Illustration #12, Episode 11: Me and My Demon and My Demon’s Yellow Eyes

“Biddy replied with a small smile. “It’s just that this stuff, stays with you. It’s hard to shake, and that night changed my life. That night, I turned to the doorway and there was a figure standing there, as clear as day. It was the outline of a man, but it wasn’t the outline of a man, because it wasn’t a man. It was huge, at least seven feet tall, and it was so still.
“For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what was so off about it, and then I realized, it was the arms. The arms were a touch longer than a person’s, just long enough to not be right. And the torso was a little bit short. It was like a mimic of a man.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

You can read Liz’s full story here.

Illustration #11, Episode 10: Psychic

Ahh! Sorry this is much later than anticipated, I was ready to post last week, but I realized right as I was about to post, that I had skipped this story and went right to the following story, Me, My Demon, and My Demon’s Yellow Eyes. So I opted to skip posting last week, illustrate this episode and post it this week. Which thankfully puts me a week ahead drawing wise!

/end rant — on with the show…

—

“I enthusiastically took a cocktail napkin (navy blue with white starfish) and dug in. I actually, Mmmm’d, then asked, “What kind of a ghost story do you have for me?”
“I don’t know if you’ll think I’m mad,” she said.
“I’m not here to judge. Actually, I am hoping that you don’t think I’m a weirdo for wanting to hear your ghost story,” I replied.
“In all honesty, I’m relieved that you’re here, any insight you might be able to offer would be so appreciated,” she said then sipped her tea.
“I’ll do my best,” I replied then shoved an Oreo in my mouth. Sweet heaven above, why had these ever fallen out of my life?
Beth took a moment, then said, “This house is haunted, or maybe I should say, I am haunted.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

You can read the full story on the Ghosts in the Burbs blog.

Illustration #10, Episode 09: Bunkmates

This is one of my favorite episodes!

“Tom grabbed our coffees off the table to throw the empty cups away. I put Kat’s bottle in the stroller then glanced up at Tom’s back as he walked to the garbage can. I notice something sticking out over the back pocket of his jeans. It was a red handle.

It took me a moment, and then I knew without a doubt what it was. I quickly looked away and felt goosebumps cover my body. Tom was back at the table before I could react.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

You can read the full story on the blog.

Illustration #9, Episode 08: If You Go Out In The Woods Today

“Around five o’clock the eight of us walked back through the trails up to the pine forest. We each probably had, I don’t know, maybe three, four beers and the time got away from us. I think Jill realized what time it was and we were due home in, like, half an hour. It was a little before eight o’clock and the sun was going down. So we rushed through the trails back to the boat. We had tied it to this little rinky-dink dock at the beach.
“We were panicked about getting home on time and we all hopped in. I know we all got into the boat, we all saw each other for sure. John and Jill, Vanessa and Frank, Claire and Chris, and me and Philip.
“We were drunk,” Jill says, quietly.
“No that drunk,” Vanessa sort of snaps.
“There was no doubt that it was,” Hillary pauses, choosing her words carefully, “Irresponsible to get into that boat and let Philip drive. But we were young and stupid. He floored it, a little too hard, and drove us back to the house. We were off the boat and all the way back to the car before we realized that Claire wasn’t with us.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

Click here to read the full story.

Illustration #8, Episode 07: Oh, No No No, He’s in the Woods, That’s Where He Stays Most Of the Time, Just At the Edge Of the Tree Line

“‘Revenge,’ was written over and over and I could kind of make out a story about a woman and her husband, ‘he’ll pay’ and “where’s the baby’ where two sentences I could make out. One page just spelled out ‘revenge.’ But it was, like, one line of R’s the next line of E’s, then V’s and so on. Written in crayon it looked psychotic. But I think a spirit had just communicated through him about something in her life,” she said with a shrug. She actually shrugged her shoulders. After telling me this. Shrugged.

“Peyton, what you are describing is automatic writing. It happens when a spirit possesses someone so it can communicate through them,” I told her.

“Mmm,” she agreed, nodding. “It really is quite an advanced skill, so I was amazed that he could do it so easily.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

Click here to read the original story.

Illustration #7, Episode 06: Zila.

“Wait, you said your story was a cautionary one. Cautionary to whom?”

“Don’t you realize? To you. It knows you’re looking. Watch your back.”

With that she pushed her chair back and walked out of the restaurant without another word.

