Today I’m very happy to welcome the dear Lisa Rogers to Darkest Sins!

You wrote On Haunted Ground in collaboration with your daughter, Keisha Swaim (who is going to have her own novel published soon from Spencer Hill Press). How was working together in a project so close for the both of you?

Keshia and I work on many projects together. Since we are both authors, we beta read for each other and just try to help one another out. We both have our strengths and weaknesses (I haven’t found her weaknesses yet, but I’m sure she has them. I mean she has to, right?)
One of my biggest weaknesses is grammar while that just happens to be one of her strongest points. She actually works as a copy editor, so how cool is that, for me anyway? Of course, she charges me an exuberant amount for her services. (I have to take her out for pizza once in awhile.)
But to get back to your question, when I first submitted On Haunted Ground, it did not contain Keshia’s chapter. The editors at Llewellyn were so intrigued with her outlook on ghosts that they asked if she would contribute a chapter to the book. Since this book is our family’s story, Keshia was thrilled to add her thoughts—of course, that came after we went out for pizza.

When did you decide to put your personal experiences on paper?

With our house having so much activity, I used to always say that “one day” I was going to write a book about our experiences. Even though it took a quarter of a century, one day finally came.

What strong emotions have you felt while writing On Haunted Ground?

Even though I’ve wanted to write this book for a long time, I must admit I had some serious reservations about trying to get it published. Because this is such a personal account of our lives, I considered writing it under a pen name and even changing all of our names in the book. After going back and forth with this a hundred times, it was my family who convinced me to use our real names.

Did anything strange happen during the writing process of this book?

By “strange” I assume you mean ghostly activity, which by all accounts isn’t so strange at my house. But, yes there were many times when I was working on the book that I absolutely knew I wasn’t alone.  I’ve always felt as though our ghosts wanted me to tell our story and I often felt as though someone…or several someone’s were standing behind me and reading over my shoulder.

What was the best episode you have experienced and talked about it in the book?

You have to remember, I have lived in a very active house for 28 years. I have experienced so many things that it would be impossible for me to pick just one and say, “that was the best.” I’ve had things that stand out in my mind as the funniest, the scariest, the most memorable, and the you’ve got to be kidding me categories. So for the sake of answering your question I’ll choose one incident that filled most of these categories at once.
We had an entity that came with the house. We called her the “green ghost.” This ghost had been with us for many years and had actually woven her way into the hearts of my daughter and myself. Both of us looked at her as a grandmotherly figure. For years, the only physical evidence we saw of her was when she manifested herself into a green glowing ball of light, which she did every night. But one day she appeared to me as a woman. She looked as real as anyone did—that is until she vanished right before my eyes.

Is there any of them that keep happening?

Things tend to happen in stages. There were times when the same action was repeated countless times, such as always finding the cabinet doors open, having our voices imitated, and my daughter being tucked into bed at night by unseen hands. All of these incidents happened time and time again until one day they just stopped. When they stopped, I assumed the entity responsible for the incidents had either grown bored or had moved on.  Today, the most likely thing someone might notice in our home is the activity in my office. This room started getting a lot of attention when I started writing six years ago. It isn’t uncommon to hear noises come out of that room when no one is in there. You can often hear the chair roll across the floor and papers shuffle. Unfortunately whoever, (I think it’s more than one) hangs out in there never bothers to finish any of my work for me. They do however connect to the Internet.

I know you’re used to it by now, but how scary it was the first time a presence made itself acknowledged?

Before we even bought the house, I sensed it came with a ghost. I don’t know why that didn’t bother me, but it didn’t. I have always just accepted the fact that ghosts exist. My only explanation for this is that perhaps I had an encounter before I was taught not to believe in ghost.

You wrote another book about Ghosts, but a fictional one, Angelina’s Secret. Would you like to introduce it to us and perhaps tell a curiosity you think we would particularly like to know?

Thanks for mentioning this Silvia. Angelina’s Secret is my debut novel, and it was just released Feb. 1st, 2012. It is about a young girl who discovers she can see ghosts, which of course makes her family question her sanity.  It takes a little while, but Angelina finally accepts her gift, and much like me, she simply accepts that ghosts are just a natural part of life. I’m particularly proud of this book and hope to do a sequel. If anyone is interested, in learning more about it, there is a free download of a short prequel titled Angelina’s Friend. It can be found here: Angelina’s Friend.
Speaking of free stuff you can also read my non-fiction contribution to the Llewellyn journal. This gives a little more insight to my thoughts on ghosts and it can be found here: Are You Haunted?.

Thanks for having me Silvia.

Lisa Rogers worked in the medical field until she hung up her stethoscope to help her husband pursue the dream of owning his own business. After opening the business while also raising their two, she insists, wonderful children, the time has come for her to fulfill a dream of her own—which is, was, and will always be, writing. With her children now grown, she dedicates her time to writing and learning about paranormal phenomena. When she’s not strapped to her computer at their rural Oklahoma home, she can generally be found poking around a dilapidated old building or visiting some historical place, perhaps searching for her next “out of body” character.

---