Latest / The WritersWeekly Podcast / Episode 60 – Did You Know BookLocker is Haunted? This is NOT a joke! Our SUPER SCARY 2026 Halloween Episode with Horror Expert Rickey Pittman!

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Episode 60 – Did You Know BookLocker is Haunted? This is NOT a joke! Our SUPER SCARY 2026 Halloween Episode with Horror Expert Rickey Pittman! · The WritersWeekly Podcast

0:01
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Writers Weekly Podcast.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: But for now, let's get on to this episode of the Writers Weekly Podcast.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: Hello again and welcome to another episode of the Writers Weekly Podcast, episode 60.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: This is our Halloween episode.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: We've survived another 10.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: This is the Halloween episode.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Brian Witten, host um well, host of the podcast and um managing editor of writersweekly.com.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: And with me, as usual, Angela Hoy.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: Who's always trying to be funny?
1:37
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it works.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Who's owner and C well owner of writersweekly.com and uh president CEO of Booklocker.com, a full service uh publishing company.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: And today we have with us again, now we've only had him once before, but we're really happy to have him back, Ricky Pittman, known as the Bard of the South.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna have him introduce himself in a minute.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: But first, I want to tell you there is still time to get your book on the market by Christmas if you sign up with Book Locker.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Now, Angie, you want to fill that in a little bit?
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: If you contact us in the next two weeks, we can still get your book on the market in time for Christmas shoppers.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: And we offer a$200 discount off our three publishing packages.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: The least expensive one is$975, and that's cover design, full formatting, interior formatting, full distribution, the works, ebook, everything.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: And the discount code is podcast200.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: When you sign up, if at the checkout uh screen, if you put in the discount code podcast200, you will get$200 off of your book publishing package.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that at your service package will only be$775.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: An awesome deal.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: And we we get rave reviews on that package.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, uh, we get rave reviews on all your package.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: I've been seeing a lot of stuff coming across the e-transome about how happy people are with our service.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, on with the show.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Ricky Pittman, known as the Bard of the South.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: He's a musician, he's a historian.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh I believe you're a college professor too, or something like that.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: And um, even better, and the reason he's with us today, he is a storyteller and a damn good one if I must say so myself.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: He's got some books on the market.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: And he's going to be sharing some stories with us today.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: But uh, Ricky, go ahead and uh give give the folks a little more detail than than I can about yourself.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: All right.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Um I uh, you know, um regarding this this episode, I am so excited because I love uh horror and I I try to share it with um students and also in my music shows and and things like that.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: But uh I am um adjunct instructor for two colleges uh for the University of Louisiana at Monroe and also Delta Community College, and I teach freshman composition, which is often brutal.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: But uh in fact, I had one student, uh, he said, Mr.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Pittman, I don't think I deserve this zero you gave me on my essay.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I don't either, but it's the lowest grade I could give you.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a challenge sometimes, but uh I enjoy it.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: It's good portable work.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: I can take it with me when I travel.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And like for example, I just got back from the uh Ozark Creative Writing Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and that was a great time.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And I've been to that uh event um at least 10 times, I think, um in their 60 years that they've been operating, and it it's it's a good connection.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't work Arkansas as much as I did a few years ago.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, but um, you know, it was nice to get up in in the mountains for a little bit.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: I know you live in the mountains, though.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: So it's beautiful.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: I um let's go ahead and get to my love of art.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: One uh one other thing.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you do have uh you are a musician and a lot of your music is historical in nature.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us uh a little bit about your records that you have out and where people can find your music?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh on um um my music is available on Spotify and Amazon and iTunes, and um I um my CDs I've made five, and I have another one that needs to be made as soon as I get a little more time and a little more production money.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and um I do Scots-Irish music, I do originals, I do um my last CD was almost all original music, and then I do um um old country music and old folk music, so I have quite a different um um song list, you know.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: I I probably have 400 or more songs that I can do and in my shows, and um, and of course, um I I do try to write my own music too.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: And uh I have a couple of songs um that I made that are really related to horror that came on my last CD.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: One is called Touched by Ghost, and my producer for that uh made a video of that um song that's really good, and it uh if you type in um and it's on uh Google and uh YouTube, and if you type in Ricky Pittman, Bard of the South plus video, plus Touched by Ghost, it'll it'll pop right up.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of a spooky video.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned that one because uh a film company here in um in Louisiana um that does uh horror movies wants to use that song in one of their upcoming movies.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: So I was very cool.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's cool.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome by that.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: The second song is the one my uh my latest producer, uh, when we worked on the CD, liked.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: It's called I'm gonna take you to the swamp.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: And uh that sounds like a fun date.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sounds like getting taken to the railroad station.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he says uh he threatens his wife with that song, you know, sometimes.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh um I haven't made a video for it yet, but I need to.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: I wish Booklocker made videos for songs.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure pay for that.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Um that's a lot of work.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh it sure is work.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, but um so I'm up to with Death and the Little Winter Moon.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: I think that brings me up to 19 books.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: It's incredible.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I got I have at least two more that I'm gonna funnel through booklocker uh in the future here.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've got uh another Western.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: This one was a Western sort of, and um then I've got um uh which I'm gonna talk about more, uh a collection of short fiction that's related to horror.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, so great.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about your your fondness of uh horror and scary stuff.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I know you're from you're you're now living in Louisiana, and uh a lot of a lot of spooky stuff comes from the Louisiana and the bayou.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: Got the voodoo stuff going on there.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Voodoo stuff down there, so yes.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Um that's one of my stories that's gonna I'm gonna include in my um short fiction book.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's called Voodoo Dreams.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I like to start with I like this epigraph.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I love, as Angela probably knows by now, I use epigraphs a lot in my uh books for the chapters, you know.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And I like this one uh on the subject of horror.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: We all go a little mad sometimes, and Norman Bates said that in Psycho.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, so and horror, I guess, is uh my little journey into madness, and I've loved it all my life.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: When I was younger, I would spend hours watching horror movie classics on our black and white TV.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: I was especially fond of The Wolf Man and Frankenstein.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: I would watch The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock, Outer Limits, um uh Thriller by Boris Karloff, Dark Shadows, The Monsters, Adam's Family.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And then as an adult, I went into watching um Elvira, you know, with starring Cassandra Peterson.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And in New Orleans, they have the Morgus the Magnificent.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: He was quite a local hero about horror station there on the local stations.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Tales from the crypt.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: I forget about that.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Did you ever watch?
