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News Archives from June '06 to November'07 here.

News Archives from Nov. '07-April '10 here.

invisible Hit CounterReef Fishing in Key West

Spring 2011

Notes from the Haunted Office

On this grey day in early spring, 2011, ghosts aren’t difficult to imagine, winding up staircases, slipping under doors. Or so it would seem here in my so-called “haunted office”—on the second floor of a building in the heart of the little town where I now live. While this 1920 space isn’t as drafty as I would expect from its years, the narrow windows that stretch upward throw shafts of light and shadows that are equally long.

Desperately needing a dedicated place to write -- phone-less, dog-less, laundry-less, I rented the battered office above a café in January this year, despite scarred ivory paint and a tin ceiling partially rusted from old leaks, despite the awful modifications done by previous tenants who favored harvest gold wallpaper in the 70s and thought gluing bulletin board cork to a small area of one wall was a good idea. I overlooked the holes in the floor from a massage therapist who had practiced here – she’d installed a shower and a sink that she must have taken with her, leaving drain holes but no drains.

original view of office I loved the office straightaway the moment I saw it, loved it for that tin ceiling, the frosted glass windows that make the office private from the corridor, the original hardwood floors--and the cheap rent! This place originally housed a lawyer, but it truly belongs to the era of black-and-white detective films. The noir is all here: hard shadows, ceiling fan, and venetian blinds through which a neon bar sign blinks from across the street. A Maltese Falcon on the desk wouldn’t seem out of place.

I’ll take it, I said, and wrote a check for three months' advance rent. I would gut it to the bones and restore it. That was the plan. And I’d do it fast – had to – I have another book on the way.

office entry Ghosts were the very first thing mentioned by folks other than the landlord. My office is, it’s rumored, in the very heart of this building’s other-worldly activity. Café staff have stories there of empty chairs moving and the automatic paper towel roller cranking away when no one is in the bathroom. Long-time locals tell me variations on a single story about a trial gone wrong and rumored revenge taken on a lawyer’s family: either the lawyer himself and his little daughter or the lawyer’s wife and daughter, involved in a car accident of suspicious origins. It is said that before trouble came, the child would play in the central corridor along which all our offices lay --- she'd play outside her father's office, rolling her ball and chasing it, losing it sometimes, bump-bump-bump down the stairs. "Gifted" persons say you can hear a child’s footsteps here sometimes and, more often, the roll and bump of her ball. an interior view of the office

I have never heard either. Introduced in a shop here in town, one mystic resident told me that my office is popular with the spirits here, due to the many circle patterns in the design of the room. As far as I know, he’s never seen my remodeled office – but he’s right. There are circle patterns in the art, a circular magazine rack, circles in the rug, on the vintage looking radio, a silver ball on a stand by the window. He told me to put a ball on the floor of the office to encourage interaction. I’m always intrigued by local folklore, so of course I put a small porcelain ball down on the carpet. In a month it has moved – once – inexplicable really, not a property of draft or vibration or me touching at all. Since then it has remained where it sits, and while I’m at a loss to explain how the ball moved in the first place, I could attribute the shift as much to seismic activity as paranormal.

porcelain ball What matters to me most is that this office still has a gasp or two of attention paid to it. I have lived too long in a heedless city more eager to tear down than preserve, and I’m grateful to have escaped to this place where an old building can keep its value and its street cred a little while longer, and where I can sit every day for an hour or two or six, tapping away at a keyboard as many other people must have tapped here across a century.

Whether ghosts are real or not, I don’t really know. But I do know that ghost stories are changelings –- and very much alive -- shaped by generations of imagination, curiosity, and yearning. These are conditions I understand. As a writer, I live with them every day.

Winter 2011

Ice and heavy snow in north Texas -- twice! WHAT? The dogs are skitter-footed but thrilled by the falling white stuff. Even the littlest Poms bound through it with a joy that reminds me much of their puppy days. The second storm a week before the Super Bowl was much more dangerous than the first one. A record number of car and pedestrian accidents, three days of ice followed by a whole day of heavy snow, and ice slides from the roof of Cowboy Stadium just a day before the big game.

Puzzle and I were supposed to drive to Austin for a book event at Lake Austin Spa Resort, hosted by gracious people, an event where Dr. Patricia McConnell was also slated to speak. Dr. McConnell made it there after much rescheduling of plane flights from various departure cities, but the roads were too treacherous for Puzzle and I to drive, and so we weren't able to attend. We stayed home, safe, but bummed to have missed it.

Puz is working very hard these days, and now that the extended rigors of the book tour are over (we were gone very often from April-November 2010), she enters the field with such bright energy. Search is what she was born for and loves to do, and while she has traveled to speaking venues with every grace, and she's had some rare opportunities to work with other teams across the country (and in Florida, she got to meet a manatee face-to-face!),it is good to see her heading into search sectors and making finds with such enthusiasm.

Speaking of ferreting mysteries, and we were (sort of), this video makes me laugh every time I see it. Jules is a grown-up golden boy now, but once upon a time he was a puppy with a good imagination and a whole lot to say to an uppity brush. Check it out!

