Interview with Atmosphere Press
Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?
It all started with a little group of writers in Washington State who invited me to join them. I hadn’t written anything besides journal entries and a biography of my dad for the family. We had lessons on character development, writing prompts, story start exercises, and then…the group decided to publish an anthology. I wrote a short story about an escape from East Germany during the Cold War. I had my name in print! It was a great way to get started, as several in the group were already published authors, and they helped me navigate getting an Amazon author page. One was an editor and did the editing on the anthology. Another was a graphic artist and designed the cover. We all beta read for each other’s stories and in the end, we had a book we could all be proud of. It’s called Rainfall: A Rainy Day Writers’ Anthology, and my story in it is called “Escape in Three Movements.”
What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?
I ran a computer lab in an elementary school, worked in several bookstores, then got my MLIS from Syracuse University in 2005 and became a librarian. I was the Director for a small village library in Upstate New York, then when we moved to Washington, I was hired as the Library Manager for the Tumwater Timberland branch of the Timberland Regional Library System. I thoroughly enjoyed that career for 12 years until I retired in 2015. Then I started a new career as an author, herbalist and caregiver.
I’ve been a horsewoman, an herbalist, a genealogist and a librarian and an artist.
Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?
The title, We Are Shadows, An Irish Ghost Story, comes from a poem by Thomas Moore. I did a lot of research on Irish poets and authors in the process of writing the Gallagher Girls Mystery series:
“It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan; And the fair and the brave whom we loved on earth are gone; But still thus even in death,
So sweet the living breath
Of the fields and the flowers in our youth we wander’d o’er,
That ere, condemn’d, we go
To freeze ’mid Hecla’s snow,
We would taste it a while, and think we live once more!”
— “Oh, Ye Dead!” by Thomas Moore
What part of publishing your book made it feel real for the first time?
Receiving the box of copies for the first time was a very emotional experience—seeing the book I’d labored over for so long actually in my hands with its beautiful cover was overwhelming.
If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?
Several of Enya’s songs could be the soundtrack for my books: “The Celts,” “Orinoco Flow,” “Caribbean Blue,” “Ebudae”…the Celtic vibe is perfect. Also, many of the songs by Secret Garden.
What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?
The hope that the afterlife is real, that our loved ones are near and still taking an interest in our lives, is a message that I hope resonates with readers and gives them a feeling of comfort and peace. These “ghost stories” aren’t your typical murder mysteries, nor are they your typical ghost stories. They are stories that have their genesis in the experiences of several of my ancestors as well as encounters I and others I know have had with the departed.
What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?
I love doing book talks and fairs, meeting readers and sharing with them my journey and hearing theirs.
What creative projects are you currently working on?
I’m working on a memoir and a children’s picture book. The picture book I hope will be published before the end of 2025.
Pantser vs Plotter
I read a recent blog post here about this subject from the perspective of a plotter and felt I needed to add my two cents. As a pantser, I don’t know that I have the ability to choose whether to be one or the other. The thought of having a whole story outlined and the basics of each chapter known ahead of time seems way out of my reach. I wouldn’t go so far as to say being a pantser is more “creative” than a plotter, for both need to have the creative juices flowing to accomplish their goals; they just go about it in different ways.
I had an aha! moment recently while watching an art competition. Each of the nine artists took a different approach to painting their given subject. One started right off with paint on the canvas, working from life, her eyes darting back and forth from the subject to her easel. Some started with an underpainting in a monochrome color, putting down broad strokes that captured general shapes. Others took their time with a pencil or charcoal sketch before adding paint to their canvas. Still, others plotted out the portrait on a grid and followed that, systematically transferring lines and shapes from the grid on their iPads to the corresponding grid on the canvas. As the four hours progressed, nine different paintings emerged—all masterpieces in their own right—from photorealistic pencil to one in the style of the Old Masters to impressionism.
