I was exposed to traditional Appalachian front-porch storytelling as a child, so that was already in my ancestral make-up. I’ve always liked mountain folklore and it’s natural to return to the ghosts, witches, and mythical creatures that have lived in these hills as long as people have. When I began writing fiction, those types of stories clicked better, both for me as a writer and the people who read them.
Do you have any other passions besides local history?
Sure, I’m interested in all forms of spirituality. I’m also a musician and a gardener, so I guess all my pursuits involve a little Zen. I like to swim, fish, and camp, though I am not a true outdoor enthusiast, more of an admirer. I can’t go too long with my laptop, the Internet, or coffee, when you get right down to it.
How did it come about that you started working for the newspaper?
I got my degree in video production and had worked in college radio. I was an announcer at a small AM station for a couple of years and decided since I wanted to be a writer, I might as well get paid for it. I was already writing fiction by then but it took a few years to hone my skills and voice.
Do you believe there is some reality to the supernatural stories that you hear and write about?
Of course there’s a reality. Perception is reality. Just because I don’t have definitive proof of ghosts doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And even if I showed you a piece of paper, a scientific formula that explained the physics of the afterlife, all I would be showing you is a piece of paper, and what kind of reality or “proof” is that? Science is just as much a belief system as religion. Atheists will vehemently disagree, but no one has indisputable proof that we do, in fact, exist. In my quantum worldview, there’s no dividing line, although I still try to pay my bills on time.
What got you interested in the paranormal?
I think it’s my own spiritual quest, the search, the grappling with faith. What does it mean? The Big It. The Big If. Why are we here and what happens to us after we die? What’s the point, both of my life individually and our collective lives? I think anybody who doesn’t wonder those things is incredibly boring or completely shut off from any deeper examination of the miracle and magic of consciousness.
Have you ever had an experience that you would classify as paranormal? If so, please explain.
I’m not so sure, because experiences are driven by perception and then almost immediately reshaped by memory or wishful thinking, and I’d have to know what sort of rules the question falls under. I had an out-of-body experience once. I’ve felt and heard unusual things, but I’ve never seen anything that would make me swear in court that I had seen a ghost. Like most people, I’ve had experiences that were too weird to be coincidental, and too many odd things happen for me to believe that what we see is the sum of all there is. Just as there are ranges of sound vibration our ears can’t detect and spectra of light our eyes can’t see, there’s no reason there can’t be electromagnetic radiation levels that we can’t measure or understand.
Would you say that to get an accurate depiction of regional history a writer should try to include local folklore and ghost stories? If so, explain why.
It would depend on the type of book and the writer’s intent, of course. But certainly the beliefs of the people will be critical to creating an acceptable setting. Fiction has to be truer than real life. You can argue that many religions are both folklore and ghost stories, and you’d be hard pressed to write a book that didn’t refer to the religious beliefs of any of the characters. Such a book would ring hollow.
What would you hope people got from your book(s)?
I hope they would reflect on the quest for faith, for the bigger reasons and bigger questions. I want to do more than entertain, but if all somebody wants is a good scare, that’s fine, too. I don’t feel any need to convert anybody to my way of thinking, because I know my head can be a pretty twisted place. But it has its moments.
Bibliography
Thank You For the Flowers:
Stories of Suspense & Imagination
Featuring: Haunted (First Runner Up, 1999 Darrell Award), The Vampire Shortstop (1999 Hubbard Gold Award Winner), Constitution, Metabolism (recommended for Nebula Award), Homecoming, Dead Air, The Three-Dollar Corpse (recommended for Stoker Award), Thirst, Skin, In the Heart of November, Do You Know Me Yet?, Kill Your Darlings and The Boy Who Saw Fire.
For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.
Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother's
It falls from the heavens and crashes to earth in the remote southern Appalachian Mountains.
The alien roots creep into the forest, drawn by the intoxicating cellular activity of the humus and loam. The creature feeds on the surrounding organisms, exploring, assimilating, and altering the life forms it encounters. Plants wilt from the contact, trees wither, animals become deformed monstrosities, and people..
People become something both more and less than human.
A contaminated moonshine still causes the first exposure when a
ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, "Free me." Now people are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall's return.
The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.
"Sacrifice is the currency of God," McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.
bootlegger touches a tendril of mildew. Then a deer hunter crosses paths with an infected drunk and the alien influence spreads. More residents of the rural town of Windshake turn up missing as sinister creatures shamble through the dark alleys and woods.
Tamara Leon is a psychology professor who sometimes sees the future, but no one acknowledges her clairvoyant gifts, especially her husband. When the strange phrase shu-shaaa enters her mind, she senses a telepathic force that threatens her family and the entire world. Her telepathy is a mental mirror: the more she allows the creature into her mind, the deeper her empathy, and the deeper its understanding of the human species.
Chester Mull, a mountain dirt farmer, is suspicious of the green glow up on the ridge, and he doesn’t take kindly to trespassers. His neighbor Herbert DeWalt is a reclusive millionaire whose spiritual search has led him nowhere. Kyle Emerland is an ambitious developer who wants to turn the mountains into a playground of ski resorts and condominiums.
The trio teams up with Tamara on a mission into the forest to face the alien in its secluded cave. Chester draws his courage from corn liquor and a twelve-gauge, DeWalt acts out of a desperate fear of failure, Emerland is driven by greed, and Tamara has no choice but to communicate with the powerful presence that has invaded their lives.
The alien doesn’t want to destroy the world. It only wants to survive. But so do the people whose metabolism has become food for an otherworldly reaper.
The Manor
After parapsychologist Anna Galloway is diagnosed with metastatic cancer, she has a recurring dream in which she sees her own ghost. The setting of her dream is the historic Korban Manor, which is now an artist’s retreat in the remote Appalachian Mountains. Drawn both by the ghost stories surrounding the manor and her own sense of destiny, Anna signs up for the retreat.
