A brief introduction to the Killer Budgie blog.

Unaccustomed as I am to public spooking, I’m delighted to welcome you to the Killer Budgie blog. Some of you may know me as a writer of books on Ohio ghosts. Other friends know of my interest in history. Or perhaps you have overheard at the lunch counter my cheerful conversations with friends about the best ways to administer poison undetected or Murderesses I Admire.

This blog will certainly cover the supernatural–there will be at least one supernatural/paranormal post per week. However, you’ll also find posts on history, costume history, archaeology, strange deaths, wonders and curiosities, or whatever else takes my fancy at the moment.

In my recent immersion in 19th-century newspapers and journals, I’ve been struck by the wide variety of news stories available in very small town newspapers. At random, in the Piqua Daily Call of 1897, we find articles about heroism in coal mines, the outside decoration of French houses, skeletons with tails found in Mexico, a doctor’s ingenious use of carrier pigeons, the murder of an American citizen in Mexico, bubonic plague arriving on a ship in Hamburg, squibs about ostrich eggs, weather, fires, and accidents. I am happy to write in this same eclectic vein.

Think of me (as I recently said in The Face in the Window: Haunting Ohio Tales) as a Victorian magpie—or perhaps a mud lark, fishing in the mudflats of a tide of old newspapers, books, and journals: plucking a bloodthirsty fiend here, a petrified corpse there, my attention diverted by a shiny spook light or a strange presentiment of death.

Some of these blogs will be deeply researched; others, casually or even superficially. I will flit and rove. There will be little in the way of analysis—my talents lie primarily in discovery and collection. I invite you to subscribe to receive updates and to contribute. I assume everybody knows more about my subject matter than I do. I will do my best to elevate, instruct, and amuse.