Writing with Ghosts: These Walls Still Talk, Part Two | Guest Brian Paone

The Grave Talks | Haunted, Paranormal & Supernatural

Ghost Stores, Haunted, Paranormal & Supernatural Stories

Natural Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Personal Journals, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when an author decides to write his next novel inside one of the most haunted prisons in America? Brian Paone did exactly that. Over the course of eight weeks, he wrote These Walls Still Talk—on-site at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary. Working at night and fully immersed in the prison’s eerie, abandoned atmosphere, Brian brought to life the story of Hannah, a woman who returns to MSP to confront the dark spirit that’s haunted her for years—only to find the prison has other plans. Blending real haunted locations with immersive paranormal fiction, Brian reveals what it’s like to write a ghost story in a place already full of them. Get ready to step behind the cell doors and experience the creative process where fact and phantoms converge.

Today on The Grave Talks, Writing with Ghosts, a conversation with author Brian Paone. This is Part Two of our conversation.

You can buy his books wherever books are sold, and you can get more information at his website, brianpaone.com.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today on the Grave Talks, part two of writing with ghosts. These walls still talk. A conversation
0:07.7	with author Brian Payone. When I started reading the book and you were talking about the
0:14.3	Get Haunted investigation, I was like, well, that's a real company. That's really interesting to me.
0:21.9	And then as I'm reading the book, all of the things that you mentioned,
0:27.1	because I have done a deep dive into the penitentiary,
0:30.1	and we did an episode a couple years ago,
0:32.9	what you're saying in the book is accurate.
0:35.9	And so I really appreciated that because you really do feel
0:39.4	like this is what the paranormal investigation at the Missouri State Penitentiary would be like.
0:48.8	Right. And then some. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing that I did too, if you, in the Kindle version, I'm sure it's in the Kindle version, but in the paperback, it absolutely is. But before page one, before chapter one, is a map of MSP. And the, in the buildings are numbered. So as you're reading, you can flip back and you know where the characters are at
1:11.5	that point in the book. And something that I did in Reese, she's one of the tour guides at MSP.
1:18.6	When she read the book, one of her first things she texted me and she thanked me for
1:25.5	keeping MSP looking exactly like it does in real life. I didn't add or take
1:32.8	away anything from it. I didn't, I didn't like add a scary, you know, um, hole somewhere that
1:40.9	doesn't really exist. I didn't, I didn't add a staircase, uh, somewhere that doesn't exist. I didn't, I didn't take exist. I didn't add a staircase somewhere that doesn't exist.
1:46.3	I didn't take away a floor because it didn't work for the plot.
1:50.9	I, you know, Reese was very impressed with the fact that it's described exactly how it exists
2:00.1	in real life.
2:01.0	Everything. And Reese is in the book. You have her exists in real life. Everything.
2:01.9	And Reese is in the book.
2:03.5	You have her character in the book.
2:05.3	Yeah, all the tour guides made the book.
	...

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