You may remember Rayne Hall from our recent collaboration: we wrote together a book on Copy Writing. Now, Rayne has edited an anthology of graveyard tales called, appropriately enough, Among The Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard. For today’s post, I interviewed Pamela Turner, one of the anthology’s authors. I hope you enjoy it!
An Interview with Headstones Author, Pamela Turner
Hi Pamela, it’s great to have you on my blog. Tell me, has a real-life cemetery, grave, or headstone ever inspired you to write a story?
Eastern Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky is included in almost every novel or novella I’ve written. Although this graveyard has been abandoned, and the chapel is sealed off because of vandals, there is now a volunteer organization taking care of the grounds and headstones.
A rumored witch’s grave lies near the chapel. People leave coins, keys, and other small gifts on her headstone.
Have you ever seen a ghost? Tell us about the experience.
Not seen – but felt!
Years ago, my husband’s ex-wife passed away. We were at her house with their son and our daughter. I was standing alone behind the car when something shoved me hard. Yet there was nobody there.
Another time, I was lying in bed and looking at a sheet hanging over a bi-fold closet door. There was no wind, no air conditioning, nothing, but the sheet moved as if someone pushed it aside to pass by.
For your story in Among the Headstones, where did you get the inspiration?
The inspiration for “Onryo” comes from my interest in Japanese ghost stories. What makes them scarier to me, as opposed to Western ghost tales, is how strong emotions, such as jealousy or anger, can literally drive someone to become a vengeful spirit. And when that spirit can cause harm and may never be appeased, it adds another layer of disquiet. For me, those stories are also difficult to forget because of the often-tragic stories behind them. One of them is the ghost story Tokaido Yotsuya Ghost Story, the story of Oiwa, probably Tokyo’s most famous ghost. In one version, she’s poisoned by her husband who wants to marry another woman. But Oiwa becomes an onryo, a vengeful spirit, and haunts him until he even kills his new bride, erroneously believing her to be Oiwa.
Who are your favorite Horror authors? What do you like about them?
Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, Narumi Kakinouchi, and Rumiko Takahashi. Stephen King is, of course, an inspiration, as he is to many. I like how he takes ordinary people, even children, and forces them into horrifying situations, but they’re able to retain their humanity and fight back against evil.
Edgar Allan Poe manages to get under the reader’s skin by disturbing people in ominous situations. One of my favorite Poe works is the poem “The Haunted Palace” because of the haunting images it provokes.
Narumi Kakinouchi and Rumiko Takahashi are manga artists/writers who have created two of my favorite manga. Kakinouchi’s Vampire Princess Miyu is more than willing to give her victims their greatest dream in exchange for their blood. What makes her offer disturbing is her victims end up losing touch with reality and remaining in those dream worlds.
Rumiko Takahashi’s Mermaid Saga is one of my favorites because Takahashi shows how deceitful, manipulative, and even murderous people can become when faced with the possibility of immortality at best or eternity as a loathsome monster at worst. The series follows 500-year-old Yuta and his companion Mana as they travel through Japan trying to find a way to make him normal.
Who are your favorite short story authors, and why?
Algernon Blackwood, Robert Arthur Jr., and Stephen King. Blackwood’s story “The Doll” was made into the Night Gallery episode of the same name and is responsible for causing my fear of dolls for many years afterward. Robert Arthur has a short story that, while I don’t remember the title, I haven’t forgotten the story itself. A detective and a magician team together to find a woman’s dead body and her killer. The line that’s stuck with me is “She had been beautiful in life. She was no longer beautiful.” (Well, I might be paraphrasing that line.) Stephen King’s ability to go into detail and really bring us into a character’s head probably explains part of his influence on horror writers. Not to mention his ability to make us empathize with his child characters who are often victims of preternatural forces such as Danny from The Shining or the children from IT.
Which of your books do you recommend for readers who are new to your fiction?
My novella The Ripper’s Daughter, which takes place ten years after the Ripper’s murder spree. Prostitutes are showing up dead in Louisville, Kentucky, and a former detective inspector turned vampire/tavern owner fears Jack is responsible.
What are you currently working on?
I’m writing an urban fantasy series featuring Watcher angels and a preternatural police force.
