INTERVIEW WITH HEADSTONES AUTHOR RAYNE HALL

 

Do you ever wander around cemeteries, read the inscriptions on strangers’ headstones, and wonder what their lives were like, how they died, what families they left behind?

 

Wandering around graveyards is one of my favourite activities when I’m travelling in foreign countries. It’s a great way to learn about the region’s history, culture and people in quiet, peaceful surroundings,. And the admission is free.

 

In my home country, Germany, headstones are often glossy fake marble, inscribed with conventional phrases, and the cemeteries are surrounded by thick hedges of dark yew.

 

In rural England, where I lived for many years, graveyards often surround medieval churches. A giant ancient yew-tree towers over the graves. Headstones tend to be old and grey, encrusted with yellow, white, green and orange lichen, and the chiselled inscriptions – those that haven’t eroded yet – reveal dates from the 1700s and 1800s, some of them with quirky comments.

 

In China, where I worked for a while, some graves are scattered over scenic hillsides with narrow vertical headstones. I enjoyed going for walks among the gently rolling hills, which horrified my Chinese friends who feared that I might meet malevolent ghosts. In other cemeteries, the headstones stand close together, because people are standing up to save valuable space.  I couldn’t read enough of the Chinese script to understand what the inscriptions said.

 

Here in Bulgaria where I live now, most headstones are made from white marble. Recent burials often have a photo of the deceased printed onto the marble surface, and there seems to be a one-upmanship about who has the biggest and most glamorous portrait on their headstone. Graves are adorned with plastic flowers in scarlet and pink. Among the headstones from the communist era, it’s interesting to spot those with a discreet cross engraved, usually in the upper left corner. During those days, religion wasn’t forbidden, but it was discouraged, so families sought a compromise between conforming with new social norms and honouring their parents’ beliefs.

 

What kind of headstone would you like on your grave? What inscription would you love?

 

Instead of a headstone, I’d love a tree planted on my grave.  Of course, this may not be practical or permitted, so I won’t demand it, and I won’t come back to haunt my executors if I don’t get what I want.

If I need a headstone at all, then the inscription ‘Rayne Hall, Author’ would be good.

 

Have you ever seen a ghost?

 

Yes, I’ve seen a ghost. This was about twenty-five years ago when I lived in the county of Kent in England.

 

One night after giving a presentation to a Women’s Institute,  I was driving home along a country road when I saw a young man walking towards me. In the brief time that I saw him, I thought he looked like a James Dean type,  a young man with a 1950s hairstyle, wearing an open short jacket.  He was staggering a little, as if drunk.

 

Suddenly he walked into the road, and right into my car. I swerved to the right to avoid him.

 

I didn’t feel an impact, so I assumed I must have missed him. But when I looked in the rear-view mirror, he wasn’t there – neither lying injured nor walking, neither by the roadside nor in the street.

That’s when it dawned on me that I had seen a ghost.

 

Had I imagined it? It was night, I may have been tired, the headlights may have created an illusion, and I as a writer, I have a vivid imagination.

 

But I’m sure my imagination would have come up with a more exciting than a rather boring, slightly drunk man from my own century. Surely my mind would have conjured up a headless woman in a Tudor gown, or a Roman centurion on a white horse.

 

After the experience, I contacted several paranormal researchers, but none of them was aware of a ghost haunting that road.

 

 

Describe your writing voice.

 

Gothic, atmospheric, creepy, vivid, suspenseful, lush.

 

 

How do you go about research for the fiction you write?

 

As far as possible, I try to experience everything myself, to give my stories authenticity.

 

I like to see the places, listen to the sounds, feel the ground under my feet, touch the surfaces, inhale the scents, observe every detail. My fiction is rich in atmosphere, and readers can feel the experience like they’re there.

 

For example, readers of my short story collection The Bride’s Curse: Bulgarian Gothic Ghost and Horror Stories feel like they are taking a journey to this beautiful, haunting country, learning about Bulgaria’s people, landscapes, history, traditions and dangers, all from the safety of their armchairs.

