November 2019 Group Read of MIDNIGHT IN THE GRAVEYARD with 25 Guest Authors

[Kenneth]

I've had many encounters, some more frightening than others. I was once lying in bed when a shadow person came out from behind my door and started strangling me. I nearly didn't walk away from that. Also had a glowing red dot come after a handful of us while up in a hay loft at a haunted house. It kept getting bigger and bigger, then all the bales of hay behind us exploded into the air. My buddy seemed temporarily possessed afterward, as he drove his car through a cornfield. Most aren't so scary, but those two stick out.

Hope you all are enjoying the stories.

[Latasha]

That’s s great Alan, I love that. I’m from TN too but I think I was almost 10? Or so before I heard about the Bell Witch. I’m from the other end of the state.
Shadow ppl are SCARY AF. That’s a big NO NO NO from me. Those and black eyed kids scare me worst of all. And samara.

[Ronald]

Alan wrote: "Jon Recluse wrote: "I wouldn't mess with the Bell Witch...she has attitude.

My ghost is my furry little brother. I hear his collar jingle. And I'm not the only one who does"

Oh, we Tennesseans kn..."

Amen to that, brother! My grandmama told me tales of the Witch that would raise gooseflesh! Tennessee is rich and plentiful when it comes to haints and critters best left out of sight and mind.

[Melanie]

Alan wrote: "Jon Recluse wrote: "I wouldn't mess with the Bell Witch...she has attitude.

My ghost is my furry little brother. I hear his collar jingle. And I'm not the only one who does"

Oh, we Tennesseans kn..."

I'm not familiar with the bell witch, can you tell me who she is or rec a book about her?

[Melanie]

Kenneth wrote: "I've had many encounters, some more frightening than others. I was once lying in bed when a shadow person came out from behind my door and started strangling me......

Holy crap Kenneth, that's terrifying? Are you serious?

[Alan]

Kenneth wrote: "I've had many encounters, some more frightening than others...."

I am enjoying them. Currently reading Mr. McKinley's "Glimmer Girls."

[Alan]

Ronald wrote: "Haints..."

I love that expression, Ron. "Haints" is what we often called ghosts. Do they call them that outside of the South?

[Alan]

Melanie wrote: "I'm not familiar with the bell witch, can you tell me who she is or rec a book about her?..."

It's difficult to sum it all up in a chat. There's so much and it's so weird. If you google "Bell Witch Wikipedia" you'll find an article that will give you a start. It's hard to say if the Bell Witch is a poltergeist or a sorcerer of some kind. It seems more like a spirit that cannot rest or a demonic presence, but without all the usual, modern Christian trappings. There are some good books, particularly the one written by Charles Bailey Bell The Bell Witch of Tennessee.It is my favorite. If you'll look at that article, then ask questions a discussion on the subject would work better. It'll give you a rough background on the material.

[Kenneth]

Melanie wrote: "Holy crap Kenneth, that's terrifying? Are you serious?"

Yep. The shadow people story is in a novella I'm currently shopping around, but for weeks before the shadow person showed up (the did so several times), this stuffed gorilla the previous home owners left behind kept opening my closet and creeping across my floor most nights. At 10, I was terrified. So that novella holds a special place in my heart, with about 1/3 of it being based off those stories.

As for the hayloft, it's this local place called The Gates of Hell (one of the 7 gates around Chester County, PA. They talk about it in Weird Pennsylvania, but this was during college. A buddy and I had dates we took there to drink a couple 6 packs. This is shortly after those points lasers came out, so I didn't think much of the red dot until it started floating through the air.

When those bales exploded, I leaped down from the loft and nearly broke my ankle. Everyone else went down the wooden ladder, which broke on the way down. Then my buddy got in his car and drive us through a cornfield, all the while with me fighting him for the steering wheel. Beat the heck out of his hood. Once we jumped onto the main road, he had no memory of it.

I've lived in two haunted houses, and I've had ghosts in three others, but most of that was minor compared to those two. Stuff like hearing someone say something or seeing a door knob go up and down. Oh, and at the first one, I was only four. Lightning stuck my window and formed a skeleton. And another time a giant ghost dog jumped through the window (the inspiration for my story). Stuff like that.

Hmm, I should write more ghost stories.