About Pamela Turner
Pamela Turner’s love for the paranormal began in elementary school, where she discovered anthologies filled with ghosts, witches, vampires, and other creatures that go bump in the night. Then there was Rod Serling’s Night Gallery and that creepy doll. Fearing her Raggedy Ann doll would steal her soul, Pamela made the doll face the wall before she went to bed.
Despite this, her interest in the supernatural continued. In middle school, she penned her own tales of terror. Fellow students enjoyed them, and she dreamed of becoming a published author.
After a short stint as a freelance magazine writer, she decided to return to writing fiction. She’s also an award-winning screenplay writer.
Currently, she writes paranormal suspense featuring vampires, dragons, angels, and demons. Just don’t expect her angels to always be good or her demons to always be evil.
Many of her stories are set in Louisville, Kentucky where she lives with her daughter and herds three rescue cats. When not writing, she enjoys anime and manga, weaving, aviation, cemeteries, and abandoned buildings.
Connect with Pamela on:
- Web: http://pamturner.net
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PamelaTurnerAuthor
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamturner97/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/pamelaturner
Among The Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard
This anthology, 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, the 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: https://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.
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And also, some people argue that ghosts can only be able to interfere if their death was unjustified, would you agree with that?
I don’t know Pamela’s experience but in my case, I’ve seen a ghost and she’d died in a car crash at a regretfully young age. She came to say goodbye and I never saw her again. Does that count as an unjustified death?
Do your writings include characters from tales that already exist? And if so, are you scared about those characters encountering you?
I know *I* would be 😀
Aside from the horror genre, do you also enjoy reading stories outside horror? If yes, what books can you consider as your favorites?
I enjoy reading a variety of genres and non-fiction, including urban fantasy, mystery, thrillers, paranormal romance, memoirs, books about film history and books about art and biographies of artists to name a few. A couple books I would consider favorites are The Stranger by Albert Camus and The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L’Engle. I also enjoy the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva and the John Milton and Beatrix Rose series by Mark Dawson. Also, Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, since I’m interested in Richard III. There are probably more, but these are the ones that come to mind. I consider a book a favorite if I can still remember a scene from it even years after I’ve read it.
It’s always interesting to learn about the inspiration behind the text. It often adds context and can widen the perspective when analysing.
I found Onryo interesting not only at a storytelling level, but also because of the unique cultural particularities of Japanese beliefs and burial customs.
Agreed completely. Thanks for the visit, it’s great to meet here as well 🙂
I also think that the Japanese horror stories is one of a kind. I remember reading Junji Ito’s Uzumaki for the first time, I was so terrified that i couldn’t look into any spiral kinda things.
I’ll look it up!
You should definitely check it out i’m pretty sure you won’t regret it and also it is a good inspiration for both artists and aurhots.
Sencer, I haven’t read Ito’s Uzumaki but his Tomie is one of my favorites. I have a couple of his manga and he is definitely one of the best horror manga-ka.
I haven’t read Tomie yet but it’s on the first line of my list Ms.Turner. Ito is definitely one of the bests if not the best. If you are interested there will also be an anime adaptation of Uzumaki which will be airing on october.
Great interview! It’s interesting to know how you managed to include cemeteries in every novella you wrote. I wonder, is there a distinction between a witch’s grave and regular graveyards? Aside from that, I agree Japanese horror stories are scarier than Western ones; there’s something about their ambiance and backstories, which makes it more terrifying!
Thanks, Jayvel! To be honest, this particular “witch’s” grave is like any other grave. It’s expected the rumors came about because of an inverted pentagram and the words “I’ll live again.” Apparently, an inverted star is used by the Order of the Eastern Star and is not always related to the occult. And the “live again” inscription is a common one.
Personally, I’ve always been more interested in the statue with the missing head. But I don’t know anything about what happened and haven’t been able to find anything.
Woah, that’s nice to know. The inverted pentagram and the quote “live again” may look familiar and pretty common to some, but as someone who thinks out of the box, that can already inspire a lot of conspiracy theories, lol
After this interview, I immediately read Onryo because who doesn’t like some weird Far Eastern ghost story? Thanks for including so many references to Japanese culture and Buddhist philosophy, Pamela. I like having to google certain words. I think there is nothing better than learning while being entertained (or emotionally disturbed, in this case).