I sat for a moment then pulled the little folder with our bills towards me. I wrote out the tip and signed my name to the receipt. Nosey Nelly that I am, I peeked at Casey’s bill to see if she had tipped well (I’ve got a thing about always tipping well).

She’d only tipped ten percent. Jerk. More disturbing was the fact that she’d signed her check ‘Zila Cotton.’

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

Click here to read the full story.

Illustration #6, Episode 05: A Family Home

“I woke up one night and there was something above me on the ceiling. It was huge and black and it’s body, if you can call it that, sort of moved constantly, like it was thick liquid. The voice started up, saying, ‘I’m here, you’re here, we’re both here, Jennifer. We are here together, Jennifer.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

Click here to read the full story.

Illustration #5, Episode 04: I Don’t Believe Sellers Have To Disclose Previous Satanic Worship on the Property, But a Head’s Up Would Have Been Nice

“It was about a month later that I finally had the time to tails the wallpaper in her room again. I was sorry that I did. Beneath it I found a pentagram and several inverted crosses painted on the walls. Not what you might picture, like all dripping paint, sloppily done. No, someone had taken the time to artfully paint these symbols on the wall. They were intricate. Almost pretty in a terrible way.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

Read the full story here.

Illustration #4, Episode 03: The Dump Swap

“I commented on her kitchen and took note of a sailor’s valentine perched on the countertop behind her. Inside a hexagonal wooden shadow box were gorgeously arranged shells, stones, and sea glass. The valentines were created by sailors in the eighteen hundreds and brought home to their sweethearts after travelling at sea for years at a time (i.e. killing off all the whales for oil).

This valentine held blue shells, green sea glass and stark white stones in a perfect wave-like pattern. A whale bone at the design’s center held one word, until, written in scrimshaw. We travelled to Nantucket every summer and I’d pined over the sailor’s valentines in the Whaling Museum. Such romantic gestures, so filled with longing and homesickness. This one was the most intricate, the most beautiful I’d ever seen.

“That is stunning,” I said, motioning to the valentine.
“Isn’t it?” Pam replied, “It’s the reason I asked you to come.”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

You can read the full story here.

Illustration #3, Episode 2: Ouija, I Hardly Know Ya?

“Yeah, five of us used the board. We each put a hand on the planchette and started asking the classic Ouija Board questions, like, ‘Are there any spirits here with us?’ and ‘Can you give us a sign of your presence.’”

“Did anything happen?”

“The planchette moved to ‘yes’ twice and everyone swore they weren’t moving it. Then someone had the idea to ask a question that could be answered with numbers. Gary asked the spirit to tell us his house number. It was a good question actually because none of us knew the answer off the top of our heads, and I’ll be damned if the planchette didn’t spell out 1 – 9 – 9. His fucking house number!”

— Liz Sower, Creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

Click here to read the full story.

Illustration #2, Episode 01: For Sale: Gorgeous Five Bedroom on Wooded Estate with Au Pair Suite (And Evil Housemate)

“The scratching became intolerable. I had the pest company back out to the house and they insisted that we didn’t have a rat or mouse problem. The guy even said that with a house as old as ours we should have some sort of a bug or spider factor, but he didn’t even find that.’You’re lucky,’ he told me, ‘The critters don’t like your house.’
“There I was, chasing this noise all over the house every night, while Jake slept like a baby,” Becca shivered then said, “Then I saw a shadow on the stairs one night while I was trying to solve the whole scratching thing. I reasoned it away, but I didn’t follow the noise around after that. I stayed in bed.”

— Liz Sower, Creator and Author of Ghosts in the Burbs

Click here to read the full story.

Illustration #1, About Ghosts in the Burbs

“Inspiration came on a grey October morning. I walked past the community message board on my way into the Wellesley Free Library where I work as a children’s librarian. An image of a flier popped into my mind: Ghost Stories Wanted.
That’s it! I thought, a text bubble popping up over my head. Instead of watching some guy in night vision say “I swear to God, dude, that door just opened by itself,” I would find people – neighbors! – to tell me, in person, “I swear to God, I saw this [insert terrifying oogly boogly thing] in my house.”
I created a little sign and pinned it to the library’s community message board. I promised free coffee and muffins in exchange for a scary tale. My husband thought I’d get calls from, what he termed “hippy dippy dreamcatcher people” who wanted free Quebrada pastries.”