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Did you ever watch Creature Feature?
9:58
SPEAKER_01: You remember that one?
9:59
SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: I can't recall watching it though, but I'm I'm sure I did.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: I saw that as a kid.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: And Tales from the Crypt, I love the way the Crypt Keeper laughs, you know.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Very good.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Um and and then uh, but in my research for this presentation, I found there were numerous programs, many of which I never viewed, and really surprised me.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna make a detailed list of that someday.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: And I am seriously devoted to the reading and study of horror.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: I've attended horror convention haunter uh horror conventions.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh done some done some own my own ghost hunting.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've gone to and searched museums for ideas and stories and such.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Walked through several haunted attractions, like in uh New Orleans, they had for a while, the House of Shock.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's fun.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was it was creepy, I tell you.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And very good.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: And it's been replaced by a new one.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: I've forgotten that name, but I I intend to go to it as well.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I've driven out to see and experience haunted places, and um, I've become a collector of horror stories.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: I shop at Spirit Halloween every chance I can.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have one there in Chattanooga, you know, where it's a it's a family tradition.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: We go, in fact, we're going not this weekend, next weekend.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: Every year, we take Max and Mason to the haunted hotel in Chattanooga, and we it's a very nice restaurant, and then we all go to Spirit Halloween and and we usually don't buy much, but we like to push all the buttons and everything.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: The restaurant is called Ba uh Basham's Chop House, and it's in a hotel that actually has a haunted room.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh apparently a woman was killed in this room.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: She was a prostitute, and she never left.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, she really doesn't like men, and lots of men have have left that room in the middle of the night in in horror, refusing to go back in there because of the the overwhelming feelings of terror they get.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: Also, they only rent out that room like two weeks out of the year.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure it's very expensive, but yeah, I I think they have so many problems with it, they can only deal with those problems for two weeks out of the year.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: But that's that's that's our spirit Halloween.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh I would love to get that address and try that hotel.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, oh yeah, I'm not afraid, yeah.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm not afraid to camp out, you know.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, back to you.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, we we still have thunder there.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And um um one early memory that helped fuel my obsession with horror occurred when I was about 11.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: And my father's family is is in West Texas, and we spent the night one night at my Aunt Mildred's house in Knoxville, and there wasn't much to do in those family outings, you know, like that.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was just a kid and just told to be quiet and sit down, you know.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh luckily my aunt had a small bookshelf of you remember those condensed reader digest books?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I love those.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: My grandmother had I I found one and opened it and discovered Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And that uh was my first horror reading um that I can remember.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: I and sprawled out on the living room floor with my family and aunt.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Um they were talking and probably playing dominoes or something like that.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: And I lost myself in his story of a poor soul suffering from the Spanish Inquisition, which I've done some study on too, um, while my parents and aunt were talking and such.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget the reading of that uh classic.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: I can close my eyes and still see that scene of me sprawled out on the floor and that hot West Texas night.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: But I do watch every movie devoted to horror that I encounter and that I can see that I have time to see.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the favorite horror movies that gave me chills.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: Ooh, I'm gonna get my pencil out here.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: This first one is called Nomads, and it's a 1986 film, and it's psychological terror, and um uh Pierce Rosnan plays in it as a French professor, along with Adam Ant and um uh a couple of other uh Leslie and Warren, I think, is in it.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a it's it's a good staff, and it's based on a novel that was written by Chelsea Quinn Yarbrough.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: So I've been that and I've got that novel and read it a couple of times, and she is a noted writer of historical fiction.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: And I looked at her bio and everything today, and I found out there's just a whole lot that I didn't know about her.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: There is so interesting.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So that's my probably my number one favorite horror novel is nomads, and my favorite movie too.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: And then the second movie that gave me chills was the 1992 Candyman.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: They've done a new one that I don't think is as good, but this one was worked well with Virginia Madsen in it, and uh and that gave me the the creeps really well, and and uh that's when I quit talking to mirrors, you know.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Um and then uh the third one in um was The Entity, which is a 1982 um movie with Barbara Um Hensley, and it's of course about a demon that gives this woman a lot of problems, you know.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Um but I I found I found I'm also fond very fond of Japanese horror horror movies.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm working on my own horror story that's set in Japan.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: It's called The Siren of the Snow.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I like that title.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: And this is uh um about a um uh legendary mythology creature who is uh very beautiful and um and when the when it snows, she comes out and and looks for lost travelers um, you know, in the mountain ranges there in in Japan.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And and um if she kisses you, you like she takes your breath away and and um stories are told of people being found um frozen that have encountered this this woman.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: So she's kind of a uh I guess a cold-hearted woman, literally, you know.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: Um but I think that's gonna be a good story for my own.
16:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that sounds really good.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the uh collection of uh short horror fiction that I want to do with Book Locker as soon as I can.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: It should be ready and then uh certainly out way before Halloween next year.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Um the working title is Demon Diary.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I like that one too.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's based on the lead story, and I'm gonna read you a um a short excerpt from that.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: All right, and um it's it and um it's kind of adult, but it's uh it's a good story.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And that's it's I start off with an epigraph uh that says by Remy de Gourmand, and it says, demons are like obedient dogs, they come when they are called.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: So here's the excerpt from that story.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: She is the type my kind looks for.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful, unprotected, sensual, isolated.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: See her now, her head and back leaning against the wall, her arms draped over the edge of the full tub.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: She lies half asleep in the flickering light of two scented candles, while the notes of Vivaldi's cello concerto tease the air.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: In the candlelight, I think she can see my shadow on the wall.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Her long blond hair is tied up, her face streaked with sweat, and the air is heavy and hot with the vapors and steam of her bath.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: This is my favorite time of her evening.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: I blew out one of the candles.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: She looked at it and smiled.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: I suppose she thought her own movements extinguished it.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: I whispered, I am here, my love.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I will return for you in the dark tomorrow night.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: Then I was careless and made a mistake.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: As I turned to leave, my shadow form brushed the chimes hanging outside the bathroom door, and she gasped out of fright.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: So that's a just an excerpt form.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: And listeners, now you know why Ricky's book sells so well.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's not a writer.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is bow.
19:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can't wait to read the rest of it.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: In fact, when we stop recording, you can tell us how it ends.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And I have uh I have included horror in my other writings with Book Locker as well.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: In Red River Fever, which was my first book with you.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, the central character is haunted by the Red River and its haunted past.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: In Under the Witch's Mark, there's much horror.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm currently working on a sequel to it.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, the um article that's going to appear in Writers Weekly, um, Bronwyn's um Book of Shadows is kind of a sequel to uh Under the Witch's Mark.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Um and the working title for it is Bronwyn's uh Book of Shadows, just kind of like the um the article uh that you took, and I appreciate you taking that too.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so for the listeners, um we we purchased an article from Ricky and we are running it the week before Halloween, which is in two weeks.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've already got it all set up, just have to click submit.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: All right.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to see that.
20:07
SPEAKER_02: It's really good too.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: It's really, really good.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: And um it it's about a a book dealer, you know, uh in a way, that story is.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: And um, but the the novel uh that I'm gonna work on or novella is um moving along nicely.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And so um so the construction is moving well.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, my other novel that I published with you, Persephone's Underground, that's the one that has the voodoo scenes of horror in it.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um so um I'll probably incorporate one of those scenes into my book of uh short fiction because they they they can stand alone as stories, you know.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh I do have a Kendall short novella called Shadows Dancing in the Dark, and I'm going to put that in um this book of collection uh too.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: I haven't really been happy with anything I've submitted to Kendall, but uh I like working with Book Locker um much better.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: Oh we love working with you too.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh I I have written and reviewed, written and published several reviews of books that are related to horror on my blog.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And I will um I need to make a complete list of those reviews.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: And I've also written several poems of horror.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: I do enjoy listening to Halloween and Witchy music.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, we do too.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Apple music can lead you to many good performers.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Here's some of them I like that I've been listening to as I've been doing my two miles three to four times a week on the treadmill at the athletic club.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, I like um a group called Witchy Tips, Witch Inc.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Wren and the daughters of the bear.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: I love that Irish name Wren.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: That's and she's gonna that name's gonna be in my follow-up to Bronwyn's uh diary.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: That's a good name, yeah.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: So I I love the music.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: It it uh so I have it on a lot and everything.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: But and now I think this is gonna be the the bigger part of my presentation, so you just cut me off when I talk too much.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: But uh, you never talk too much.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: This is about preparing for Halloween.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Now many people don't know how Halloween came about, and it came to us from the Celts, you know, the Scots, the Irish, and the Welts.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was known as Salmon.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: It looks like Somhain, but it's Samwin, is how they pronounce it.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: And it was on the celebrated November 1st, which marked the end of the harvest season to the Celts and the beginning of winter, which is the darker half of the year.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And uh they celebrated it.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: It's the celebration started sundown uh the day the afternoon before November 1st, and then ended um on sundown um on November 1st.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the Celts told time.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: But they also all nighter.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: It was all nighter, and they also celebrated the this f feast, festival time, the season time, three days before November 1st, and then three days after.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: And here's how they celebrated it.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: They celebrated it with feasting, with drinking, uh, with ritual bonfires.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: And if you listen to the witchy music, you'll hear them talking about fires often, you know.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I've been listening to these groups play, and I've heard some wonderful poetry uh from the um from the witchy point of view, and it was a time for sacrifices.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Um knowing the Celts, it could have been human as well as animal, but I was just gonna ask.