Sculptor Mason Jackson has come to Korban Manor to make a final, all-or-nothing attempt at success before giving up his dreams. When he becomes obsessed with carving Ephram Korban’s form out of wood, he questions his motivation but is swept up in a creative frenzy unlike any he
has ever known.
Sylva Hartley is an old mountain witchwoman who is connected to Ephram Korban both before and after his death. Her knowledge of Appalachian folk spells and potions has bound her to the manor in a deeper and darker way. Sylva harbors a family secret that refuses to stay slumbering in its grave.
The manor itself has secrets, with fires that blaze constantly in the hearths, portraits of Korban in every room, and deceptive mirrors on the walls. The house’s brooding atmosphere affects the creative visions of the visiting artists. A mysterious woman in white calls to Anna from the forest, while Mason is driven by the whispers of an unseen critic. With an October blue moon looming, both the living and the dead learn the true power of their dreams.
It’s a power that Korban craves for himself, because he walks a shadowy land where passions burn cold and even the ghosts are haunted.
The Home
When twelve-year-old Freeman Mills arrives at Wendover, a group home for troubled children, it’s a chance for a fresh start. But second chances aren’t easy for Freeman, the victim of painful childhood experiments that gave him the ability to read other people’s minds.
Little does Freeman know that his transfer was made at the request of Dr. Richard Kracowski, whose research into the brain’s electrical properties is revealing new powers of the human mind. Kracowski is working for a secret society called the Trust, but also has his own agenda in exploring the nature of the soul. His experiments have an unexpected side effect, though. The
electromagnetic fields used in his experiments are summoning the ghosts of the patients who died at Wendover back when it was a psychiatric ward.
Freeman simply wants to survive, take his medicine for manic depression, and deceive his counselors into believing he is happy. When he meets the anorexic Vicky, who may also be telepathic, he’s afraid some of his darkest secrets will be uncovered. But when the other children develop their own clairvoyant abilities, and insane spirits begin haunting the halls of Wendover, he can’t safely hide inside his own head anymore.
Meanwhile, the Trust is installing sophisticated equipment in the home’s basement, aggressively probing the threshold between life and death. And they’ve brought in another scientist who doesn’t share Dr. Kracowski’s reluctance to push the limits.
This scientist is a pioneer in ESP induction, and he performed most of his work on a very special subject: his son, Freeman Mills.
The Farm
Katy Logan wasn’t quite sure why she left her finance career in the big city to marry religion professor Gordon Smith and move to the tiny Appalachian community of Solom.
Maybe she just wanted to get her 12-year-old daughter Jett away from the drugs and bad influences. Maybe she wanted to escape from the memories of her first husband. Or perhaps she was enchanted by the promise of an idyllic life on the farm that has been in Gordon’s family for 150 years.
But the move has been anything but stress-free, because the man she married seems more interested in the region’s rural Baptist sects than in his
new wife. The Smith family secrets run deep: Gordon teases Katy and Jett with a story about a wicked scarecrow that comes in from the fields at night to slake an unnatural thirst. Gordon’s great-grandfather was a horseback preacher who mysteriously disappeared while on a mission one wintry night, and some say a rival preacher did him in.
Gordon’s first wife Rebecca died under equally mysterious circumstances, and Katy’s starting to believe Rebecca’s spirit is still in the house. The scent of lilacs drifts across the kitchen, doors slam shut with no one else home, and the kitchen curtains flutter even when the windows are closed. Katy becomes obsessed with Rebecca’s recipes and clothes, and she finds herself driven to find out more about Rebecca to emulate her and therefore please Gordon. To make matters worse, Gordon’s herd of goats watches Katy every time she leaves the house, fixing their rectangular pupils on her as if waiting for some silent command.
Jett is worried about Mom, but she has worries of her own. A Goth girl in a rural elementary school, she gets teased for being different. She misses her dad, and feels guilty because her drug abuse forced Mom to enter a hasty marriage with Gordon. The pressure leads her back to drugs despite her promise to Mom. Now she fears the drugs are blowing her mind. She’s starting to hallucinate, and the goats, scarecrows, and a strange man in a black hat are all part of her madness.
But the residents of Solom know all about the man in the black hat. They whisper the legends around the pot-bellied stove at the general store, they pray for protection from him in their little white churches, they think about him as they gather hay, harvest corn, and work their gardens. The brave ones talk about him, believing him dead and buried, but nobody dares to utter his name.
The Reverend Harmon Smith has come back more than century after his last missionary trip, and he has unfinished business. But first Katy and Jett must be brought into the family, and the farm must be prepared to welcome him home. Gordon has been denying his heritage, but now it’s time to choose sides. Does he protect the ones he loves, or surrender to the ancestral urge for revenge?
In a wilderness gorge deep in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, the worst of the natural and supernatural worlds collide.
A crack adventure team is testing two experimental rafts, sponsored by an outdoor gear corporation. Led by Bowie Whitlock, the group plans a three-day run down 13 miles of the most treacherous whitewater in the eastern United States.
An FBI manhunt is underway in the gorge for Ace Goodall, a religious zealot wanted for a series of deadly abortion clinic bombings. Two agents, cut off from outside communication,
stumble onto Ace's camp, triggering an explosive trip wire. The blast opens an underground cavern, exposing a long-buried subterranean species to the surface world.
A freak storm floods the river as the creatures swoop down from the cliffs. Cut off from the outside world, at the mercy of the harsh wilderness, the group's only avenue of escape is almost as deadly as the creatures that attack them.
The group must ride the deadly rapids, but not everyone is interested in mutual survival.
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