About

About me

So, what can I tell you? I’m Steph, I’m a writer, photographer and parapsychologist. I’m also a cognitive psychologist and wrote my PhD on the uncanny valley. I’ve lived in Milton Keynes since 2002, and absolutely love this city. I worked for the Open University for 23 years, and from July 2025, I’m starting an exciting new chapter working on creative projects full time. The good bit? You get to hear about them all on this site 🙂

How did this blog start?

I’ve always thought that there’s more to Milton Keynes than meets the eye, and I’ve been drawn to its darker corners for a long time. This blog originally began back in 2015 as part of a creative writing course to teach us how to promote our work – I started blogging about the strange and eerie things I found while out exploring the redways, like the doll here that I found at Caldecotte Lake!

About the Revenants on the Redway Project

One day, I was out walking through a very shiny new estate, and thinking about all the stories I’d read about people’s experiences with the unexplained. Milton Keynes is the last place you’d expect to find ghosts – but if the paranormal is everywhere, why not here? I went looking for local tales, and couldn’t find any… I realised that if I wanted to find them, I’d need to go out looking myself. It all started with the idea of a map of every grid square, and my goal of finding someone who has a ghost story in every one. It’s been an incredible experience meeting witnesses, visiting every location and telling their stories on here. I think it’s going to keep me busy for a long time to come!

Writing Stories – very short ones, longer ones, and true ones!

I’ve always loved writing, but I only really started taking it seriously after my husband died in 2023. Along with walking, writing was the thing that I turned to to help work through grieving. Almost immediately, I found the amazing people at MK Lit Fest, and they’ve encouraged me massively in sharing and supporting my work.

I write flash fiction, short stories, flash creative non-fiction and I’m working on a novel – which sounds like a lot, but so far, I’ve not settled on just one thing I enjoy. Oh, and it’s all horror of various types – mainly psychological, but some more disturbing folk and urban horror.

Working on Into The Fog

Those creative projects I mentioned at the top? It’s not just my own writing 🙂 Since May, I’ve been working with Peter Laws on his excellent Into The Fog channel. I’d been a fan and a Patreon member for a while, volunteered to help out with a few bits, and through a series of uncannily timed moments, I’ve ended up with what is genuinely my dream job. I look after all the channel analytics, support Patrons, and curate a database of all the paranormal experiences people share in the comments.

I’ve also recently started creating some of the artwork that helps bring the stories to life – the clip on the right isn’t one I’ve made for the channel, it’s an example based on one of my posts for RotR, but gives you a flavour of the sort of illustrations I’m working on. It’s an absolute delight to be involved 🙂

What do I believe?

I spend a lot of time these days talking to people about their paranormal experiences, so I felt it was right to share a bit about my side of things – this might come as a surprise, given my interest, but I’ve never had one myself. But do I believe that ghosts (entities, spirits) are real? Yep.

The approach I take is that every story is meaningful, impactful and true for the person who is telling it – I’m not here to explain, prove or debunk everything… I’m here to listen, understand and share respectfully to make sure that I’m keeping the person and their truth at the heart of the story.

And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll have a spooky experience of my own to share!