Weird Far Eastern ghost story are the best 😀
Haha you are right Mr.Rossis. They are so different than ours, most of the time you can’t take cover since you can’t even guess what will happen next.
MT, you’re welcome. Hope you enjoyed it and the other stories. 🙂
How did you discover Japanese ghost stories?
Good question! I’m guessing online? Pamela?
Hi Nicholas. Great Interview!
Thank you so much 🙂
I came into Japanese ghost stories through anime. At the time, Cartoon Network was showing Vampire Hunter D and Robot Carnival. I became intrigued with anime and sought out other shows at my local video store. I also sought out manga, which is how I discovered Rumiko Takahashi early on. This led to my interest in Japanese culture. Books I’ve read include Japanese Ghosts and Demons by Stephen Addiss, Supernatural and Mysterious Japan by Catrien Ross, and Kwaidan: Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn. Movies (non-anime) I’ve seen are Onibaba and Ugetsu. (There might be others, but I don’t recall at this time.)
Thanks for sharing!
My introduction to vast anime world was also through Vampire Hunter D (and also Hellsing) via a youtube video. It is really rare to find someone familiar with these nowadays.
Japanese stories always strike me too, both the old folklore tales as well as modern urban legends. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to the Western type of horror and ghosts that often feel like humans that the cruelty and madness of Japanese spirits give me chills. I remember being a teenager and still being afraid of going to the toilet at night after reading a bunch of legends. But I’ve always found them more than fascinating. It makes me curious to see what part Onryo is gonna play in your story!
They sure are… different!
Haha you’re right, and it’s so interesting to learn more about the difference. Thanks for the great interview, by the way!
Thank you so much, Lana 🙂
I’m assuming you’ve heard the tale of the bathroom ghost Hanako-san then. 🙂 Hope you enjoy the story.
I’ve just checked Hanako-san, but I don’t think it was her. The legend I read back then was related to a spirit that would steal you through the toilet itself or something like that. But going through different urban legends related to bathrooms and public toilets, I see that this one is far from the scariest.
You are right. I remember seeing the Ring (the Japanese version) after the American version. I was shocked to realise that nearly half of the material was removed. I can’t imagine comparing it with the book.
Yes? I didn’t know that! I mean, I’ve heard that the Japanese version is scarier (as they usually are), but I didn’t know that they changed the American one so much. Definitely gonna check both versions now.
Thank you for the fascinating interview. It was nice to meet Pamela Turner and to learn about her and what inspires her. I was also intrigued by the Japanese ghost stories and last but not least, I love discovering new (to me) authors and titles that I am impatient to look up.
Thank you so much, Diana, and welcome to my blog 🙂
The house we lived in up in Pittsburgh was haunted. A teen or young woman frequently walked up and down the steps that led from the 2nd floor to the 3rd. The door at the top of the steps could be locked as well as the door on the 2nd floor. Her steps always sounded between the two doors. I kept the doors closed because we had a curious toddler. You never heard her steps anywhere else in the house. The only history of the house I learned was that it used to be a stage depot with rooms for travelers to rest. The people that bought the house from us heard them as well.
Wow, that’s so weird! Thanks for sharing that, Connie!
OK! Hard to pass up 99 cents.
Thank you, John! I agree and already bought my copy 🙂
Thank you for having me, Nicholas. Excited to be part of this anthology.
Many thanks for the interview, Pamela! It was great having you on my blog 🙂
I wonder why people leave gifts on the witch’s grave. Are they trying to placate her wrath, or are they hoping she will work a spell in their favour?
Hadn’t thought of that! Good question, actually.
Did your husband’s ex-wife bear you a grudge? Maybe she wanted to give you a shove all the time she was alive, and now she was a ghost, she finally got her chance. 😀
Sure does look that way, doesn’t it? 😀
It wouldn’t surprise me. That said, I’ve visited a couple of mediums and they’ve both said that my deceased husband still loves and cares about me.
I always enjoy reading interviews from authors. Her books sound great.
Many thanks for visiting 🙂