The Perspiring Writer Magazine

There’s nothing like a chilling ghost story, read from a book while huddled under the blankets or told around a crackling campfire in the deep, dark woods. You couldn’t find a more qualified storyteller than Troy Taylor, historian of the supernatural and author of more than 60 books on ghosts, hauntings, crime, and unexplained events.  

Taylor founded the American Ghost Society, now America’s largest and most respected research group. He investigates paranormal happenings, is owner of American Hauntings Tour Company, founder of Whitechapel Press, which publishes books about the supernatural, owner of Prairie Fire Bookstore, and publisher of American Hauntings magazine (formerly Ghosts Of The Prairie). He’s a popular speaker on the subject of ghosts and has been featured in newspaper and magazine articles, in radio and television programs, in numerous documentaries shown on the History Channel, A & E, Discovery, PBS, CMT, and on network programs and syndicated news shows. He appeared as himself in a feature film about the paranormal.

Several years back, I wrote a few ghost stories for Ghosts of The Prairie. Taylor has made some changes since then, such as moving from Alton, Illinois, “One of the most haunted small towns in America,” to Decatur, Illinois. I recently caught up with the ghost buster for this interview. 

MDC: Let’s start at the beginning. What sparked your interest in ghosts? As a boy, did you have an encounter with something that went bump in the night?

TT: Not really, the supernatural was just something I have always been interested in, even as a small boy. I was the first in school to order all of the “true ghost stories” from the weekly library paper. As I got older, everyone knew that if they heard a ghost story, they needed to pass it along to me. On Halloween night each year, I took all my friends on a ghost tour of local haunted spots, never knowing that someday I would be doing it for a living!

MDC: I read that the Illinois hospital in which you were born is haunted by a phantom nun. That’s pretty scary. Do you attribute that to the onset of your interest?

TT: I never thought about that, but perhaps that has something to do with it! She was actually a benevolent spirit, though, nothing scary. At least that’s what the nurses that I have spoken with have told me.

MDC: You have more than 60 books to your credit. That’s impressive. When did you write your first and what’s the title?

TT: Well, it’s my day job. It’s not a part-time thing with me. I usually spend anywhere from 8-10 hours every day at work and a large part of that is strictly writing on whatever project (or projects) I’m working on at the time. My first book was written in 1994 and was called Haunted Decatur. It’s a collection of ghost stories of my hometown.

MDC: Other than ghostly subjects, what do you read and who’s on your favorite authors list?

TT: I don’t read a lot of other ghost books, unless it’s something that I have a real interest in or it’s a book written by a friend of mine. I do read some horror, mostly Stephen King, but most of my casual reading is thrillers or crime fiction. I’m a big fan of Robert B. Parker, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Kellerman, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, and I think that John Connolly’s Charlie Parker books are absolutely phenomenal.

MDC: Tell us about the feature film you were in.

TT: Ah, the St. Francisville Experiment. Well, I appeared as myself in what started out as a paranormal documentary and deteriorated into a "Blair Witch Project" rip-off. I’m in the early, documentary portion of the film and I’ve never endorsed the authenticity of the blatantly fake “paranormal” scenes that followed after the participants entered the house. I’ve taken a lot of flak about my role in this film over the years, but what I can say is that it was a lot of fun to make and be a part of and the cast and most of the crew were great people to work with. There is no point in trying to take it seriously. It’s just a movie, and as long as you don’t go into it believing it’s authentic, it can actually be a lot of fun. It’s never going to be fondly recalled as a highlight of my career but I don’t regret taking part in it. It was a great experience and a real look at what happens when things in Hollywood go awry.

MDC: Have any of your books been the basis for a movie?

TT: Yes, there is one that is optioned for a movie right now, but I can’t really talk about it much. I have done some other options over the years that have never worked out and a couple of my books have provided material for paranormal documentaries that have been made.

MDC: Do you live in a haunted house?

TT: No, not the house I live in now, but there have been a couple over the years. I lived in a former bakery in Alton, Illinois, that was haunted by the ghost of a little boy. A lot of strange stuff happened there. Another house that I lived in was haunted by––I think––a former owner who had died there. My cat was absolutely fascinated by one particular room. She would sit outside the doorway and stare at something moving around in the room that none of us could see. She would never step foot inside. Oddly, that room was impossible to heat. Even with the heating vents open, and hot air blowing out of them, the room was always at least 20 degrees colder than the rest of the house.

MDC: I found information about you on a site about weird writers (www.weirdwriters.com). Is that a dubious distinction, being labeled weird?

TT: That’s a website for writers who have worked on the Weird U.S. Series that was started by Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman from Weird N.J. They started their magazine in the early 1990s and it was later turned into a book. I did the first spin-off from their titles, Weird Illinois. And it’s not a bad thing to be labeled “weird.” I certainly fit the description! Although in this case, the things we write about are odd, unusual, and out of the ordinary. When we call something weird in the books, it’s because it adds a different dimension to the place or state that we’re writing about. Something that makes it unique, so to speak.

MDC: Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian author of Ghosts, wrote, “I almost believe we are all ghosts! It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that haunts us. It is all sorts of old, dead ideas, all kinds of old, dead beliefs, and so forth. They have no life, yet they cleave to us, and we cannot shake ourselves free from them.”  Do you agree with Ibsen, or do you have a different take on ghosts?

TT: It’s an interesting idea and I can see where it has some relevance. I usually think of ghosts as a little piece of someone that has been left behind, usually a memory of a time when that person was particularly happy or particularly sad. That emotion leaves an imprint on the place where it occurred and that imprint repeats itself over and over as a haunting. I guess I have a rather romantic idea of ghosts. I don’t know if it’s possible for a person to stay behind after death, but if we have a choice, I think I’ll hang around for a while.

MDC: Me, too. Thanks for hanging around for this chat.  

Readers, with Halloween coming on, if you’re in Taylor’s neck of the woods, join one of his spine-tingling tours, or stop by his bookstore and stock up on ghost stories. If that’s not possible, have some ghostly fun viewing his Web sites. There’s more info there, and with links to others, than you can digest in one sitting: http://prairieghosts.com, and http://www.hauntedamericatours.com.