Autumn 2010

The ferocious heat that was Texas in summer 2010 has finally given way to cooler weather, and we are all invigorated. Some crazy gust-front storms have blown across the area in less than half an hour, and it's wild to watch a flagpole near where I live swing through the windshift in a space of just moments, blowing wildly from the south and then whipping around and blowing from the north with equal fury.

Puz and I have been traveling for Scent of the Missing and for various nonprofit events -- including a wonderful Golden Retriever rescue event with Retrieve a Golden of Minnesota (RAGOM) in September, and a whirlwind tour through Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati, and Dayton a week later. Gracious people, good food and Puz and I alone on long car trips through amazing terrain. I found myself looking down into ravines and thinking, as I always do, "How would I search that?" and also, "If I had to land a plane here, where and how would I do it?"

Virginia in early November was equally beautiful, and while Puz and I were in Harrisonburg, VA, we had the chance to meet with the fine folks of Blue and Gray Search and Rescue Dogs, in Harrisonburg. Some terrific people and lovely dogs there, with hearts for service. What's not to love?

Late Summer 2010

The book tour proper was a wild and wooly seven-weeks of travel, bookstore and media events, and lots of face-time with readers and folks I've known online for more than a decade. We're a little confused and not entirely certain where we are when we wake up these days, but things are settling down a bit.

A good year brings bittersweet, as well. This year I lost Tupper Capstan (Tuppy), my unfailing 3-lb. support system during the time I wrote Scent of the Missing, to oral melanoma in February 2010. I have since moved from the house I shared with him, and he never knew the space where I live now, but I miss him no less keenly. There are dogs whose joy is in quiet companionship, and that was Tuppy, who came to me as a rescue when he was of indeterminate age (guessing nine or ten?) and died five years later.

This year, too, we lost Nimbus the kitty -- another rescue from the engine of a truck at a fast-food restaurant, where as a tiny kitten she was wedged and burned after a journey from Tulsa, OK. Nimbus was with us 14 years.

And in August, ten days apart, senior Pomeranians Sam and Misty also left us -- their bodies not as strong as their gallant souls. They were a presence here in this house, and sometimes I still think I see them, or hear them in the corner of my conscious mind as I'm moving through the house.

Godspeed, little ones. You were, and are, life-changers in your own right, and I look forward to a time we can be together again. You will probably still be hogging the couch.


