Haunted Encounters

I have just received my contributor’s copy of Haunted Encounters, published by Atriad Press. The anthology has gathered together true ghost stories from around the world. Mine took place in Ireland in the 50s, and is actually about my father’s encounter with a ghost.
We believe in ghosts in Ireland - Maybe it’s something in the air or the water, but almost everyone has a ghost story, and while we are used to the doubting Thomases, we calmly accept that there are things in this world that have no rational explanation.
Of course, sometimes there is a rational explanation - my mother was gathering white sheets off the washing line night and as she was heading back with them draped all over her, she heard a shriek from the lane nearby and the sound of someone running away as fast as their legs could carry them.
But not all encounters are so easily dismissed - and growing up in Ireland, you learn to accept the possible existence of things beyond normal perception.
It’s a feeling the Irish carry with them all over the world. Even here in Australia, I acknowledge the existence of a reality beyond this one- white civilization here is still relatively new, and below the old ghost stories of haunted pubs and houses, there is something else - a far older spirit, that of the land itself. It’s not like Ireland - that was a place where I felt as much a part of the landscape as the rocks themselves. Here is always the feeling that we live on Australia like fleas on a dog, and you never know when the dog’s going to wake up and scratch itself.
But for the most part, the ghosts here are benign, not like in the UK - I remember visiting Coventry once, still fresh from ghost ridden Ireland. I had been told about the ghost of an 18th Century woman who had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. It was said if you saw her you would die in the same number of days it took her to die. So I walked around Coventry with my eyes shut.
Well, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about my haunted encounters, would I?
Haunted Encounters is available from Atriad Press at http://www.atriadpress.com/haunted.htm
I have been dipping into my copy since it arrived, and I’m very happy to be in the company of some excellent writers who also don’t mind people knowing they believe in ghosts - it’s hard not to, when ghosts believe in you.

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