10 Things Author Alexandra Burt Wants You To Know About Her

Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by ghosts and the paranormal. As a teenager, I used to collect articles, photographs, and newspaper clippings of anything remotely paranormal. I still ask people I meet if they had any ghostly encounters and I recently met a man who swore he saw the Mothman at a local cemetery here in Texas. Even though the Mothman originated in West Virginia in 1967 and was considered to be an omen to warn about an impending tragedy, the collapse of a bridge that killed 46 people, sightings have been reported all over the U.S.

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I no longer collect articles and have since lost track of the collection altogether but I frequently travel to cities that are particularly haunted. I stay at spooky hotels, take ghost tours and immerse myself in the supernatural history of those cities. I diligently study the haunted history of places. My favorite haunted city is New Orleans.

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As a child, I was unaware of the strange history of my hometown. I grew up in Fulda, Germany, during the Cold War. It seemed like an average small town yet it wasn’t average at all, in fact it played a major role during the Cold War: ‘Fulda Gap’ has two lowland corridors of geographic terrain that are lower than the surrounding elevation and therefore easily passable for tanks and troops. It has a rich in history: Napoleon withdrew his armies after a defeat (Battle of Leipzig) and he escaped home to France through those corridors following a victory (Battle of Hanau). During World War II, the U.S. Army advanced eastward into Eastern Europe through ‘Fulda Gap.’

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I only found out as an adult that my hometown was considered the future battleground of World War III. In the event of war, nuclear weapons were certain to be used and the US and Russian Army would have battled the largest tank battle ever recorded in history. Soldiers from all over the world came to participate in Wargames, a simulated battle of the ‘Fulda Gap.’ Fictionalized portrayals appeared in numerous novels and movies. I grew up with attack helicopters circling above and the display of nuclear warheads. As fate saw fit, I now live just miles away from Fort Hood, the largest populated military installation in the US.

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I wrote my first novel during a novel writing class. I was under the impression that the class was going to teach me how to write a novel, instead I was asked to post twenty-five pages online. The story of a mother suffering from post-partum depression had been humming in the back of my head for a while and that night I sat down and began writing LITTLE GIRL GONE. By the end of the class I had written the first draft.

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I live just miles away from a haunted place. The legend of Maxdale Bridge in Maxdale, Texas tells of a school bus full of children coming from one direction and a young couple in a car speeding toward the bridge from the other. The groundskeeper of a nearby cemetery was fishing from the bridge. The bus swerved to avoid hitting the groundskeeper as the couple was speeding across the bridge, but the bus and the car went over the bridge. The only survivors were the groundskeeper and the driver of the car. The children not only perished but completely disappeared. It is said the driver of the car later returned and, riddled with guilt, hung himself from the bridge. Supposedly the legend can be verified by putting baby powder on the hood of your car and small handprints will appear pushing your car away from the bridge to keep you safe. Voices of children can be heard and headlights appear out of nowhere. The bridge is now closed for traffic but some superstitious souls, including myself, leave candy for the children. They say if you wait sixty seconds and then turn around, the candy will have disappeared. I am no fool, I just keep walking.  

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My second novel, THE GOOD DAUGHTER, was inspired by the unravelling of a marriage I witnessed. It wasn’t a run-of-the-mill failed union, there was much more to it: a husband returned home after working overseas yet his wife never picked him up at the airport even though they had spoken on the phone just hours before. He feared the worst until he found his house void of all her belongings and a gun missing. He looked into her past and realized he had lived with a stranger and knew next to nothing about her.

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Every crime writer has their own reason why they ended up writing crime fiction. One summer, when I was a teenager, a five-year old girl went missing in my friend’s neighborhood. The body was recovered only hours later raped and beaten to death in a culvert. The town remained in the grips of this horrendous crime for years to come. That summer, I learned safety was a mere illusion; there were children who didn’t make it home. There were parents who saw the sun come up and their child’s bed remained empty, the covers untouched. The case has remained unsolved for over forty years.

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Ever since I read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the 1959 true story of the Clutter family murder in Holcomb, Kansas, I have been obsessed with true crime stories. I am especially preoccupied with true crimes that go unsolved or contain some sort of delayed or lack of justice, which lend themselves to speculations and conspiracy theories.  

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If I could have it my way, I’d write novels for the rest of my life, on a farm, surrounded by trees and rescued animals. There’d be a creek nearby and an old dilapidated barn, and I’d watch deer pass through every morning as the sun comes up. The farmhouse would be a simple building with a wraparound porch, and creaking wooden stairs. And of course I wouldn’t mind a ghost or two haunting the place. If they’re friendly that is.