News Just for fun! The Gallery of Dubious Dogs. Writers' Resources List here. Happy to connect on Facebook -- drop me a line there at Susannah Charleson. And should I be worried that my Search Dog now Tweets? Only if she learns to do it by herself without my help. Puzzle and I tweet together as PuzzleCharleson. (I tweet independently as S_Charleson.) News Archives from June '06 to November'07 here. News Archives from Nov. '07-April '10 here. Spring 2011 Notes from the Haunted Office On this grey day in early spring, 2011, ghosts aren’t difficult to imagine, winding up staircases, slipping under doors. Or so it would seem here in my so-called “haunted office”—on the second floor of a building in the heart of the little town where I now live. While this 1920 space isn’t as drafty as I would expect from its years, the narrow windows that stretch upward throw shafts of light and shadows that are equally long. Desperately needing a dedicated place to write -- phone-less, dog-less, laundry-less, I rented the battered office above a café in January this year, despite scarred ivory paint and a tin ceiling partially rusted from old leaks, despite the awful modifications done by previous tenants who favored harvest gold wallpaper in the 70s and thought gluing bulletin board cork to a small area of one wall was a good idea. I overlooked the holes in the floor from a massage therapist who had practiced here – she’d installed a shower and a sink that she must have taken with her, leaving drain holes but no drains. I loved the office straightaway the moment I saw it, loved it for that tin ceiling, the frosted glass windows that make the office private from the corridor, the original hardwood floors--and the cheap rent! This place originally housed a lawyer, but it truly belongs to the era of black-and-white detective films. The noir is all here: hard shadows, ceiling fan, and venetian blinds through which a neon bar sign blinks from across the street. A Maltese Falcon on the desk wouldn’t seem out of place. I’ll take it, I said, and wrote a check for three months' advance rent. I would gut it to the bones and restore it. That was the plan. And I’d do it fast – had to – I have another book on the way. Ghosts were the very first thing mentioned by folks other than the landlord. My office is, it’s rumored, in the very heart of this building’s other-worldly activity. Café staff have stories there of empty chairs moving and the automatic paper towel roller cranking away when no one is in the bathroom. Long-time locals tell me variations on a single story about a trial gone wrong and rumored revenge taken on a lawyer’s family: either the lawyer himself and his little daughter or the lawyer’s wife and daughter, involved in a car accident of suspicious origins. It is said that before trouble came, the child would play in the central corridor along which all our offices lay --- she'd play outside her father's office, rolling her ball and chasing it, losing it sometimes, bump-bump-bump down the stairs. "Gifted" persons say you can hear a child’s footsteps here sometimes and, more often, the roll and bump of her ball. I have never heard either. Introduced in a shop here in town, one mystic resident told me that my office is popular with the spirits here, due to the many circle patterns in the design of the room. As far as I know, he’s never seen my remodeled office – but he’s right. There are circle patterns in the art, a circular magazine rack, circles in the rug, on the vintage looking radio, a silver ball on a stand by the window. He told me to put a ball on the floor of the office to encourage interaction. I’m always intrigued by local folklore, so of course I put a small porcelain ball down on the carpet. In a month it has moved – once – inexplicable really, not a property of draft or vibration or me touching at all. Since then it has remained where it sits, and while I’m at a loss to explain how the ball moved in the first place, I could attribute the shift as much to seismic activity as paranormal. What matters to me most is that this office still has a gasp or two of attention paid to it. I have lived too long in a heedless city more eager to tear down than preserve, and I’m grateful to have escaped to this place where an old building can keep its value and its street cred a little while longer, and where I can sit every day for an hour or two or six, tapping away at a keyboard as many other people must have tapped here across a century. Whether ghosts are real or not, I don’t really know. But I do know that ghost stories are changelings –- and very much alive -- shaped by generations of imagination, curiosity, and yearning. These are conditions I understand. As a writer, I live with them every day. Winter 2011 Ice and heavy snow in north Texas -- twice! WHAT? The dogs are skitter-footed but thrilled by the falling white stuff. Even the littlest Poms bound through it with a joy that reminds me much of their puppy days. The second storm a week before the Super Bowl was much more dangerous than the first one. A record number of car and pedestrian accidents, three days of ice followed by a whole day of heavy snow, and ice slides from the roof of Cowboy Stadium just a day before the big game. Puzzle and I were supposed to drive to Austin for a book event at Lake Austin Spa Resort, hosted by gracious people, an event where Dr. Patricia McConnell was also slated to speak. Dr. McConnell made it there after much rescheduling of plane flights from various departure cities, but the roads were too treacherous for Puzzle and I to drive, and so we weren't able to attend. We stayed home, safe, but bummed to have missed it. Puz is working very hard these days, and now that the extended rigors of the book tour are over (we were gone very often from April-November 2010), she enters the field with such bright energy. Search is what she was born for and loves to do, and while she has traveled to speaking venues with every grace, and she's had some rare opportunities to work with other teams across the country (and in Florida, she got to meet a manatee face-to-face!),it is good to see her heading into search sectors and making finds with such enthusiasm. Speaking of ferreting mysteries, and we were (sort of), this video makes me laugh every time I see it. Jules is a grown-up golden boy now, but once upon a time he was a puppy with a good imagination and a whole lot to say to an uppity brush. Check it out! Autumn 2010 The ferocious heat that was Texas in summer 2010 has finally given way to cooler weather, and we are all invigorated. Some crazy gust-front storms have blown across the area in less than half an hour, and it's wild to watch a flagpole near where I live swing through the windshift in a space of just moments, blowing wildly from the south and then whipping around and blowing from the north with equal fury. Puz and I have been traveling for Scent of the Missing and for various nonprofit events -- including a wonderful Golden Retriever rescue event with Retrieve a Golden of Minnesota (RAGOM) in September, and a whirlwind tour through Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati, and Dayton a week later. Gracious people, good food and Puz and I alone on long car trips through amazing terrain. I found myself looking down into ravines and thinking, as I always do, "How would I search that?" and also, "If I had to land a plane here, where and how would I do it?" Virginia in early November was equally beautiful, and while Puz and I were in Harrisonburg, VA, we had the chance to meet with the fine folks of Blue and Gray Search and Rescue Dogs, in Harrisonburg. Some terrific people and lovely dogs there, with hearts for service. What's not to love? Late Summer 2010 The book tour proper was a wild and wooly seven-weeks of travel, bookstore and media events, and lots of face-time with readers and folks I've known online for more than a decade. We're a little confused and not entirely certain where we are when we wake up these days, but things are settling down a bit. A good year brings bittersweet, as well. This year I lost Tupper Capstan (Tuppy), my unfailing 3-lb. support system during the time I wrote Scent of the Missing, to oral melanoma in February 2010. I have since moved from the house I shared with him, and he never knew the space where I live now, but I miss him no less keenly. There are dogs whose joy is in quiet companionship, and that was Tuppy, who came to me as a rescue when he was of indeterminate age (guessing nine or ten?) and died five years later. This year, too, we lost Nimbus the kitty -- another rescue from the engine of a truck at a fast-food restaurant, where as a tiny kitten she was wedged and burned after a journey from Tulsa, OK. Nimbus was with us 14 years. And in August, ten days apart, senior Pomeranians Sam and Misty also left us -- their bodies not as strong as their gallant souls. They were a presence here in this house, and sometimes I still think I see them, or hear them in the corner of my conscious mind as I'm moving through the house. Godspeed, little ones. You were, and are, life-changers in your own right, and I look forward to a time we can be together again. You will probably still be hogging the couch.