— Liz Sower, writer & creator of Ghosts in the Burbs

Click here to read About Ghosts in the Burbs

Ghosts in the Burbs Illustrations

Hey there! It’s been a while. I’m going to start publishing my Ghosts in the Burb illustrations on my blog weekly, rather than dumping them all into a gallery on my page, because my layout doesn’t allow for copy to be written about each illustration I’ve done. I have been trying to do these illustrations weekly, but it’s kind of turned into a bi-weekly project..

Anyways, for those who don’t know what Ghosts in the Burb is …

Ghosts in the Burbs is a Podcast & blog that is hosted and created by Liz Sower, who interviews her neighbors in order to get their ghosts stories. My illustrations are based off excerpts of the podcast, which I’ll be posting in chronological order. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this podcast, it follows a time line, so if you’re interested in giving it a listen, please start from the very beginning!

five

Wow wow wow. Long time not see. It’s been a while… last week was a difficult one. Each day is a different story, but I really couldn’t bring myself to do much with this project. But while I was watching tv with Evan, I looked over at his water glass and the light was hitting it so beautifully.

four

The way light spills into our apartment in the morning is so beautiful. Everything is golden and bright.

three

I jinxed myself with Thursday’s post. But I’m back at it feeling energized by this morning’s surprise snow. I’ve always love snow and winter’s my favorite season. And we didn’t get that much this past winter. So I went out this morning to take some shots around my apartment. This one was my favorite.

three

Sign of the times.

two

Hey, I’m getting pretty good at this!

Nothing really new to report. Evan and I have been trying to go on daily walks. It’s been a little tough because I’ve had some issues with my little feeties lately, haha. But I just as craving the outdoors. We took a walk during golden hour (you can never go wrong with golden hour). And as we passed a CVS I saw this pretty lady on the back of a stop sign.

one

Hiya! I hope quarantine is treating you well and you’re staying safe and healthy out there! Living locked down has been difficult for all of us - we’re experiencing such an odd time in history right now. Everyone’s at home, businesses and bars are closed and we’re all just trying to keep sane.

I’m coming up on my one month anniversary of working from home. And I’ve really been struggling with “not being creative enough” or “not making enough content” during this time. It’s really been bothering me. So today I’ve decided that I’m going to take a photo a day. I’ve always wanted to do a 365 project. But whenever I would start one, I’d always only make it to March and then tucker out. So while being locked down I’m going to take an image a day. See how long I can keep this going, haha.

While I was enjoying my morning coffee, I put on Ghosts in the Burbs, which is a podcast about the haunted town of Wellesley, MA. It’s one of my favorite podcasts, and abruptly last fall the host, ended her journey. Obviously it was really upsetting to see it end.

But! Luckily Ghosts in the Burbs came back when I (we) needed it the most. Liz Sower, the podcast’s host, starting dropping new episodes right as coronavirus started to hit the US hard. I have these spooky tails to keep me company every Friday. I hadn’t listened to last weeks episode, so it was the first podcast I listened to this morning on my long lists of regularly scheduled pods.

Stay spooky!

SAHARA DESERT & CASCADES d'OUZOUD

Picture this: Three days away in the Sahara Desert. Riding camels, looking up at how vast the sky is, the light hitting the sand dunes perfectly. One of the most amazing experiences of my life, truly amazing.

We road into Erg Chebbi on camel back in a camel caravan. I named my camel Bruce. He was a real sweetie. The ride was about 40 minutes long. We arrived to our campsite and had dinner with our group. The whole day ways amazing. The colors were so bright. I was expecting a lot, but this trip surpassed my expectations. The evening was cool, it was a bit cloudy so we couldn’t really see the stars.

We woke up the next morning, very early to take the camels back through the desert to see the sun rise. The sand dunes were something like golden purple waves as far as the eye could see. Watching the the sun rise over the dunes was truly a sight to see, mesmerizing.

____

Our day trip to the d’Ouzoud falls was fun, we hiked down to the base of the falls, where we took a boat ride to the base of the falls. The mist felt wonderful on our faces. We didn’t get to spend too much time at the base, I would have loved to swim a bit. It’s a dream of mine to swim at the bottom of a waterfall.

Needless to say the falls were breathtaking, as they are the tallest falls in Africa.

____

Some photos that didn’t make it into the gallery.