Hey there. Enjoy these Author Notes from the second book in my Psychic Guardian Angel Series, No Rest for the Dead.
I grew up in Anoka, Minnesota, the Halloween Capital of the World. Anoka claimed the title for years, then the governor issued a proclamation so that made it official.
Anoka has multiple Halloween parades, yard decorating contests, and ghost tours presented by the Anoka Historical Society. The high school football game close to Halloween is known as the Pumpkin Bowl. The center of a roundabout near the football field is a Jack-o-lantern. Anoka is serious about Halloween.
The original reason for all the Halloween festivities was to ensure that the kids of the area had something to do and would not be out causing trouble. I wonder if the results of that effort have ever been released.
I don’t know how much the city affected my fascination with the paranormal. It had to be some. Halloween is my favorite holiday. But movies and television, namely The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and The Sixth Sense, probably influenced me more. At one point, I listed Rod Serling as a musical influence.
The stories of Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Frank De Felita fueled my fascination with the paranormal as well.
So when the Twin Cities Sisters in Crime hosted the Minnesota Paranormal Society at one of our meetings, I made sure I was there. The following week, the Society hosted a ghost hunt at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis. I made sure I was there too.
The tools that John Thompson and Jacob Daniels use in No Rest for the Dead were demonstrated by the Minnesota Paranormal Society during those events. Maybe there were too many people. Or too many skeptics. But we did not have the same success in our real events as Daniels and John Thompson do in the stories.
But, as I mentioned in my notes at the end of First Casualty, I still believe.
And I’m watching for more evidence, more reasons to believe strongly, every day.
Have you gone back and started researching your family’s ghost stories?
As you think about the paranormal, do your nightmares change? Get better? Get worse?
Do you wonder if your home needs a ghost hunt? An exorcist? Maybe just a visit from a sensitive to calm the spirits, to convince them you’re okay?
I hope they know I’m okay, that I’m harmless. To them.
In First Casualty, the scene with Latisha Ford seated on the couch was inspired by a woman sitting in the home we owned in the Camden neighborhood of North Minneapolis after we were first married. The lady I saw was older. She appeared in my peripheral vision and disappeared as I turned to face her. I never went back to tell her she inspired a scene in my first book. She probably knows.
It was a neat house. A few things happened that can’t be explained as normal, everyday occurrences. Maybe they’ll feed into another story someday too. So might the dog that shared a couple of those occurrences with me.
I want to thank my primary contact with the Minnesota Paranormal Society, Angela Rosenberg, for the information and insights about ghost hunting. The conversations and the quest for knowledge continue.
Thank you, dear readers, as I ramble and attempt to understand. As I said before, you are my teachers, my inspiration, and my hope. Keep it up. Hang in there. Stay hopeful. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let’s see where it takes us.
– A. W. Powers