 

I once spent a night alone in a remote English graveyard to get the atmosphere right, listening to my feet crunching on the gravel path and the wind rustling the leaves, watching clouds waft across the pale moon, running my fingers across lichen-encrusted headstones, digging my bare fingers into the soil of a grave. The resulting short story is full of creepy, atmospheric details. It’s included in the anthology Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard. mybook.to/Headstones

 

The hero in one of my books (Storm Dancer, a dark epic fantasy novel) had a fetish for wrestling females, so I joined a mixed-gender wrestling group to get a feel for what that was like.

 

 

What do you like about the Gothic Fiction genre?

 

Both as a reader and as a writer, I love Gothic fiction, because it’s intensely emotional. It can explore all kinds of topics, even taboo subjects, and it can convey a strong moral message without sounding preachy. The location plays a big role, which feeds my passion for exciting, creepy settings.  Gothic fiction blends well with other genres, e.g. Gothic Historical, Gothic Thriller, Gothic Horror.  Gothic Horror is my favourite kind of horror because it thrills the reader with suspense rather than gore.

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rayne Hall writes fantasy, horror and non-fiction, and is the author of over seventy books. Her horror stories are more atmospheric than violent, and more creepy than gory.

Born and raised in Germany, Rayne has lived in China, Mongolia, Nepal and Britain. Now she resides in a village in Bulgaria. The country's ancient Roman ruins and the deserted houses from Bulgaria’s communist period provide inspiration for creepy ghost and horror stories.

Her lucky black cat Sulu, adopted from the cat rescue shelter, often accompanies her on these exploration tours. He delights in walking across shattered roof tiles, balancing on charred rafters and sniffing at long-abandoned hearths.

Rayne has worked as an investigative journalist, development aid worker, museum guide, apple picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, bellydancer, magazine editor, publishing manager and more, and now writes full time.  

Visit her website raynehall.com, or follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/RayneHall or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RayneHallAuthor.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

 

This book, edited by Rayne Hall, presents twenty-seven of the finest - and creepiest - graveyard tales with stories by established writers, classic authors and fresh voices.

 

Here you'll find Gothic ghost stories by Robert Ellis, Lee Murray, Greg Chapman, Morgan Pryce, Rayne Hall, Guy de Maupassant, Myk Pilgrim, Zachary Ashford, Amelia Edwards, Nina Wibowo, Krystal Garrett, Tylluan Penry, Ambrose Bierce, Cinderella Lo, Nikki Tait, Arthur Conan Doyle, Priscilla Bettis, Kyla Ward, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul D Dail, Cameron Trost, Pamela Turner, William Meikle and Lord Dunsany who thrill with their eerie, macabre and sometimes quirky visions.

 

You'll visit graveyards in Britain, Indonesia, Russia, China, Italy, Bulgaria, Thailand, USA, Australia, South Africa and Japan, and you can marvel at the burial customs of other cultures.

 

Now let's open the gate - can you hear it creak on its hinges? - and enter the realm of the dead. Listen to the wind rustling the yew, the grating of footsteps on gravel, the hoo-hoo-hoo of the collared dove. Run your fingers across the tombstones to feel their lichen-rough sandstone or smooth cool marble. Inhale the scents of decaying lilies and freshly dug earth.

 

But be careful. Someone may be watching your every movement... They may be right behind you.

 

Purchase Link: mybook.to/Headstones

The ebook is available for pre-order from Amazon at the special offer price of 99 cents until 31 January 2022. (After that date, the price will go up.)  The paperback is already published.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome Author Tylluan Penry and Learn How She Dealt With a Family Curse

Welcome Tylluan Penry to Darkling Delights, author of "The Legend of Merv the Swerve" in Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard. Read on to discover how she dealt with a family curse. 