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: And instead of the pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns, they used carved tuna uh turnips.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: I've heard that.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that must you need a little bitty knife for that.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: Unless they're growing some really big turnips.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've I've seen pictures of some really big turnips, so I think they they they were able to do that in that rich uh uh soil over there.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: So they carved turnips and went and put candles and things inside them.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And on this um on Samuel, they believed there was a thin veil between Earth and the people on Earth and the portals that could lead you into the other world.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And I've written a couple of stories about the other world from a Celtic point of view.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Um and the other world was the realm of the dead, and also realm of the Celtic gods, I guess.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And it was a time on November 1st when the souls of the dead would return to visit the living.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: And people would wear costumes, the Celts would wear costumes, so they could blend in with these visiting spirits.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: And there were many mummers, you know, who were actors and musicians with masks of straw and animal-like heads.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh that in uh they and the others uh who celebrated would visit house to house, expecting at each house to get a treat of some kind, maybe a coin or a nut or a piece of fruit.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: And uh, if not, there was a trick in store for that house, you know.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the origin of our trick and treat.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Trick or treat.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's really cool.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that.
25:54
SPEAKER_02: Boy.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: Go to a door and get a nut.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: A nut instead of like a twinkie.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: We've we've progressed.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Give him a hickory nut.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: That would really confuse him, you know?
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever cracked a hickory nut?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, yeah, we've got them out here, and and and even the deer don't necessarily touch them.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: We actually, when we moved in, there was a huge tree right near our bedroom, and it was it was an endangered tree, but we had to have it taken down because it was leaning towards the bedroom.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: Thank goodness we did because that hurricane that we got a couple days ago, three days ago, that it it would have blown down for sure.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:31
unknown: Wow.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: But the hickory nuts were a big part of the Cherokee diet, I understand.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh in my reading about Native Americans, um.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: But um, and then we go from the Celts to the Catholics.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: And um, November 1st, which became known as All Saints or All Souls Day, and that date was set permanently by Pope Gregory the Third.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I hadn't read too much about the Catholic celebration of that, and um much I think part of it was uh because of the um discovery of the conticedors and the friars and and priests that came over to the new world as they encountered the um um practice of the el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead in the Hispanic world, you know.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll we'll move from the Catholics to that.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And um um now, in this, although it is celebrated now throughout the Hispanic world, I want to focus on Mexico's Day of the Dead as I do in my story, um Days of the Dead.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be one of the um uh collections in the uh one of the stories in the collection of horror stories there.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, my first encounter with the Day of the Dead was my work in the Rio Gran Valley.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: For six years, I worked in the Rio Gran Valley as the song, you know, with my music and as a writer and storyteller, uh, one to two weeks every month.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And I worked all the way from um Brownsville up to Laredo, did many, many schools there.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome and uh and and learned um sold a whole bunch of my Rio Grande Valley ABC books, which is no longer in print, but so we so we sold all that out, so that's good.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh but many um I don't know what people think that it's just part of Halloween, but uh it it really was a distinctive holiday, and and I would encourage your listeners to search for images of the Day of the Dead online or in YouTube videos to see the beauty and the extent of trouble and attention that um the holiday is given.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, the per the purpose of the day of the dead is to honor and celebrate and remember those loved ones who have died, including children that they call angelitos, the adults, both men and women, warriors of the past, soldiers of the present.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's a festival that both mocks death, and that's because of the costumes and things that come with it, and that also celebrates life.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Many modern movies are set during the festival.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, if you make a list of movies set in um uh Day of the Dead, you will see there's really much many more than I surprised.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And there are movies made about uh The Day of the Dead, including one called Coco, which was about a guitar player.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: I really like that one.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And uh one and they're cartoon books, you know, and one called The Book of Life, and this one was produced by Guillermo De Toro.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Um he's an actor I really, really like.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: He was in um the um movies Sicario, if you've got to see those, and and uh the Sicario scenario, that's almost a nightmare in horror story in itself.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um and um I won't get philosophical on it, but I think those movies say some things that people should listen to.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: There's only probably one only one way to deal with that mess.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: And um so the book of life, but that's a good funny one, and that's about a uh bullfighter who goes down in the other other world too.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh at at the uh during the uh Day of the Dead, there are parades, and um, in fact, almost any Halloween parade is going to have characters made up uh in this way, you know.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Um Marigolds are the sacred star flower of the festival.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: I did not know that.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, you'll see them everywhere there um during that.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: But there are also plenty of red and white flowers blending in, and so the flowers are a big deal there.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: There's um music that you can hear everywhere, um dancing, um feasting, drinks, you know, lots of tequila drunk, you know, during this uh uh special and unique foods such as uh Hispanic foods such as mole, tamales, which I don't know if you know anything about making tamales, but they're multi-step time consuming processes.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: They're not easy.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we used to I grew up in Texas and we made tamales a lot, and yeah, that that was not an easy dish to make.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: Second only to uh uh Chinese food that's so hard to make that.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh sushi.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Second only to sushi.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: I I made sushi one time and it took me like six hours.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: I never did that again.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Now when you when you made tamales, did you make it as a group?
