Alexandra Holzer: Woman in the Paranormal

This is part 5 and the conclusion of my interview with Alexandra Holzer, daughter of Hans Holzer who was known as “Father of the Paranormal” and “Father of Ghost Hunting.”

Find out how you can chat with Alexandra LIVE during a ghost investation at The Shanley Hotel. Details following the conclusion of this interview.

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Alexandra, I am attending the TusCon 36 Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy Literary Convention, November 13th through the 15th here in Tucson. Do you have any advice for aspiring Tucson writers in this genre?

Just write and write some more. Get it out and then go back to it with edits and don’t over work your work. If you find yourself doing too many rewrites you are doomed and will go mad.

Seriously, trust yourself, first and foremost, and trustthat your desire to write comes from within. The rest will happen. Writing is a slow, torturous process and you need to be strong to keep at it.

Your mind writes quicker than thy fingers to the keyboard. I remember watching my father type away on his Smith-Corona and using white-out and cursing a bit off and on as he smacked the carriage return lever to get to the next line. Ding. If you have distractions like children, chores, etc. in life, it takes longer but you’ll get there.

On publishing there are two routes you can go.  Back in the day all there was, was the traditional route in which the publisher did all the work from editing to promoting. They paid an advanced fee if what they felt the book would sell in a certain amount of time. The author would embark on speaking engagements and book signings at reputable stores.

Today, traditional still exists, but unless [the author is] well-known or up there in ranks, advances don’t exist and the author has to work very hard to tell the world about your new title. 

The second route is self-publishing like a Lulu.com or Amazon.com in which you pay to have your own work published, distributed and sold. It all depends on what you can afford and what option suits you best in. I have done both and I prefer traditional.

Question 7:  I married a skeptic. Is your husband a believer in the paranormal? 

He became more [of a believer] when I had my awakening over six-years ago. His uncle came through and I started rambling off to him about this gold cross that was from his confirmation and his uncle was yelling at me to him where he lost it and how reckless he was. Youth. What can you do? Many others for him and his friends started crowding my living room and it became a great big spirit party.

You know he has such great respect for my late father and those two were history buffs. So every year my father would get excited in gifting these huge coffee table books on the Civil War, Presidents, Nostradamus, Dracula and Castles. It was a love affair for literature and history. The spirit side came from me once I awoke back to my roots and all my childhood experiences having to deal with all that I didn’t want to when young. The main reason of that awakening was to get me back into my first love, writing. It was a spirit push and today I look back and am amazed how it works over there. I am lucky because some people never awaken and finish out their life path missing out on so much life. That’s how I see it anyway.

 

Thank you, Alexandra for chatting with me.  I had so many more questions. Fortunately, there’s an opportunity for fans to ask more questions this weekend!

Chat with Alexandra during a LIVE broadcast this weekend during a live online ghost investigation at The Shanley Hotel!

WHEN? Friday, November 13th , 2009 at 8:00 pm ET (Friday the 13th!) & Saturday November 14th at 10:00 pm ET. WHERE? Online on GTV. Facebook users can also become a fan of GTV’s Facebook Page to receive reminders of the event.

After the LIVE event, stay up to date with Alexandra anytime, five different ways:

Facebook group for women in the paranormal field to interact with each other (and with Alexandra): Woman In The Paranormal

Facebook Fan Page for Alexandra Holzer

Facebook Group: In Memory of Dr. Hans Holzer

MySpace: Haunting Holzer

Or keep up with Alexandra Holzer, via her website.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

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Alexandra Holzer: Woman in the Paranormal

This is part 4 of my interview with Alexandra Holzer, daughter of Hans Holzer who was known as “Father of the Paranormal” and “Father of Ghost Hunting,” who is an accomplished paranormal authority herself.

Question 5: What paranormal experience have you had that truly stands out in your memory? During your upbringing with the prevalence of ghosts, has anything surprised you?

One in particular was when I was with my Parisian grandmother, Rosine Claire. She is my mother’s mother and still of the living aged ninety-nine. I would frequent Long Island, New York often to visit her and in one place she resided had some activity that went unexplained. I was around the age of eight, same as my second daughter and it would just be my Nana and I.

Upon my visit, after we settled in and had a meal, it was very quiet. She lived in a gated community by the bay in a town called Patchogue. It was deafening, the silence, especially coming from the city with all the cars whizzing by below your window. Suddenly, we both heard faint singing from downstairs. Nana had been anxiously awaiting my arrival to share this experience as she was like a kid in a para-candy shop. Now, the way these apartments were set up, you either live on the upstairs part with a balcony or choose the downstairs walk in with patio. She was the upstairs apartment. The faint female voice would stop, then as Nana and I held our breaths to hear again, she’d start up again. Nana’s eyes were wide and she told me this has been happening for some time.

I don’t know what ‘possessed’ me, ahem, but I threw myself down on the floor and placed my ear on her yellow shag carpeting to get a better listen. Burnt my face in the process. The sound vibrated into my ear and I heard a voice whisper my name. That was it. I jumped up and said, “Game over!” I was so scared yet excited at what I had just experienced. Of course, the apartment below had been vacant for months as no-one had been renting for a while. The people next door were at work as Nana knew everyone and their schedules.

Nana is psychic and had so many stories she’d tell me growing up and she felt this was the spirit of a woman that was passing by. I couldn’t get to sleep that night. I wanted to know more. Also I wanted to stick around for her next show. She could certainly carry a tune.

Continue to the conclusion of this article: On writing, skeptics and your chance to interact with Alexandra. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Sign up for the RSS feed on this page or join Paranormal Old Pueblo’s Facebook page or Twitter feed to get notification of future posts.

Alexandra Holzer: Woman in the Paranormal

This is part 2 of my interview with Alexandra Holzer, daughter of Hans Holzer who was known as “Father of the Paranormal” and ”Father of Ghost Hunting,” who is an accomplished paranormal authority herself. 

To read  part 1, click here.

 Question 3: Fathers and daughters don’t always agree about everything. Do you have specific views and beliefs about the paranormal that don’t align with your father’s? If so, what are they?

 No they do not. The only ones I feel to mention are on the topic of orbs and demons. On orbs, he felt they had many explanations to them and not a strong argument for spirit appearing whereas I feel the opposite. In many of my photos over the decades I have gone back and have found apparitions, orbs and strings of electrical light varying in size, color and shape for no apparent reason. That was when I was not aware of my abilities and didn’t really care. I thought it would be interesting to go back and see if ‘they’ had been there all along.

Second area of disagreement is on demons. He felt that there were no angels or demons and that we had negatives and positives. The negative is attracted to the negative souls therefore producing an evil atmosphere and environment for that person. Like attracts like. I feel that as I see all these books coming out as of late on the topics of shadow people, demonic possessions growing again and so forth am not quite sold on it, as well. However, as I have not had a bad experience with such an entity it is not fair for me to say. But, I do believe there are bad souls that linger festering and can act like a demon. They are also called in-laws. JUST kidding. Seriously though, I have yet to encounter such claims and that’s what they are for me right now, claims. I hear the stories and read them which are quite frightening and so perhaps I am not too interested in bumping into one would you?

No, I am not interested in bumping into one either!

Continue to Part 3: Is there a paranormal glass ceiling? Part 3 of 5 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5

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