It hit me how this is a parallel to the writing process. (One artist even referred to her method as “by the seat of my pants.”) My process begins with an inkling of a plot idea. I’m working on a series, so the characters are already in place, as is more or less the setting. Then I sit down at the computer and “listen” to the characters as they talk to each other and move about from scene to scene, quickly writing down what I hear before it gets away from me. When I get stumped, I sometimes resort to dreamwork. Before going to bed at night, I’ll seed my dream with a “what should happen next” thought. I had a whole chapter emerge in that liminal state right before waking. Even if I don’t write every day, my characters are always with me and I keep my eyes open to synchronicities around me that may apply to my story.
I’ve read and re-read Save the Cat and tried to set out beats and plot an outline, but for me, it all comes down to whatever occurs in the moment.
Be Yourself. Whether you are a pantser or a plotter, whether you start with a mere slip of an idea or a blow-by-blow, scene-by-scene complete novel swirling around in your head, the end result will be uniquely your own—your voice, your passion, your vision, your masterpiece.
Plotting AND Pantsing a painting:
How They Began
The kernels that grew into the stories in book three: A Haunting at Hawthorn
Who were the Magdalenes in the Magdalene Laundries? Where are the Monument Track and the Milford Track? What’s so special about Gorgona Island?
These and other questions are answered in Book Three of the Gallagher Girls Mystery series. I wanted these stories to be based in my family history. The very first story, A Haunting at Hawthorn, began with a writing prompt in a zoom meeting for a writers’ group. The prompt was, “There is a locked door …” I wrote the first chapter from that prompt in thirty minutes.
I set the story, A Death Down Under, in New Zealand as I had recently been on a trip there and fell in love with the place. My husband and I hiked the Milford Track on the South Island. I had to do plenty more research than re-reading my journals from that trip for the story though. It was fun researching the Kiwi slang for a change from the Irish.
Buried Secrets was a tough one to write. Based as it is in recent Irish history, the things I learned in my research were heart-wrenching. I got the kernel of the idea for it from an incident in my family history where one relative was in a convent for several years but came home and was quite changed. She developed a mental illness and was taken advantage of by unscrupulous men. She became pregnant and gave up her child to adoption. I googled “Irish convents, illegitimate children” and my browser exploded with stories and testimonials from the victims of the Magdalene laundries. I’d found my story.
Gone But not Forgotten is taken almost verbatim from my Canadian ancestors. You can read their story here in the blog post ,“Siblings Reunited after Decades Apart.”
And finally, Bad Blood is entirely made up. I wanted to bring back Giulio, though, and explore Italy. I’ve been to Italy twice, once with my husband and two children back in 1982, and again in 2010 with my daughter, Vanessa, as a reward trip for her graduating college. I loved it both times for different reasons, so thoroughly enjoyed “visiting” it this third time with Moira and Deirdre. A shout out to author, Nicole Sharp, for her help with the Italian language and culture.
I hope you enjoy it as well and learn a few things perhaps you didn’t know before reading. Maybe you’ll pick up a few tips on genealogical research, learn a bit of Gaeilge or Italian, or gain a greater understanding of how things work on the Otherside!
Happy reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments below for a chance to *win a bottle of Hawthorn oil extract. (Learn about its remarkable properties in the first story of A Haunting at Hawthorn).
Field Trip to Ireland
I recently flew to Ireland with my daughter. We visited cousins with whom we’ve been in touch over the past forty years but had never actually met in person. We received the royal treatment, and with our native personal tour guides, saw sites not often frequented by tourists.
It was fabulous to finally meet these Connolly cousins and realize how thick blood truly is–we felt like old friends and were right at home in their homes.
Along with site seeing, family visits and the opportunity to see some of the places I’d written about in Book One of the Gallagher Girls Mysteries, I gathered ideas and impressions — fodder for Book Two. Highlights were a trip to the Aran Island of Inisheer, pub-hopping in Dublin, and a visit to the Old Connolly Homestead.
The only downside to the trip was that we wanted to stay; I mean, if I had the funds and the freedom, I would have bought a cottage on the Dingle Peninsula and tucked in for a summer (at least) of writing, painting, and soaking up all things Irish.
But home we came (and it was nice to be back! Travel can be exhausting) and I immediately started in on Book Two, The Body in Brú na Bóinne.
Paranormal experiences that influenced the stories
- Moira’s experience with a dark presence on the cliff and again in the library have elements of Joseph Smith’s first vision in the Sacred Grove of Palmyra, New York in 1820. In his own words:
After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seizedupon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound.