32:32
SPEAKER_00: They usually do.
32:33
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we were it was our house in Texas, and I had the kids involved in everything, and they were like, Oh, these don't taste good enough to go through all that trouble again.
32:42
SPEAKER_02: Of course, I I actually mixed everything up, so that was probably my fault.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Um and they would um have um lots of hot chocolate and um and you can you can buy good Mexican hot chocolate um packages and and bars, you know, that to cook with milk and such uh corn cakes.
33:04
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't the Mexican hot chocolate have like cinnamon in it or what is it?
33:07
SPEAKER_02: It it's kind of spicy.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: It has cinnamon in it, yes.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it makes me want to have a cup right away.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Um they have maize cakes, corn cakes, um, and they lots of sweetbread, Pandulce.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: And um that's a big deal during the um um festivals of the Hispanics, you know, the Pandulce, the sweetbreads.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: And there's costumes, all kinds of costumes.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Women often wear an embroidered called pina fora dress that has um imagery related to the uh event.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Lots of face painting.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: And you know, they has the lines on the lips like they're so sung shut.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And and the Spirit Halloween, you'll see there's a kit there that I I I bought one time when I was playing at the zoo here in Monroe to decorate my face with, and and I look pretty creepy with it.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Um but it's a pretty good kit, easy to use and everything.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And then um, so face painting is is a is a big deal.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: All kinds of art, you know, paintings, wall murals, toys.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, like little um things you hang on your mirror and in the car and um or kids play with.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: There's dolls.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: You can get um dolls of the of the star people that I'm gonna tell you about here in a second.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Um various candies, um incense that you can smell everywhere.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: The miniature, miniature sugar skulls.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And in Texas, those are pretty popular around Halloween.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: Do they eat 'em?
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, they do.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: They're made out of pure sugar.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: I've never seen a sugar skull.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um they um um they make them in Mexico from a mold.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm sure the commercial ones that are sold in grocery stores and everything are probably pro you know more processed and everything, but uh that's pretty and they have sugar coffins that might have a little head um showing in it, skulls showing in.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: I think I'd rather eat the just the skull.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And they have they have lots of skulls and skeletons seen everywhere.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the skulls will be stacked, uh, like the Aztec.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: The word is Zomp Pantil.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's a uh rows and rows of skulls stacked on top of each other.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: And uh, this is one of the things that I'm sure frightened Cortez and his men uh when they came there, you know.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: Now, when we first got on with Ricky, uh he showed us a very interesting skull and before we started recording, and y'all can't see Ricky and everybody, but but we can see him.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: Ricky, will you send me a picture of that to post under this episode at writersweekly.com slash podcast.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh absolutely.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: You know what?
36:28
SPEAKER_02: This is actually gonna be episode sixty-one.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: Is it sixty one?
36:31
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be sixty-one because this is coining.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so we're gonna do we're gonna do one before the 61, okay.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: All right, I'll be glad to send those to you.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: That'd be awesome.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, the unofficial mascots uh of the day of the dead, is there's two.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: There's first of all, La Muerte, and I can send you my notes too, um Angela.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I would love that.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: All right.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Um La Muerte, who's also called Santa Muerte or the Holy Death, and it's always portrayed as sort of a skeletal grim reaper image.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um the uh the second one is uh La Katrina.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: And um I've I should have worn my Katrina kind of t-shirt with with her on it.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: And um this and she's a skeleton that's often costumed, you know, hat with big hat and flowers and things in her hair and everything.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: But her image appears everywhere on the day of the dead.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and though she represents death, her purpose is to remind everyone that death is not to be feared.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: And um in my short story, Days of the Dead, it ends with she has two parts in that in that story.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And um and anyway, here's a poem I wrote about Katrina.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: It's called Dance with La Katrina.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: I danced with death and did not know her in the out-of-tune violin.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: Played on through the night to a song that had no end.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: As we danced, I wondered when would the music begin?
