.com or her blog or catch up with her on Facebook.

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

RM: Not really one I would consider substantial, with other witnesses.

Q: Have you ever ghost-hunted anywhere else?

RM: I have never actively “hunted” for ghosts before and will admit that I didn’t actively “hunt” any while at the Mansion, either.

Weston checking Rena’s sweater for residual energy. Photo by Lisa Morton.

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

RM: The spookiest thing that happened to me at the Mansion was sitting next to William, who was “cleaning” up the ghost-hunting recordings and replaying them on his laptop. To actually hear “ghostly” voices speak clear words to questions they were asked made the tiny hairs all over my body tingle and stand on end.

There was another incident that occurred in the Mansion that changed the energy in the house one night. It wasn’t bad energy, it was just amplified energy, I guess, and that also creeped me out, because the energy felt like a “thing.”

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

RM: My story “Awkward” was inspired by the true story of what happened to me after the death of my younger sister in a car accident.

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

RM: I wouldn’t miss it for anything.

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

RM: I’m co-writing something that’s still a secret. I was also invited to write a story for the Las Vegas Writes anthology, something they publish in conjunction with the annual Vegas Valley Book Festival. I am also rewriting the first story in a series I will be pitching later this year.

Information on the 2015 Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/2013/06/official-dates-for-haunted-mansion.html

The Haunted Mansion interviews: S.G. Browne

Polaroid taken by Rain Graves at the Mansion, in case Scott vanished.

S.G. Browne is a two-time survivor of the Haunted Mansion Retreat and a contributor to both volumes of The Haunted Mansion Project. He is the author of the novels Breathers, Fated, Lucky Bastard, and I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus: dark comedies and social satires with a supernatural edge. He also has an eBook collection, Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel, which contains ten twisted tales. He’s an ice cream snob, a Guinness aficionado, and a sucker for It’s a Wonderful Life. You can learn more about his books at http://sgbrowne.com.

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

SGB: No, never. I knew a lot of others who had paranormal experiences, even family members who had encountered ghosts, but I was still waiting for my turn.

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

SGB: This past year, 2012, I didn’t personally experience anything spooky, though I witnessed others having spooky things happen to them. But the first year, in 2010… On the first night, as I lay in bed attempting to fall asleep, the air around me seemed to grow thicker and heavier, but when I opened my eyes, there was nothing but the bedroom. This happened a couple of times. The third time it happened, around four in the morning, as I turned on to my right side to try to sleep in spite of my snoring roommate, something started shaking my left shoulder, as if trying to wake me up. I opened my eyes and saw the air in front of me shimmering.

Although the room was dark, there was enough ambient lighting for me to see everything clearly. Something was standing beside my bed. Problem was, I couldn’t look up to see if it had a face. And when I opened my mouth to call out, or just say “Hey,” nothing came out. Not even a squeak. I was petrified. Eventually, either I managed to break the spell or my visitor stopped. I sat up and looked around the room and shouted, “Mother fucker!”

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

SGB: I don’t think there was one thing that inspired the story (Editor’s note: It’s called “Spooked”), though I remember the fear that goes through me whenever my phone rings in the middle of the night, waking me up from a deep slumber. Middle of the night phone calls are never good. So it started with that before taking a decidedly Lovecraftian haunted house turn.

Writers hard at work: Stacey Graham, S.G. Browne, Weston Ochse, Dan Weidman, and Sephera Giron. Photo by Kim Richards.

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

SGB: That’s the plan. I think I’ll sleep in the same room as in 2010 and see if I can tempt fate.

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

SGB: My fourth novel, Big Egos, comes out on August 6. It’s a dark comedy and social satire about identity and what happens when you constantly pretend to be someone you’re not.

You can connect with Scott here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SGBrowneAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/s_g_browne

You can keep up with plans for the next Haunted Mansion Retreat here: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/