A conversation with medium Lisa Williams

Published 5:21 pm Friday, July 25, 2008

She’s yet to be crowned pop queen of the paranormal but self-described medium Lisa Williams has made a career of making the afterworld mainstream. This spiky-haired spirit whisperer has been on “Oprah,” “Good Morning America” and “Sesame Street.”

She has spun success from her Lifetime TV show, “Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead,” has written a memoir and is in the midst of a bicoastal U.S. tour that lands her at Seattle’s Moore Theatre on Wednesday.

In her book, “Life Among the Dead,” Williams, 35, talks about the difficulty of growing up with dead people. We caught up with Williams on the telephone to talk about her new show, new book and what audiences can expect during her Seattle appearance.

Q. You’ll be doing a reading with a large audience. Can you describe what the audience can expect?

A. Not every spirit is boring. I’ve had some X-rated spirits, some drunken spirits, I had Johnny Cash come through once, you just don’t know what’s going to happen so it will be fun, and it’s also a way to commemorate your loved one’s life.

Q: You don’t get to everyone?

A: I wish I could. I always find though that everyone can take something from the evening, some closure.

Q: In a venue where people have bought tickets, do you expect many skeptics and how do you handle that?

A: There’re always skeptics in the audience. I always tell them to be open-minded and often after a show I get someone (saying) “You have completely changed my mind.”

Q: You are hosting a new daily show abut the dead to air in October. How is the format different?

A: We are trying to help people more. One day it will be all about the loss of a child, then we’ll do the loss of a loved one and the loss of a partner. There’s still going to be the “man on the street” segment and other enjoyable parts.

Q: You’ve got a TV show, a book, a tour. Why are you so popular?

A: I have no idea. What I do is more and more mainstream now and people are relating to me because of my personality I think. I’m just a normal girl, I’m down to earth, what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of thing. And I’m not the only one out there, but I don’t call it competition. There’re enough dead people to go around.