38:23
SPEAKER_00: She answered, This dance will last until you fall, like other dying men.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Death has soft hands and a pretty face, not like I might have feared.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: Her eyes looked deep inside my heart, and she shed a single tear.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: A warm embrace she gave me.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Then the world began to spin.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: My fingers slipped from her hands.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: The fate of dying men.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Each must stand to play a part in an endless symphony, and dance to increasing tempo with a ghost of one's destiny.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Look closely at the one you hold.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: The hands, the eyes, the face, the face of a lover, a friend, or a god that will take you from this place.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: That is outstanding.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: That is you are such a good poet, a great poet.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have nightmares tonight.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, there's some things that um some horror movies sometimes um give me nightmares a little bit, but on the other hand, my writing brain is taken over and said, Oh, that'll be a good story, you know.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so maybe maybe I'll become the bard of the horror, you know.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: The bard from hell.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: But uh that's uh my presentation I had planned.
39:51
SPEAKER_02: I hope that that was fantastic.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: I learned so much about the history of Halloween I had no idea about now.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: For listeners who don't know, if you go back to episode two, episode two, we were recording in our basement recording studio.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna bring that up, but I think we need to insert that.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: So we're sitting here recording episode number two, no big deal.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: We were still, you know, still getting our figuring out how to do all this and everything.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: And then we went and sat on the porch and listened to it because after we record, I typically go out on the porch with a uh literally a pen and a piece of paper, my notepad, and I make notes about the links we talked about that we were going to share and everything.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: And we're sitting there listening, and then we heard it.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: It was a voice that we didn't hear while we were recording, but it is clear as day in the recording, and we left it in there and we told people if you go to episode two, click on I think it's fifteen minutes, fourteen seconds.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember, it's but it's on that page.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, I am going to in in in just a second, you the listener are going to hear this.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: When when you listen to it, click on the comment pay comment button on this episode, writersweekly.com slash.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: I can never say it right.
41:00
SPEAKER_02: Writersweekly.com slash podcast, episode 61.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: Click on the comment button and tell us what you think it says.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: All right, listen, listen close.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, we only accept through literary agents, we don't charge authors any photos, anything like that.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, we only accept through literary agents, we don't charge authors any photos, anything like that.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: All right.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: So you click on that comment button, tell us what you think it's that this voice said.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: We were sitting in our studio, which is our basement.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: It is it was dead silent, just like it is every time we read that.
41:36
SPEAKER_02: We've got we've got staff proofing on the walls.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: We are we were using um now I I hadn't routed these things properly, I don't believe.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: Episode two, did we get the microphones right that time?
41:47
SPEAKER_02: I think that's when we're but but doesn't matter.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, we're using we're using um sure microphones and uh and a focus right um audio interface that that that routes all the sound directly into our computers.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: These are microphones that are specifically made to filter out any noise uh from any distance.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: You have to write up on these things for you to to hear anything.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: And you just heard what we heard.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: You heard what we heard, but we didn't hear it when we were recording, and we heard it afterward.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: We're looking at each other like, what was that?
42:21
SPEAKER_02: What was that?
42:22
SPEAKER_01: Wow, and Angie hasn't been down in the basement at night since not especially not alone, yeah.
42:28
SPEAKER_02: Um our our son Mason wouldn't come downstairs for months after that.
42:35
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: And this was around the time, huh?
42:38
SPEAKER_02: What, Reiki?
42:39
SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh my.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Mason wouldn't touch it.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: No, and uh this was around the time where Brian would out of the corner of his eye see me walking through the room and then go looking for me, and I wasn't I was still where I was still working that's true at my computer.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: Happened several times.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: That also freaked Mason out.
42:59
SPEAKER_02: We actually had to stop telling him these stories because occasionally we need a dog sitter and a chicken sitter.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
43:06
SPEAKER_02: Coming to your house again, except for Christmas.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, there have been there have been times I'll be like maybe watching TV and it's it's like way out of the out in the peripheral vision.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: I'll see Angie walk by and I'm like, oh, she's going to get something or whatever, and you know, and then I'll then I'll then she doesn't come back out again.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what's she doing in there?
43:27
SPEAKER_01: So I'll go out, get up, and I'll go in the spare bedroom where the office wherever I saw her go into, and she's not there.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: So I'll start looking around.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: She's uh she's in the bedroom, sitting with her computer, and I'm like, What'd you need in the in the other room?
43:42
SPEAKER_01: She's like, I wasn't in the other room.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
43:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Yeah, I saw you walk by and go to the she's like, I haven't left this bed for over an hour.
43:50
SPEAKER_02: Right.
43:51
SPEAKER_02: There was that one time you were in the kitchen and you saw me open the basement door and walk downstairs, and I never came back up.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: How was she doing in the basement?
43:58
SPEAKER_02: I was working, I was I ever Went in the basement.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Never left the bedroom.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: Nope.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: We have a we have a crazy house.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: My office is in my bedroom.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: We got it.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: We got a haunted house.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: We got Bigfoot.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: We just you name it.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: Also, when we lived in Maine, we had a ghost.
