Getting spooky with Haunted Magazine

We sit down with Paul Stevenson, creator of Haunted Magazine to get an inside look at this preeminent paranormal magazine. 

How did Haunted Magazine get started?

Paul Stevenson: Haunted was born from a passion and a liking for ghosts, spooks and all things scary. I grew up reading Ghost Stories, loved reading about Harry Price, one of the most famous Ghost Hunters, and loved watching spooky and scary films. I have always had a passion for writing and found there wasn’t really a magazine for paranormal lovers other than science and knowledge based ones aimed at people in the paranormal field rather than the general public. Haunted is a magazine about the paranormal for ALL fans of the paranormal. The idea started around 2003, it took six years for the first issue to be published, and we’re still going strong seven years later.

What is After Dark and how does it differ?

PS: After Dark is a different kettle of fish. At first we were mixing horror and paranormal in Haunted, but we soon realised that, from a magazine perspective, the images and design styles were very different. It  was more about the writing style, the stories and the history and the mystery of ghosts and legends. The horror we included was more graphic and gruesome, and there was enough of a fanbase out there to support a separate magazine.

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Do you do anything special with the magazine for Halloween?

PS: As you are probably aware, we love Halloween. We like to help promote the fantastic Scare attractions out there, and visit as many as we can. This year is particularly special — we are doing a LIVE ghost hunt via Facebook at the most haunted house in the UK, 30 East Drive. Apparently it’s home to Europe’s most violent Poltergeist, so that should be fun, in a scary kind of way.

What is the spookiest/most haunted feature your magazine has had?

PS: That’s a good question, because all of our articles are kind of paranormal related, so we can pick from loads of articles and features that we have run in the past. We have featured articles on Witches, the most horrible ones that you can imagine. We have written about towns and cities and delved into their darker history. You’d be amazed at what dark and scary things are on your doorstep sometimes. We have featured some of the great paranormal people out there — Harry Price, Aleister Crowley, MR James, Bela Lugosi and Bram Stoker to name a few. And of course the history and mystery behind the scariest locations. It really is too difficult to choose just one.

What other paranormal publications can you recommend?

PS: There are some fantastic paranormal publications out there, and a lot of them are from people like ourselves — independent publishers rather than the big corporate publishing companies. Supernatural Magazine is a good read. Dragmag has done a really good paranormal special issue. And Paranormal Underground really has some great articles as well. The beauty of being available as a digital magazine is that there’ll always be a copy available to read on issuu. Just search for something like “paranormal, ghost, horror” on issuu and it you’ll find a whole host of magazines that people have probably never heard of, but are really very good.

What can your readers look forward to next?

PS: We are coming back bigger and better than ever in 2017. We have never been afraid to revamp and redesign every now and then. The paranormal is an ever-changing world and it’s important for us as a magazine to move with the times. We are always looking to evolve and take the reader on a roller coaster ride through the paranormal, stopping at The Ghost Train of course. The magazine will always be a free digital magazine and will always be for lovers of the paranormal. We have prided ourselves on quality features and quality design ever since our first issue. We see the cover of our magazines as page one of the magazine. There are a lot of paranormal stories that are not so well known, but probably just as scary and exciting to read.  We will always write about the well known locations, but we also love writing about places people might not know about yet. The paranormal will always be here and we are so proud to be a part of it.

You can read the latest Haunted Magazine (and all our back issues) via Issuu and you can watch the LIVE Facebook Ghost Hunt on their event page for their spooky Halloween event. 

Happy Halloween to everyone!