A Glimpse of the Ghostly: Karen Keeley

The Black Beacon Book of Ghosts will send shivers up your spine this Halloween. The Kindle version is already available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads "want to read" list today. The anthology will be officially released on the 11th of October 2024. To get you in the mood and give you a little insight into the workings of their minds, our contributing authors are sharing their own haunting experiences with you. Read on, if you're not fainthearted!

Haunted place in Calgary

- Karen Keeley, July 2024

According to Calgary’s Most Haunted Places there are oodles of spots to go looking for ghosts and eerily creepy experiences. I’ve sat in the Stampede Grandstand, been to the Rose & Crown, the Fairmont Palliser Hotel and the Zoo Bridge. I’ve stood on the steps of the Knox United Church, had dinner at the Hose & Hound, and enjoyed a scrumptious meal at the Bow Valley Ranche. I’ve never personally experienced the unexplained but others have, according to the Calgary Guardian.

The Bow Valley Ranche is not far from where I live. The ranch itself dates back to the 1870s when it began as a cattle ranch. Subsequent owners came and went until the last, the Burns family, sold the lucrative business in the 1970s. The ranch and the land became part of Fish Creek Park, the second-largest urban park in Canada. The architecture of the main house is in the Queen Anne style with its gingerbread motif—steeply pitched gable roofs, towers and turrets, and large wrap-around front porch. The interior is brightly lit with its many chandeliers, crown moldings, charming tables and chairs. Meals are served on exquisite English bone China accompanied by authentic linen napkins and the best crystal. According to Wayne Meikle, a retired park planner, Charlie Yuen, a longtime cook at the ranch back in the day, was killed in a car accident in 1938. He wanted to be buried at the ranch. His wish didn’t come true. Instead, he was laid to rest in China but some people say his spirit still resides at the ranch. He’s the one responsible for the eerie happenings—dogs barking at something unseen, lights turning on and off despite the power having been disconnected, motion detectors setting off alarms, this happening when the building is empty.

I’ve had lunch at the ranch with its quaint Victorian appeal, a delightful outing with friends and family. Nothing eerie about any of it. The food, the drinks and the atmosphere were however, to die for.

Link to the article: https://calgaryguardian.com/calgarys-most-haunted-places/

A Glimpse of the Ghostly: Em Starr

The Black Beacon Book of Ghosts will send shivers up your spine this Halloween. The Kindle version is already available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads "want to read" list today. The anthology will be officially released on the 11th of October 2024. To get you in the mood and give you a little insight into the workings of their minds, our contributing authors are sharing their own haunting experiences with you. Read on, if you're not fainthearted!

The House in Charlotte Street

I often wonder if writers are literary conduits for the other side, like an antenna that's tuned in to the whispers of those who came before. If the muse is found by lifting the veil, glimpsing life through another's eyes, piecing together the jigsaw puzzle of a semi-shared reality—that would make us the ultimate ghost writers, right?! 

It's a theory that I'm yet to dismiss for two main reasons. First, when the muse visits it feels absolutely other-worldly. Second, because I believe in ghosts. I've lived in various haunted houses throughout my life. My first home in Newport was riddled with paranormal activity – my mother still talks about our house in Charlotte Street, that was always cold and had a foul smell no matter how much incense she burned; how the manhole was always open no matter how many times my father closed it, how she woke to a presence so strong by my cradle, she was too scared to breathe. I wonder if those spirits followed us to the next house, where I vividly remember my imaginary friend, Schuey, telling me his mother Magda wouldn't let him play. Was it a coincidence they both had Old Teutonic names, which, as a four year old, I'd never heard before? I'm pretty sure I was experiencing something supernatural. Look into the eyes of this kid and tell me she's not hanging with a ghost or two! 

Since then, I've seen shadowed figures in empty halls, felt breath on my face cold as winter, and fingers on my shoulder as real as my own, but nothing feels more "cross-connected" than tapping into a solid writing sesh. Who knows—maybe my story, Red Dirt, is the afterlife account of a real housewife from rural Australia, who has been waiting for her story to be told.

A Glimpse of the Ghostly: Leanbh Pearson

The Black Beacon Book of Ghosts will send shivers up your spine this Halloween. The Kindle version is already available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads "want to read" list today. The anthology will be officially released on the 11th of October 2024. To get you in the mood and give you a little insight into the workings of their minds, our contributing authors are sharing their own haunting experiences with you. Read on, if you're not fainthearted!

The True Haunting Behind The Spreading Rot

The Spreading Rot is a tale with a darker reality behind it. Firstly, I wish to acknowledge the suspected victims and those still unidentified and to the continued higher rates of violence committed against the LGBTQI+ and other marginalised communities to which I identify. It is to these hidden and unheard voices that I wish to be heard.

Between 1978 and 1983, a grisly series of murders committed by Dennis Nilsen, a Scottish serial killer who murdered between twelve and fifteen young men at two addresses, disposing of the bodies inside the floorboards, cupboards, drains and gardens in North London. The most disturbing factor for me about these murders was not just the dismemberment and disposal of the bodies, but the calm and almost casual manner Nilsen conducted his life and work around these murders and his subsequent confessions which were upfront, clearly without remorse in making "death his new flatmate" as he is reported to have written. 

The Spreading Rot is a haunted house story of a different kind, where the human monster is hidden in plain sight and where, among suburban life, what we see is but a mask for the darker side of humanity. Here, in the liminal place between what is thought to be true and what is true, there is a potential for that darkness, the fear of the unknown to be a haunting all if its own.

For reference to the crimes and still-oblique motivations of Dennis Nielsen there is the biography Killing for Company by Brian Masters. A later extensive retrospective account and self-analysis, the autobiography History of a Drowning Boy by Dennis Nilsen which was prohibited from publication during his lifetime.

Image Credit: https://www.penguin.com.au/books/killing-for-company-9781787466258

Leanbh Pearson (Any) lives on Ngunnawal Country in Canberra, Australia. An award-winning LGBTQI and disability author of horror and dark fantasy inspired by folklore, fairytales, myth, history and climate. Leanbh’s judged numerous awards, an invited panelist and avid book reviewer. Leanbh has been awarded ASA, AHWA and HWA mentorships and 2023 HWA Diversity Grant. Leanbh’s alter-ego is an academic in archaeology, evolution and prehistory. A museum devotee, insomniac and photography enthusiast, Leanbh is always aided by canine assistants.
https://linktr.ee/leanbhpearson