[Kenneth]

Alan wrote: "I am enjoying them. Currently reading Mr. McKinley's "Glimmer Girls.""

It's a good one.

[Ronald]

Alan wrote: "Ronald wrote: "Haints..."

I love that expression, Ron. "Haints" is what we often called ghosts. Do they call them that outside of the South?"

I'm not sure what the slang term for a ghost is up North, Alan. I do remember my grandparents referring to them as "haints" or "boo-hags" or "boo-daddys". I remember that my grandpa on my mother's side painted his front and back doors a peculiar shade of greenish-blue... almost an aqua color. Pappy claimed that a haint wouldn't cross the threshold of a blue door. It wasn't until years later that I came across that same shade of greenish-blue paint at a Sherwin Williams in Nashville and, low and behold, it was named "Haint Blue". After a little research, I found that it was a common shade for windows, porches, and doors in the South, believed to repel wandering spirits from entering a residence. I don't see much of it anymore in Tennessee, but I hear it's still popular in the deep South (South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana).

[Jon Recluse]

I don't think we have slang terms for ghosts in New York.....and I lived in walking distance of 14 cemeteries.

[M.E.]

Ronald wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm not sure what the slang term for a ghost is up North, Alan. I do remember my grandparents referring to them as "haints" or "boo-hags" or "boo-daddys". I remember that my grandpa on my mother's side painted his front and back doors a peculiar shade of greenish-blue..."

Thanks Ronald. All of that was new to me and very interesting.

An interesting, if slightly less than professional, video on haint blue paint...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im4qk...

[Kenneth]

Ronald wrote: "'Haints' is what we often called ghosts. Do they call them that outside of the South?"

Interesting, Ron.

[Ronald]

M.E. wrote: "Ronald wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm not sure what the slang term for a ghost is up North, Alan. I do remember my grandparents referring to them as "haints" or "boo-hags" or "boo-daddys". I remember tha..."

Thanks, @M.E. That was interesting. It looks like the home interior/exterior crowd has taken an obscure folklore practice and ran with it (like the shiplap craze). In Pappy's way of thinking, though, it was more of a precaution than a decoration.

Another thing I remember them saying often was "... running like a scalded haint." Even as a child, I thought that was a bit nonsensical since how the hell can you scald a ghost?

[Elizabeth]

Alan wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Alan wrote: "No, but not for lack of trying. Been to the Bell property—of Bell Witch fame—in the near-ghost town of Adams, TN. Living in Nashville for many years, about an hour so..."

Great photo of the well, Alan. Gave me chills!! And yeah, the Bell Witch stuck in my brain, and so I had to do something with her eventually! Here's the book: https://www.amazon.com/Ameri-scares-T...

[Allan]

Kenneth wrote: "Question for all of the authors:

The ghost story is considered the oldest form of horror story. Have any of you had real life ghost experiences?"

When I was a college student, I spent a couple of summers house-sitting in Kennebunk, Maine. The house in question had partially burned about fifteen years earlier, so roughly half of it was new and modern and the other half was over two hundred years old.

I was sleeping upstairs one night when I heard what I was CERTAIN was someone moving around on the first floor. I tried to ignore it, but I kept hearing the floor creak down there as if someone was pacing. Back and forth, back and forth.

And it was like three o'clock in the morning, and I was living there by myself.

Finally I forced myself to get up. I had nothing to use as a weapon if an intruder was in the house, so I picked up a baseball bat and moved down the stairs as quietly as I could.

I'm sure you know what's coming: the downstairs was empty. Lights off, still as a...well, as a graveyard. I went room to room, opening closet doors and looking everywhere. Nobody was in the house.

I was so certain I'd heard someone moving around that I even checked the basement, which was nothing more than a dirt hole under the house. It was a creepshow in its own right.

Nothing.

This may not have been a ghost encounter in the traditional sense, but I know I heard something downstairs that night, and not just once. The creaking was virtually continuous for probably fifteen minutes. That happened forty years ago and I've never forgotten it.

I had one other inexplicable occurrence inside that house, but I've bored you enough for one day...

[Elizabeth]

Ronald wrote: "M.E. wrote: "Ronald wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm not sure what the slang term for a ghost is up North, Alan. I do remember my grandparents referring to them as "haints" or "boo-hags" or "boo-daddys". I..."

