Authors Electric

  No Artificial Intelligence Was Used In the Creating of These Books. Just Saying...  Hauntings Overheard in a Graveyard Nightcomers In a week's time, it's Hallowe'en. The night before All Saints' Day, when all the bogles, ghouls, boggarts, ghosts, night-walkers, bargeists, phantom ladies of many colours, not to mention the long-leggety beasties, come out for a big celebration before the Christmas season begins. Because, famously, at Christmas the bird of dawning kicks up a tiresome racket all night long and no spirit dares stir abroad, no fairy takes and no witch hath power to charm. So the Supernatural Community has to get all its jollies before then.  Hallowe'en, seemingly, is the office Christmas party for the undead. M. R. James (wikimedia) But remember: Ghosts aren't just for Christmas. I've always been ready for a ghost story at any time of the year. The great M. R. James wrote a particuarly chilling one, The Wailing Well , set on Midsummer Day, in br...

Hauntings  A week to Hallowe'en — party night for ghosties, ghoulies and witches. I don't believe in ghosts. Of course I don't. I'm far too rational. I just write about them. My parents didn't believe in them either. They were adamant about that. "There's no such thing as ghosts. Go to sleep." Except my mother would sometimes tell me about the house where I was born, which she hated. It had no water indoors and no bathroom. You had to go over 'the track' to the wash-house for water and walk to the end of the row for the toilets. No electricity in the house either, though it did have gas. But none of these were her reasons for hating it. She'd never lived in a house that was any better equipped. She hated it because it was haunted. My Dad often worked late, so Mom spent many evenings alone. She'd always loved reading, so she'd curl up in a corner of their third-hand sofa, with her library book, and her cat, Tiny, purring on her lap. ...

Thanks. Obliged. Hallowe’en, yeah? Going to hang up your furry spiders and plastic skulls, eh? ‘Cos tonight’s the night graves open and give forth their dead. Ghosts on Hallowe’en? Get off. You can see ghosts any night of the week. Oooh, it’s behind you! And in front of you, and alongside you and following you up the stairs. Never seen a ghost? Well, you’ve never been homeless, have you? Never slept in a nice, comfy doorway. Except you don’t sleep. Too cold. Too dangerous. You doze, off and on, all night. Wake up with a jump every few minutes. Half-sleep is the best you get. A few nights like that strips something away. And you see the ghosts. They walk past you, walk around you, walk up and down the street, across the street, in and out of doors... They stop by your doorway and stand there and stare at you. And then walk on. No wonder they say ghosts ‘walk.’ They walk all right. Day and night. Go sleepless for a few nights and you see ‘em. You see ‘em in broad dayligh...