44:14
SPEAKER_02: And our daughter has been ever since she started talking, she would talk about the nice lady dressed in white in my room and the little girl that would come play with her.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: And we thought, imaginary friend, right?
44:27
SPEAKER_02: Except as she got older, she kept talking about these things she would see.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: And if anybody wants anybody has any questions, go to writersweekflip.com, click on the contact us button.
44:37
SPEAKER_02: I'll put you in contact with our daughter.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: She's 34 now, I think.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember, I got too many kids.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: And up until she still sees spirits.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: She there was one time, every Christmas, my father died when I was five years old, my biological father.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: Every Christmas, she would see my dad.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: And he's hard to miss because he had dark, short hair, and he was six foot eight.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: And his ghost is just as big.
45:01
SPEAKER_02: So every Christmas she would see him and she was never afraid.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: She she knew she had learned early on these spirits were not going to hurt her.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: They were just there.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: She just could see them when other people couldn't.
45:11
SPEAKER_02: And um one Christmas, she was still asleep, and her husband was working on his computer in the living room, and he saw my dad walk down the stairs.
45:20
SPEAKER_02: He saw him.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: So and this isn't a guy who makes up stories.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he he was scared out of his mind.
45:28
SPEAKER_02: And um, so we lived in Maine, and Allie was 10 when we moved there, and she started talking about this kid named Jonathan.
45:36
SPEAKER_02: She thought he was about 10 years old, about her age, you know.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: And he wore shorts, no shirt, no shoes.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: Now think about that in Maine.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: And she'd see him all over the house.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: Over a period of three or four years, everybody saw him, except my husband at the time.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: The kids saw him, saw him.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: He would appear in different rooms.
45:55
SPEAKER_02: Our oldest son was a complete non-believer, okay?
45:59
SPEAKER_02: We were having a we were having a yard party one time, and all the kids were inside, all the adults were out in the yard sitting in their lawn chairs and stuff.
46:06
SPEAKER_02: And our son ran outside white as a sheet, shaking, and I said, What's wrong?
46:11
SPEAKER_02: He said, I saw Jonathan.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: And I went, Well, I thought it was funny because I'd seen him.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, what's he doing?
46:18
SPEAKER_02: We're playing hide and seek, and he's hiding under Allie's desk.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, did you say hi?
46:22
SPEAKER_02: Were you polite to him?
46:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, the time I saw him, I was sitting at my laptop, and I looked to the left, and in our bedroom had opened, we had two doors, and one one door opened to the boys' bedroom.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: And I saw a little boy described Ali had described him exactly.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, and he was looking.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: He had his head turned to the right and he was looking at me, and just in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: And Allie saw him running up the stairs one time.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: Frank saw him, everybody saw him.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: My husband at the time, the only experience he had is he would leave his laptop on the dining room table and all the kids would go to bed.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: He'd be the last one to go to bed, and he'd get up in the morning and somebody had messed with his computer overnight.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: That happened several times.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: Oh, oh, wait, oh, there's another one.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: So we had an office at the end of the house, and I was working on so uh Richard's desk.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: We we our decks were desks were back to back.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: We didn't face each other, you know.
47:26
SPEAKER_02: So I hear this creek creek creek creek, and I turn around.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: Richard wasn't in the office, I was by myself, and his office chair was just slightly turning left, right, left, right.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: I thought cart blotched the cat.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking the cat's in there.
47:41
SPEAKER_02: So I lean over in my chair, bend over, turn that chair around.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: There's nobody in it, and I ran screaming out of the you know what I stopped working in that.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: I started working in the bedroom and said that often.
47:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's breathing.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: Now we have not had much activity in this house.
48:03
SPEAKER_02: We said a lot of prayers after after the voice, and we stood a lot of prayers.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: We've got crosses in every room.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: I think we do have we do still have Bigfoot outside.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we we smell we we got the smell last night.
48:15
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have any any sounds, knocks, anything like that, no gruffs, no screams, but we we we were I was sitting out there last night and all of a sudden I just I just smelled rotten funk.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: And I even double checked to make sure my boots weren't stinking.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: And and no chicken up on the bottom.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: No, no, and and went, I went in and let you know.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you jumped right out of bed and poured you some wine to come outside.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: Right, like yeah, here I'll sniff with you.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I got went back out and it was gone.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: There was no no no more smell.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: It's an unmistakable thing.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: I did I got a faint.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: It was like it was going away.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: It was like here and gone that quick.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: But do you remember the night of the knocks?
48:59
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking bigfoot, I'm talking in the house.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: So we were we were um in our bedroom.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna remember okay.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: We were in our bedroom, uh-huh.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: The dogs were in our bedroom.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Our bedroom is uh attached to the kitchen, basically.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: It's it's the it's or the door next to the kitchen, yeah.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: So so there's a wall between our bedroom and the kitchen.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: Um when the when the when the convection oven is on, we can hear the fan in our room because of the vibrations of the wall.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh pardon me, because I'm so um we are we are sitting in there and the dogs are sleeping on the floor.