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1?lang=eng
2. In November 2017, President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared a story from his family history of the time when his grandfather received a visit from his own father, who had recently passed away. In the vision he was able to see and converse with his father, ask questions and receive answers. You can watch a video account by President Nelson here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjBwuL0ogJs&ab_channel=FamilyHistoryCanBeFun&fbclid=IwAR0stLb2_TSZuV741oHqhHlI7bVRGuFMNgGyCbjtieKQFGt85IaQ8On6pSA
This account also informs my assertion by Eveleen in chapter eleven that “in a better world than this one, we can be a family as we had planned so long ago.”
3. Moira’s wakeup call on the road from Dingle is especially close to my heart, as this very thing happened to my cousin, Debby. Her sister, younger by two years, had passed away as a young teen. When Debby was in her early twenties she was in a situation where she was driving at night and fell asleep at the wheel. She woke to the sound of her sister’s voice, loud and clear, “Debby! Wake Up. You’re going to hit the median!” She was able to turn the wheel in time to avert an accident.
4. Have you ever been thinking of a friend or loved one and suddenly they call you out of the blue? The same thing can happen with our departed loved ones. We may be thinking of them and their favorite song will come on the radio at that very moment. Or at times when we are especially missing them, we may see a rainbow or be given their favorite flower. There’s a beautiful story that illustrates this point here: https://www.ldsliving.com/Why-I-believe-in-a-God-that-gives-us-flowers/s/93090
These were my thoughts behind Julia’s linnet bird.
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5. Jeremiah’s appearance in Chapter Eight is similar to what happened to two family history researchers in Nova Scotia. I had hired them to search the Canadian records for me when I was abroad in Belgium and unable to access records through a Family History Centre, the only means of reading microfilmed records before the online databases were developed. They reported to me that they were the only two people in a small reading room. As they put a film on the reader that they hoped contained the records of my ancestors, both sisters immediately felt the presence of a group of people–as if the room had suddenly become crowded. Both turned to see who had entered but there was no one to be seen. They testified that they felt these were the spirits of my ancestors, excited at the prospect of being “found” in the records before them. Within a short time, they had indeed been able to discover the needed information in the films they were reading.
6. Moira’s lucid dream of Nuala in chapter nine is reminiscent of a dream I had in which I was shown information about one of my children, whom I was particularly worried about at the time. The dream gave me peace and comfort, and from that time forth I never was burdened with worry for that child.
7. Nuala’s experience with Da’s voice in the church is especially close to my heart, as it is very similar to an experience my mother had with my father after his passing. My father was a kind, rough-around-the-edges man, who didn’t often say, “I love you,” to his wife and children, but would do anything for them. After his death, my mom was out mowing the lawn on the riding lawn mower, a job my dad usually had done. She came to the edge of the lawn, as it sloped down to the creek. Suddenly, she found that the weight of the mower was propelling it down the hill and she couldn’t turn or stop it. She panicked, thinking she was going to end up in the creek, when she distinctly heard my dad’s voice, loud and clear, “Annie! You dumb sh*t, turn off the engine!” Which she did, and the mower immediately stopped.
8. Paddy’s newly acquired knowledge in the afterlife that all children go to heaven, and do not require baptism, is a tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and can be found in the Book of Mormon here:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/moro/8?lang=eng
and here: Mosiah 3:18-21
This doctrine of the salvation of little children was the first thing that drew me to investigate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was sixteen years old. It is a doctrine that rings of truth and gives peace to my soul.
I believe strongly in an Afterlife, where we can see and be with our loved ones again. I believe the veil between that spirit world and this one is very thin, and on occasion, non-existent. I DO believe in ghosts, the very friendly kind. I also know that evil is real and there is a place in the spirit world for those who choose that side, apart from those who are trying their best to choose the right each day. I hope this little “ghost story” has given you some food for thought!
Irish Slang
Maith thú = Ma-hoo (well done, or good on you)
Go raibh maith agat = Guh ruh mah a-gut (thank you)
Go raibh mile maith agat (a thousand thanks.)
