I got a recent newspaper interview. The reporter was a darling wet-behind-the-ears boy with an interest in the paranormal, but without the knowledge. The word "psychometry" became "parapsychology" for him, but I give him an A for the effort.
Ahead of getting Julie and I's book published "Kickin' Up Dust! (Getting Lost to Find Ourselves)," we began a blog based on the book. When the editor goes to pitch the book to the publisher, we can show that we already have begun the buzz online for the book's release.
The basis of the book is our lives over the past 16 months. Each chapter involves a place we went to together. At the start of the chapter, it lists our goals for the trip like "go to an abandoned ghost town and photograph empty buildings" and then it goes into the story of the trip including each of our points of view of what the trip was like, whether it was a ghost hunt or urban exploration or working on one of our books, and then what was going on inside our lives.
We began our first meeting on a ghost hunt and over time, we hit the road, went on adventures, but during that time we also changed our personal and professional lives significantly. At the end of the chapters, we tell what the final outcome of that trip actually was compared to the simple goal. The outcomes were enormous. Each trip spawned more and more changes in our lives and our confidence and maturity. Then, the chapter closes with "tips" including recipes, music playlists, how to pack for a ghost hunt, how to urban explore, et cetera.
The blog for the book (link above) is the site where all our videos and pics of our urban exploration and ghost hunts resides, so enjoy going there and being a follower. We put up posts often and they are breezy and fast to go through. When you're done going through them, you will see the southwest through our eyes and have gone on trips with the "Thelma and Louise of the Paranormal World."
Wish us luck because once the book is pitched, we might pitch a show based upon it here in AZ to hit the road for some the creepiest and least known places.
Here's the article in full:
"Sharon Day is Ahwatukee's Resident Ghost Hunter"
By Travis Roemhild, Ahwatukee Foothills News Ahwatukee Foothills News
While growing up in northern Virginia, Sharon Day spent her time exploring the land of her family home and doing a little amateur archaeology. She would find relics buried under the soil, some from the Civil War. Her family home was 250 years old and had been used as a field hospital for both the North and South.
When she touched these relics, she would see and feel things, she said, evidence of a connection between this world and that of the supernatural. But it wasn't until she moved out West that she began to realize that not everyone has the same experience when they encounter something that has a history of its own.
"I thought it was normal to be able to see things when you touched an object, flashes of its history," Day said.
These experiences led her to believe that she had a special ability, an ability that not a lot of other people possess. She calls it parapsychology and her experience in Virginia made her want to expand upon it.
"I wanted to learn why some objects were easier to read than others," she said. "I grew up in a haunted Civil War house and it didn't become clear until later that what was happening to me wasn't happening to others."
Day, an Ahwatukee Foothills resident, works from home as a medical transcriptionist. She started to seriously pursue her interest in the subject eight years ago. She has since written three books - one fiction and two non-fiction, maintains a blog called "Ghost Hunting Theories," and regularly goes out with a crew to inspect ghost towns and other haunted areas.
"I am always looking for new ways to study the paranormal," she said.
She knows there are skeptics and probably always will be.
But she won't let that stop her from learning more about her unique ability and satisfying her interest in what goes on after death.
"For some people, they won't believe until they can put their hands on a ghost and shake them," she said. "The experience for me is a personal one. I touch, feel and have a sense that something else is going on outside of the regular observations."
Her most recent ghost hunts were to Noftsger Hill Inn in Globe and a Gila County abandoned jail.
You can read more about Day's experiences and see photos and video from some of her ghost hunts on her blog, http://autumnforestghosthunter.blogspot.com.