Dealing with Ghosts and Curses

By Tylluan Penry

The first time I had to banish something was when I was about sixteen. An aunt came to stay with us on holiday. She took over my room, and I had to sleep on the floor in my parents’ room. Long story short, there was a family row (there were many of those during my childhood) and since both my mother and the aunt were witches of a particularly nasty disposition, it did not end well. My aunt placed a horrible curse on my father, and some of this invaded the rest of the house, too. People often don’t understand how curses can spread, so we ended up with whispering coming out of the walls, strange shadows, more footsteps than usual… there was a limit to what could be tolerated, even by us.

At that time, there were no books to help. My father’s friend (who was very interested in the occult) advised me to look for anything made of hair, skin, fur or even grass that the aunt could have left at our house. And it was then I discovered two important things: firstly, that yes, there was a native style picture using just those materials, that my aunt had hidden it amongst the books on the bookshelf, and secondly that it is possible to convey a hex on a tea towel. I kid you not. It can be done. And Auntie did it.

Worst of all however, was seeing how my aunt’s curse affected my father. His health went rapidly downhill after that, and nobody was willing to put two and two together and do anything about it. He quite literally shrank. My mother could make people fall on the forecourt of a local garage, and summon up all sorts of nasties when she wished, but she either could not or would not do anything about my father. 

So this, (and the tea towel, of course,) made me realise how important it was to deal with curses before they had chance to start working. They are more common than we think, and usually conveyed using rage and spite rather than elaborate ceremonial magic.

I wasn’t strong enough to save my father from that curse, but I did try. Afterwards I kept learning better methods, stronger defences, which was just as well because the hexes my mother sent my way were horrendous. One of them put me in hospital. I can’t describe what it feels like to have something like that burning into your back.

The odd thing was however, I was heavily pregnant at the time, and when my daughter was born, she had a birthmark on the exact same place on her back.  

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tylluan Penry is a pagan solitary witch who has devoted much of her life to teaching about the Craft. She was born and brought up in a family of witches (on her mother’s side) although all they ever did was hex. It was a horror story in its own right! When she managed to leave this tradition (and her family, though it wasn’t easy) she moved on to develop her own solitary path which she called ‘Seeking the Green.’ Over the years she has developed this further and written about many topics including Ice Age spirituality, the Anglo-Saxons, knot magic and magic on the breath.

She is married, has a large family, including grandchildren, dogs, and lives in a rather ramshackle home with an overgrown garden, together with ghosts, spirits and the Gentle Folk. There is a huge cemetery opposite her home which ought to be scary but is actually very serene and peaceful. She has always loved writing, and wrote her first (very) short story when she was six, soon progressing to full length stories. She has now written almost 30 books, both fiction and non-fiction. Most can be found here: https://shop.thewolfenhowlepress.com/

Some of her fiction is on Kindle under the name T P Penry. Her chapter in the anthology, ‘Among the Headstones’ is based firmly in Wales, with a smattering of golf balls, gravestones and the Highway Code. She has always believed that creepy stories need a good pinch of humour in order to work well (at least, in her experience.)

Tylluan also has a YouTube Channel, with over two hundred videos about solitary witchcraft here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48MN8sa7_lFsBX9v2ZAeAg/videos

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book, edited by Rayne Hall, presents twenty-seven of the finest - and creepiest - graveyard tales with stories by established writers, classic authors and fresh voices.

Here you'll find Gothic ghost stories by Robert Ellis, Lee Murray, Greg Chapman, Morgan Pryce, Rayne Hall, Guy de Maupassant, Myk Pilgrim, Zachary Ashford, Amelia Edwards, Nina Wibowo, Krystal Garrett, Tylluan Penry, Ambrose Bierce, Cinderella Lo, Nikki Tait, Arthur Conan Doyle, Priscilla Bettis, Kyla Ward, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul D Dail, Cameron Trost, Pamela Turner, William Meikle and Lord Dunsany who thrill with their eerie, macabre and sometimes quirky visions.

You'll visit graveyards in Britain, Indonesia, Russia, China, Italy, Bulgaria, Thailand, USA, Australia, South Africa and Japan, and you can marvel at the burial customs of other cultures.