Love the term "boo-hags!" Hadn't heard that before.

[Catherine]

Kenneth wrote: "Question for all of the authors:

The ghost story is considered the oldest form of horror story. Have any of you had real life ghost experiences?"

Until last Christmas, I used to live in a haunted apartment in a building dating back to the mid eighteenth century. While I never actually saw the ghost in question, she made her presence felt by switching lights on, turning on the television, and a whole host of things. The day she messed with the washing machine was one for the records.

In another part of the same building, a white mist was caught on CCTV flashing across a room. While our ghost was benevolent, the one there was anything but. That part of the building housed a social club and a number of staff flatly refused to enter that room because they had experienced blatant malevolence along with things being thrown or tossed around. Quite scary.

[Alan]

Ronald wrote: "I'm not sure what the slang term for a g..."

That's really interesting. I haven't heard about that. Cool beans!

[Alan]

Jon Recluse wrote: "I don't think we have slang terms for ghosts in New York.....and I lived in walking distance of 14 cemeteries."

Me neither. My mother's family is from New York, New York City and Upstate New York, and I've never heard a slang term from them about ghosts or haunting.

[Alan]

Elizabeth wrote: "Here's the book..."

Thanks! THat's really cool.

[Alan]

Allan wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "When I was a college student..."

You have some interesting experiences with haints--yes you should write more ghost stories.

[Latasha]

My granny called them haints too. 🖤

[Melanie]

M.E. wrote: "Ronald wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm not sure what the slang term for a ghost is up North, Alan. I do remember my grandparents referring to them as "haints" or "boo-hags" or "boo-daddys". I remember tha..."

That was really interesting thanks M.E.

[Suzanne]

I am in Louisiana. The first time I heard the term I was at a Christmas party with fellow writers. Ernest Gains read us one of his short stories: The Haint. It was hilarious. There was no real ghost. It was only the guilt of a cheating man. I mostly hear the term used by older folks, often creole. Haint blue is very common in New Orleans.

[Char]

Kenneth wrote: "I have coordinated with the authors and we will be making up 5 Horror Book Boxes filled with signed copies of many of the contributing authors previous works along with some of their ebooks, as wel..."

WOW, Ken!

[Alan]

Catherine wrote: "Until last Christmas, I used to live in a haunted apartment in a building dating back to the mid eighteenth century...."

Rarely would anyone in the U.S. have the opportunity to live in an apartment building from the 18th century. Since structures are often the locus of hauntings, I think of them, especially old ones, as places that might anchor spirits to their past lives. A building from the 18th century has such a long history of people dwelling in it, the likelihood of a haunting seems that much greater. The atmosphere in old structures exerts an influence on my thinking, and I often find myself wondering about those who might have been there before me. While living in that building, did you experience any sense of those who lived there before you?

[Char]

I just finished the first story and I dug it. I dug it a lot! This read is gonna be fun. 🙂

[Jon Recluse]

Alan wrote: "Catherine wrote: "Until last Christmas, I used to live in a haunted apartment in a building dating back to the mid eighteenth century...."

Rarely would anyone in the U.S. have the opportunity to l..."

Some old places do have an unsettling atmosphere, but I've had the same feeling outdoors....the woods on Mount Kearsarge, New Hampshire had a few spots that got me backpedaling pretty fast.

[Elizabeth]

Got my copies of Midnight in the Graveyard! Now for some delicious Halloween reading! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

[Alan]

Elizabeth wrote: "Got my copies of Midnight in the Graveyard!"
Me too! What a hefty volume full of good writing!

[Ronald]

Silver Shamrock really did an incredible job with this one. I love big door-stopper books packed full of ghostly goodness! Sitting down and heading into the Graveyard right now...

[Kelli]

Kenneth wrote: "Question for all of the authors:

The ghost story is considered the oldest form of horror story. Have any of you had real life ghost experiences?"

I have had many experiences and lived in three haunted houses. Although I'm a giant chicken and only have "flight" in my flight-or-fight index, only one ever truly felt threatening—and we moved out of the house because of it.