A pheata= ah fat-ahm – (my pet, an endearment)
Slán tamall = bye for now
Slán Leat = Slawn Lyat (goodbye to someone who’s leaving)
Up to 90 = extremely busy (I thought this one was especially fun)
Gaff = house
Jo maxi = taxi
Stall the ball = stop talking for a minute
Torch = flashlight
Ogeous = tricky situation (I may use this one myself. What do you think? Would you stumble over the narrative if you came across one of these? Or would it help to get into the characters better?
In the research process for We Are Shadows: An Irish Ghost Story, I watched a lot of YouTube videos and visited a lot of websites on Irish slang. I picked out my favorites, ones that I could hear my characters saying, and peppered my manuscript with colorful language (not off-color, mind you…)
Then I handed my “baby” over to a beta reader, who quickly informed me that I had way too much slang. In the next draft, much of my favorites were changed out for more familiar expressions—familiar to an American reader, that is.
Now, in the spirit of not wanting those lovely words to go to waste, I’m sharing them here with you, so you can see what is missing from the published version.
The Burren
As in Book One, We Are Shadows, several of the incidents in Book Two are also based on real events in my own life. Most notably is the story of the death of Clair Donovan. The idea for that encounter came from a time when I was in elementary school and had been prescribed a certain medication for an illness. The local pharmacist (who had a problem of his own with alcohol) mistakenly filled the prescription with sleeping pills. After a few days of daily sleeping pills, I passed out in the cafeteria during lunch. I was rushed to Boston Childrens Hospital where the problem was discovered, and the medication corrected. My own father’s response to that incident also closely mirrors what transpires in the story.
While visiting Ireland last summer with my daughter, the kernels for the first story, and those occurring on the Aran Islands and in the Dublin pub were planted. Quite a bit of research then went into fleshing out the background for the stories.
As to the supernatural element, there is one visitation that is totally taken from real life. It didn’t happen to me but was told to me when my daughter and I had a private tour of The Burren. As the conversation (naturally) turned to the supernatural, and paranormal visitations, our fabulous and knowledgeable tour guide told us of an event in her life that I have faithfully (and with permission) recreated in the visitation of Brian’s grandmother to Moira.
I hope you enjoy each one of these glimpses into the Otherworld!
The Real Stories
They say one should write what one knows. I’d known my family history stories since I was a child, so naturally, these stories have found their way into my writing. My Irish ancestor, Thomas Connolly, did go to the Alaskan Gold Rush in the Klondike with his brother, Cornelius, in 1895. Alas, they didn’t strike it rich, as Thomas Connolly in We Are Shadows did, but they did bring home enough to pay off their mortgages. Also, as far as I know, there was no family feud to estrange the family branches.
You’ll find even more family history stories in The Body In Brú na Bóinne, though those are even closer to home, generationally speaking.
Father Feen’s prompting to bring the baptismal register into the house, (in chapter eleven of We Are Shadows) is based on an incident I experienced while in the military with my husband in Belgium. I had just been given a new calling or job in the church to teach children. The bishop, laying his hands upon my head to give me a blessing and “setting apart” for that calling, stopped in his typical message of advice and counsel. He paused a moment then began again, “soon you will be receiving information on your family history that will bring you great joy.” I thought, “that’s interesting,” but then forgot about it until two weeks later when I received a letter in the mail.
It was from a parish priest in Quebec, whom I had written to earlier asking for information on my great-great-grandfather, his two wives and the nine children he had by each wife. Or so the family story went. He had written back that after a search of the parish registers, he could find nine children by the first wife, but only eight by the second. I chalked it up to inflated oral family history and thought no more about it. Then a short time after the bishop’s blessing, I got a second letter from this same parish priest. He had “felt prompted” to take another look at the register and was able to find a ninth child by the second wife. The information on that baptism followed.
So many pearls are in this story! First of all, for me was the awe that Heavenly Father knew this information was coming (for he had given the priest that prompting, after all), and wanted to share with me the excitement and joy which that news would bring. Second, the gratitude that my bishop was in tune with the Spirit and heard and spoke those words which were given to him. And third, that the parish priest followed the prompting and went back into the records for a more thorough search for that one entry.