Now let's open the gate - can you hear it creak on its hinges? - and enter the realm of the dead. Listen to the wind rustling the yew, the grating of footsteps on gravel, the hoo-hoo-hoo of the collared dove. Run your fingers across the tombstones to feel their lichen-rough sandstone or smooth cool marble. Inhale the scents of decaying lilies and freshly dug earth.

But be careful. Someone may be watching your every movement... They may be right behind you.

Purchase Link: www.mybook.to/Headstones

The ebook is available for pre-order from Amazon at the special offer price of 99 cents until 31 January 2022. (After that date, the price will go up.) A paperback is about to be published.

 

 

Greetings and Happy New Year!

Today, I'm interviewing Cameron Trost, author of "The Shortcut" in the upcoming anthology Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard. 

What are cemeteries like in the country where you live? 

As an Australian living in France, what strikes me is that cemeteries here are usually surrounded by a high wall with a gate that’s locked at night and they’re generally quite small. Australian cemeteries tend to be more open, perhaps with only a low wall or wrought-iron fence and they’re quite large and leafy. Other than that, I’m not sure Australian cemeteries have any particularly distinct characteristics. There are usually different sections for different religions or denominations, such as Catholic or Anglican. Crypts are perhaps less common here than in other countries. Most Australian cemeteries generally consist of simple headstones and slabs, often in the form of a cross or with an angel statue. Wherever possible, they’re situated on high ground, especially in areas prone to flooding. They’re busiest on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day or during a weekend ghost tour!

 

Has a real-life cemetery, grave or headstone ever inspired you to write a story?

In a way, every graveyard or cemetery I have ever visited probably feeds my imagination when it comes to writing a gothic tale or a creepy chapter set in such a place. There are the cemeteries I know in my hometown of Brisbane, like the rambling and leafy Toowong Cemetery, as well as famous sites like the Glasgow Necropolis, Père-Lachaise, the Venetian island of San Michele, and the catacombs of Saint Sebastian in Rome. I’ve seen the burial sites of countless English kings and historic figures from Leonardo da Vinci to Jimmy Morrison. However, the cemetery that has played the most direct role in inspiring a story is the one in the ghost town of Walhalla, which is in Victoria, Australia. This former gold-mining town is a lovely place to go camping and hiking today, but the gravestones planted into the steep side of hill along the only road into the town are a stark reminder of Walhalla’s sad history. Disease and mining disasters claimed the lives of many of the town’s inhabitants, and a heartbreaking number of headstones bear the names of infants and children. The chilling effect this cemetery had on me was part of the inspiration behind my mystery novella, The Ghosts of Walhalla, which features private investigator, Oscar Tremont.

What do you like about the Gothic Fiction genre?

I love the suspense, the creepiness, the chill it sends up your spine. It’s all about creating a dramatic setting and atmosphere, quirky and disturbing characters, and a story that absolutely has to end with a twist or clever back reference. I particularly like it when the roles of hero and villain are played with, blurring the lines. 

 

Who are your favourite Horror authors? What do you like about them?

There are so many, and a number of them are in this anthology with me, which is an honour. I’ve been following the work of Greg Chapman for years and also love Lee Murray and Kyla Ward’s work. Needless to say, I’m eager to discover all the contributions. The classics horror writers included are among my favourites—I’ve even written stories inspired by fiction penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Guy de Maupassant (both Oscar Tremont mysteries) and there’s more than a hint of Poe, Bierce, and Dunsany in my work. Most of my favourite horror writers tend to be British, perhaps because their writing style and the settings used appeal to me. Charles Birkin, Joan Aiken, Robert Westall, Christopher Fowler, Graham Masterton, Ramsey Campbell, Guy N. Smith, and Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes are some of the most notable names. I am, however, interested in discovering new talent, and am proud to have published the work of numerous authors who deserve more attention than they get through my publishing project, Black Beacon Books.

 

Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard, is an anthology edited by Rayne Hall, bringing together stories by different authors writing exploring the same theme. What do you personally, as a reader, like about anthologies?

