Making of Ghost from a Yard Sale: A Supernatural Journey
Ghost from a Yard Sale
September 9th, 2025
Dark Inspiration
Every author has that one story—the one that won’t let go. For me, that story became Ghost from a Yard Sale, a chilling supernatural mystery that began as a flicker of inspiration and grew into a full-fledged obsession. As a lifelong fan of haunted tales and eerie secrets, I’ve always been drawn to the strange, the unexplained, and the objects that seem to carry a history too heavy for their size. This book became the perfect vessel to explore all of that and more.
The idea began with a fascination: what if something you casually picked up at a yard sale was more than it seemed? What if it harbored something… sinister? That simple concept was enough to set my imagination on fire. I knew I didn’t want a typical haunted house story. I wanted to explore the idea of haunted things—items discarded and forgotten, only to find new life in the wrong hands. From that seed, the plot grew into something more complex: a story about a woman who stumbles upon an object that changes her life forever and uncovers secrets far darker than she could have imagined.
As I wrote, the themes began to take shape—loss, trauma, family legacies, and the weight of guilt. But I also wanted to bring something fresh to the genre, blending mystery and suspense with a truly unsettling atmosphere. I leaned heavily into psychological horror, building tension not just through ghostly apparitions, but through the unraveling of reality itself.
The Setting
St. Pious Church
(Moxie Manor) Moxahala, Ohio
In 2020, we moved into an old church called St. Pious also known as Moxie Manor, nestled in the forgotten corners of Moxahala, Ohio. The idea was simple—immerse myself in a chilling new environment to spark inspiration for my next horror novel. What I got was far more than I ever bargained for.
To breathe authenticity into the story, I dove into the local legends and whispered lore passed down through generations. Every photo of the church featured in the book is real. The scenes I wrote were stitched together from fragments of truth, eerie inspiration, and the darker corners of my imagination.
But what inspiried this story was the strange encounters we experiences inside the 1908 church. More than once, myself or a family member felt unexplained cold spot through out the interior even when it was well over 90 degrees. Strange voices would echo above rooms and hint at ghostly conversations happening in the attic room above.
The strangest thing we found was a partitially buried arch doorwat under the church. Although we nver had the courage to dig up the opening, that was more than enough to bring a ghostly story to life.
Under Moxie Manor
The Archway we found under the church.
The Challenges
When I moved to the sleepy little town of Moxahala, I soon learned that there was a sense of pride for the church witin the community. Many people that we came across in the area were either married at St. Pious or they knew someone in the family who did. This meant that although I planned to write as fictional story set in the church, I also had a greater responsibility to the fond memories the locals held for the holy structure.
When the first newspaper article about me hit the newsstands, and it became known that I was a horror writer, there was some concern that the history of the church might be damaged with my arrival. But it was this concern for its history that supplied me with the best inspiration of all. What if a church and everthing that was inside became a living breathing creature? The idea was too great to pass up.
Bringing a Ghost to Life
Looking back, this journey was as haunting as the story itself—filled with unexpected twists, long nights, technical battles, and moments of creative doubt. But it was also exhilarating. Writing horror has always been about exploring the shadows, and with this book, I finally got to shine a light into one of my own.
As release day nears, I’m filled with gratitude—for the community of readers, the horror reviewers who said yes, and everyone who helped bring this ghost to life. Because sometimes, the most terrifying stories aren’t the ones we invent—but the ones that come knocking when we least expect them… like something forgotten on a folding table at a yard sale.