49:39
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, sure as it it it it sounded exactly like this on the in the kitchen inside the kitchen wall.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: And both dogs jumped up and started barking and freaking out.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking Mason was in the kitchen.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: I we thought Mason was in the kitchen.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: And and I'm thinking Mason's knocking on the wall.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: Why is Mason knocking on the wall?
50:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't the wall.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: We come out, Mason's coming out of his bedroom, I think, from the other end of the house.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: All the way on the other end of the house, yeah.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: And we're like, what are you doing?
50:20
SPEAKER_01: What are you knocking on?
50:20
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I thought you were knocking.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: And we we go to the door.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh the the dogs were not were not alerting at the door at the at the front door.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: They were in the kitchen freaking out.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: And we go, we run to the front door, nobody there.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, Mason couldn't have knocked on our door because our door was open.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: Our door was open, and it was definitely a knock from the wall.
50:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's when Mason said, I'm moving up before I turn 18.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and no to this day we have yeah, it was clear as day, a three-knock.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Mason thought it was us, we thought it was him, we all agreed it was the kitchen wall that goes between our kitchen and our bedroom, and even the dogs heard it.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: And nobody can explain it to this day.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: But except for the Bigfoot stuff, we said a lot of prayers.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: We had people praying for us because you know it's kind of entertaining for a while, but then you're like, Who's really living here with us?
51:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, we don't want this happening.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: So and it did go away.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, now that we're talking about it again, I'll probably come back.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: One of my one of my stories in the horror book is on the trail of Lofa, uh, which is a Bigfoot story with the Chickasaw Indians, you know.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Cool, cool.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a lot of Bigfoot lore in in on in Native American legends.
51:41
SPEAKER_02: We went to the Bigfoot Museum again, what, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, and they have this big piece of wood and it's kind of like wood burning carved.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: And it's got the name that each tribe uses for Bigfoot.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: And there's like 200 of them.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: And that's both the United States and Canada.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Right.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: I did not know that.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: That Native American tribes have some name for hairy men that live in the woods.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, you got any more ghost stories for us, Angela?
52:15
SPEAKER_01: Boy, I think.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: I think we told all of ours.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, if I remember any more, we'll share them next year.
52:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, Ricky, we are glad you came and joined us today.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: Always a treat.
52:26
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna put links to Ricky's website.
52:28
SPEAKER_02: Ricky's Facebook page is very active on Facebook, and you can see him singing on there.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh to his website where you can all of his books, where you can buy his books, where you can buy his music, everything.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: All right.
52:39
SPEAKER_02: Ricky's awesome.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, any last words from you, Ricky, before we go.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you for having me on your your podcast.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: Um really great.
52:49
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely our pleasure.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: Don't you want to hear my last word?
52:52
SPEAKER_01: What's your last word?
52:53
SPEAKER_01: Boo! Boo.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't want to have a scary experience, then you need to avoid all those other publishers, especially the ones you find online, because nowadays 90% of them are scammers.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: You need to come to booklocker.com.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna treat you right.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, Ricky will tell you uh we're the we're the we're the place to go.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, we are family owned and operated, been in in operation for over 27 years.
53:21
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, on the on on the side, you know, we hunt the scammers.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: We we know what the what the terrain looks like out there.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: It is it is you're almost guaranteed if you're looking online for a publisher to find a scammer.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: The scam websites far outnumber legitimate companies.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, 90%, you're gonna get a scammer instead of a instead of a legit.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: So come to who you know.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: You're listening to us right now.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: We're English speaking, we're in America, and we're gonna treat you right.
53:51
SPEAKER_01: And we have a a uh A plus rating on the Bit of Business Bureau.
53:56
SPEAKER_01: We get five star ratings everywhere else.
53:58
SPEAKER_02: Publishing.booklocker.com.
54:00
SPEAKER_02: That shows you all our packages and prices.
54:02
SPEAKER_02: And you can click on the link at the top of that page and it'll come right to me.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: And again, we are we are running we are running a uh a discount code right now.
54:11
SPEAKER_01: So when you sign up with us, podcast 200, the the code podcast200 will get you two hundred dollars off of our top three uh publishing packages.
54:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: So you need to come see us.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: We'll treat you right.
54:24
SPEAKER_02: We won't scare you.
54:25
SPEAKER_01: We won't scare you.
54:27
SPEAKER_02: It is not a frightening experience.
54:29
SPEAKER_01: At least not in the beginning.
54:30
SPEAKER_02: It's like Casper.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: No, we won't scare you.
54:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh never talk too fast.
54:37
SPEAKER_02: We're the Casper the friendly ghost of the publishing industry.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: And if you saw how pale I am, you would say, indeed, he is Casper.
54:44
SPEAKER_01: He is Casper.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: Ryan is the whitest person I've ever met.
54:49
SPEAKER_01: All right, well, that does it for this episode.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: Hope you all enjoyed it, and we will see y'all again next time on the Writer's Weekly Podcast.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: Bye, Ricky.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Ricky.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: Love you.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: Love you too.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.