First of all, I love short stories and really can’t understand why novels seem so much more popular. There’s no room for distraction and fluff. Just as a fine dram of whisky is ruined by pouring cola into it, an excellent short story can be ruined by being “stretched out” to novel length. Of all my favourite authors, I can’t think of a single one who has written a novel that is superior to their best short stories, and that includes Agatha Christie, known predominantly for her impressive range of mystery novels. The advantage of the anthology over the collection is that it enables the reader to discover a number of authors in one book and as is the case in this anthology, the reader can choose an anthology in which all the tales share a common theme.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cameron Trost is an author of mystery and suspense fiction best known for his puzzles featuring Oscar Tremont, Investigator of the Strange and Inexplicable. He has written two novels, Letterbox and The Tunnel Runner, and two collections, Hoffman’s Creeper and Other Disturbing Tales and The Animal Inside. Originally from Brisbane, Australia, Cameron lives with his wife and two sons near Guérande in southern Brittany, between the rugged coast and treacherous marshlands. He runs the independent publishing house, Black Beacon Books, and is a member of the Australian Crime Writers Association. You can find out more about him at https://camerontrost.com and read more of his strange and creepy tales by grabbing a copy of his latest collection, The Animal Inside.

 

Social media

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

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/camerontrost

Twitter: https://twitter.com/trost_cameron

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camerontrost_author/

 

 

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard edited by Rayne Hall, presents twenty-seven of the finest - and creepiest - graveyard tales with stories by established writers, classic authors and fresh voices.

Here you'll find Gothic ghost stories by Robert Ellis, Lee Murray, Greg Chapman, Morgan Pryce, Rayne Hall, Guy de Maupassant, Myk Pilgrim, Zachary Ashford, Amelia Edwards, Nina Wibowo, Krystal Garrett, Tylluan Penry, Ambrose Bierce, Cinderella Lo, Nikki Tait, Arthur Conan Doyle, Priscilla Bettis, Kyla Ward, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul D Dail, Cameron Trost, Pamela Turner, William Meikle and Lord Dunsany who thrill with their eerie, macabre and sometimes quirky visions.

You'll visit graveyards in Britain, Indonesia, Russia, China, Italy, Bulgaria, Thailand, USA, Australia, South Africa and Japan, and you can marvel at the burial customs of other cultures.

Now let's open the gate - can you hear it creak on its hinges? - and enter the realm of the dead. Listen to the wind rustling the yew, the grating of footsteps on gravel, the hoo-hoo-hoo of the collared dove. Run your fingers across the tombstones to feel their lichen-rough sandstone or smooth cool marble. Inhale the scents of decaying lilies and freshly dug earth.

 But be careful. Someone may be watching your every movement... They may be right behind you.

Purchase Link: mybook.to/Headstones

The ebook is available for pre-order from Amazon at the special offer price of 99 cents until 31 January 2022. (After that date, the price will go up.)  A paperback will follow.

 

A Publishing Milestone

This month, I finally achieved something I'd been wanting to do for the past two years. I self-published my first collection of short dark suspense stories on Amazon, both for Kindle and the upcoming print edition. Malice and Mayhem: Tales of the Macabre are eleven stories, five previously published, that deal with how strong emotions like jealousy, obsession, and vengeance can often have detrimental, even deadly consequences.

I noticed that many of my characters, both in my short stories and in my longer works, are often seeking vengeance or are obsessed with wanting something, no matter how dangerous it might be. In "Obsession," Corinne cannot get over the fact her dead ex-boyfriend had a girlfriend before her, and she's determined to use necromancy to find out who he loved more. In "Family Tradition," a cursed kris (wavy dagger) forces a young man to commit murder, and he finds getting rid of the weapon is a lot harder than he expected.

These stories are influenced by the dark suspense shows of my past, namely Thriller, Night Gallery, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The idea is not to slather the stories in gore for the sake of scaring readers, but to leave them feeling uneasy. (Although there are some graphic descriptions, the overall rating for the book would probably be 14 and up.)

You can find out more about Malice and Mayhem and read the entire first short story, "It's in Your Blood" by clicking here.

Sometimes, there's truth to the warning, "Be careful what you wish for..."