The one I lived in as a child had a figure in the attic window (among many other things) that drove us kids crazy to the point that we bravely split up one day to get to the bottom of it. As I stood on the street and watched, my sister ran up to that window and waved her arms through the figure, through, where they would get dim, fuzzy or vanish momentarily. Meanwhile, my ten-year-old self is freaking out on the sidewalk screaming for her to get out of there. A couple years ago, while visiting the old home town, I drove my boyfriend over to show him the house only to find it had been torn down. We spent the evening with my family pondering what happens to ghosts when their houses are taken away, especially this one who lived on the third floor?! I recently explored that question in a short story.

My current house is haunted and many visitors have told us their experience in "did you know?!" fashion, to which we smile and tell them the rest...

[Char]

Kelli wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "Question for all of the authors:

The ghost story is considered the oldest form of horror story. Have any of you had real life ghost experiences?"

I have had many experiences and l..."

All of these experiences are pretty freaking scary, if you ask me. Which no one did, but still...
Kelli, what was the short story you wrote about the now homeless third floor ghost?

[Char]

Also, I read the first story yesterday- DEVIL'S DIP.
Bravo to Shannon Felton, if you're here! I loved it!

Yes, yes...I started early. Sue me. ;)
(I had an unexpected DNF on the collection I was reading prior to this anthology, so I slid this one into its place.)

[Shannon]

Char wrote: "Also, I read the first story yesterday- DEVIL'S DIP.
Bravo to Shannon Felton, if you're here! I loved it!

Yes, yes...I started early. Sue me. ;)
(I had an unexpected DNF on the collection I was r..."

Char wrote: "Also, I read the first story yesterday- DEVIL'S DIP.
Bravo to Shannon Felton, if you're here! I loved it!

Yes, yes...I started early. Sue me. ;)
(I had an unexpected DNF on the collection I was r..."



I'm here! Thanks, Char. Thats so awesome, I'm glad you liked it! :)

[Justin]

I've seen this being promoted a ton on Facebook. It looks and sounds good and has so many great authors.

[Catherine]

Alan wrote: "Catherine wrote: "Until last Christmas, I used to live in a haunted apartment in a building dating back to the mid eighteenth century...."

Rarely would anyone in the U.S. have the opportunity to l..."

Hi Alan. We did feel the presence of a woman. She seemed to be a benevolent, kindly soul who wasn't always there but visited from time to time. Although a little spooky, we never felt threatened or frightened by her

[Alan]

"Catherine wrote: "...Although a little spooky, we never felt threatened or frightened by her..."

Rarely would anyone in the U.S. have the opp..."

Sounds fun... I've always preferred the creepy edge of horror over the grotesque or violent.

[Jon Recluse]

I am seriously loving this book.

[Catherine]

Alan wrote: ""Catherine wrote: "...Although a little spooky, we never felt threatened or frightened by her..."

Rarely would anyone in the U.S. have the opp..."

Sounds fun... I've always preferred the creepy e..."

I love strange things hiding in dark shadows...

[Catherine]

Jon Recluse wrote: "I am seriously loving this book."

That is excellent news, Jon :)

[Kenneth]

Shannon, your story leads off and comes out of the gate swinging. It’s received some very nice praise, and rightfully so. Without giving away any spoilers, how did this story come about?

[Alan]

Jon Recluse wrote: "I am seriously loving this book..."

Glad to hear it!

[Shannon]

Kenneth wrote: "Shannon, your story leads off and comes out of the gate swinging. It’s received some very nice praise, and rightfully so. Without giving away any spoilers, how did this story come about?"

Thanks, Ken! I'm really glad people are enjoying it!

I was inspired by the actual Devil's Dip that my friends and I used to drive down, though I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly where that is. But mainly I wanted to explore the idea that horror stories are a form of escapism, which is about as much as I can say without spoiling anything.

[Alan]

Shannon wrote: "I was inspired by the actual Devil's Dip that my friends and I used to drive down..."

I just finished "Devil's Dip." Very creepy tale. Well done!

[Alan]

I also finished "The Glimmer Girls" last night. You really caught the mood of the old comics with that one, Ken. Great fun. A story that mixes the spooky with history wins my heart.

[Shannon]

Thanks, Alan!

[Kelli]

Char wrote: "Kelli wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "Question for all of the authors:

The ghost story is considered the oldest form of horror story. Have any of you had real life ghost experiences?"

I have had many exp..."

It's called Beneath the Tides, it's in a different antho that also just came out (sorry for invading this one with mention of that one!!)