FAQ
Why Abandoned Towns?
I like to think of cities and towns as beings with a life of their own. Most towns, like most people, hang on to life no matter what; but some of them die. Think of me as a forensic investigator; only what I'm looking for aren't fibers and DNA; they're documents, artifacts, biological and geological evidence that might explain why these towns failed to survive. I try to understand the city like a doctor tries to understand the body with all its myriad parts, any one of which could kill the patient if it fails.
I also feel a strong connection with the people who lived in these towns. I can sympathize with the hardship of drought, the terror of fire, the slow sadness of disease. I try to find out as much about the people of these abandoned towns as possible, so that their suffering will serve some semblance of an ultimate purpose.
What do you call yourself?
I prefer to be called a civic forensicist. While I do use some common equipment that is also used by ghost-hunters (*cough* not at all borrowed from the tech lab *cough*), and you can sometimes find me touring ghost hunters through Mount Ephraim or one of the other smaller ghost towns around here, I am not one of them. Though some of these towns are simply dripping with the ambience that haunted fun-houses envy, I'm too mature to entertain the notion that Casper or Bloody Mary will come popping out of the walls.
What do you do?
I do more projects and labs than anything else, to tell the truth. I visit abandoned towns, take pictures, and blog about it. For example, I recently took a day trip out to Atsion and Batsto. Also, like most of you readers out there, I'm nursing a best-selling novel that will someday make me filthy rich. Just you wait, Harper-Collins...