Author of `Oregon Ghosts' has a real-life ghost story.

Byline: Oregon Author by The Register-Guard

Name: Donald Olson, Portland.

He wrote: `Oregon Ghosts.'

It's about: ` `Oregon Ghosts' is comprised of three one-act plays. The plays contrast life in Oregon's past with life today. `The Keeper' is set in a Victorian lighthouse keeper's house at Heceta Head, where new (fictitious) owners confront the ghost of a Norwegian lighthouse keeper's wife.

`` `The Cowboy' is set in the Geiser Grand Hotel in Baker City, where three rowdy ghosts from the Gold Rush era must come to grips with their past. `The Lady of the Night' takes place in the ladies' room of the White Eagle Tavern in north Portland, where a contemporary lady of the night meets the ghost of one from the war years.'

Do you believe in ghosts? `I do believe in ghosts, but not the Hollywood versions. To me they are not scary. They are trapped, hanging on between dimensions because of unfinished business. I don't believe that our linear, scientific/ technological version of life can explain what life really is, and certainly not what death is.

``Ghosts are part of a general mystery - the mystery of existence. The only time I `heard' or `experienced' a ghost was at Heceta Head. I was staying there at the B&B. It was a lovely, clear, quiet, warm night. Suddenly I was awakened by a series of very loud knocks.

``I bolted awake. The knocks came again. There was no sense of malevolence attached with these sounds. I thought maybe it was `something in the pipes.'

``But the room then got extremely hot - so hot that I couldn't sleep. The next morning I asked all the other guests if they'd heard the knocks. No one had. And, as I later found out, one of the "manifestations" of the ghost at Heceta Head is that the room becomes very warm. Usually ghosts are associated with cold, so perhaps she was having a hot flash.'

Was it hard to get your first book published? `` `Queer Corners' I wrote because I felt it was an important part of Oregon's social history that no one wanted to touch. After 10 years of gay bashing on the part of right-wingers like Kevin Mannix, nobody seemed to understand or care about the effect of prolonged persecution of gays and lesbians.

``Yes, getting my first novel published took many years, and then two other early novels were published in reverse order from when they were written. They came out over 15 years after I wrote them. The publishing biz is no longer a gentleman's game.''

What was your favorite book to write? The most difficult? `I've published five novels and have a new one coming out in June: `My Three Husbands.' I'm using the nom de plume Swan Adamson. It was the most fun to write, perhaps because I was using a pen name.

``The most difficult was `The Confessions of Aubrey Beardsley,' an account of the life of the 19th century artist. The research alone took five years. I had to get Beardsley's voice right, and Oscar Wilde's, as well. And capture life in 19th century England.'

Do you write full time? `I make my living as a professional writer. In addition to writing plays and novels, I do a lot of travel writing.

Oregon authors appears regularly on the Books page. Direct comments or suggestions to Assistant Features Editor Paul Denison: 338-2323 or [e-mail].