Dead on Demand: The Best of Ghost Story Weekend [Paperback]

The Ghost Story Workshop presents Dead on Demand: The Best of Ghost Story Weekend, with hair-raising work by 20 writers, including the editor, Elizabeth Engstrom, as well as Banjo Bandolas, Cindy Foster and Dixie Gaede. Tobin Blake's "Grim's Redemption" tells of a dying daughter, her distraught father and a visit by death, in the shape of a man named Grim, that yields unexpected results.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

At Siltcoos Lake on the foggy coast of Oregon, writers have been gathering for a decade for the Ghost Story Weekend. The assignment is simple: write a ghost story before you leave. Editor Engstrom (Lizzie Borden) has compiled 20 of the best stories to emerge from those weekends, produced by such writers as Christina Lay, Lynn Bohart, Alan M. Clark, and Susan Palmer. Many of the stories are set on that same foggy coast, but the similarity ends there. The stories range from terrifying Windigos in the backwoods to haunted rolling pins in cozy kitchens, from adulterous husbands to lost twins, from teenage ghosts to ghosts who switch places with the living, and from the sentimental to the amusing to the totally scary. All the pieces are well written, and the variety of voices and subjects makes turning each page a new adventure. This book is a treat, with stories that will haunt for a long time, and is recommended for high school, public, and academic libraries. Katherine Kaigler-Koenig, Ellis Sch., Pittsburgh
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

For a decade, writers have been congregating at the misty, mysterious Oregon coast to write ghost stories at the annual Ghost Story Weekend. The agenda for the event is simple: Write a ghost story during the weekend. Naturally, the topic of conversation runs to the universal mysteries, as well as to the confession of fears. Each writer must be creative on demand, and invoke those thoughts, feelings, speculations and spirits that combine to make a good story. And in the end—though many refuse to believe it upon arrival—everybody completes a ghost story by the end of the weekend. And every writer there learns something new about his/herself in the process.

In this anthology of twenty stories, you will read what scares these writers. There is something in these pages for everybody, from the retooled urban legend to the sweetly sentimental to the horrific. We have haunted castles, haunted mirrors, haunted boathouses, haunted houses, haunted train tracks, haunted woods, and to be sure, haunted graveyards.

So light a candle, cozy down and get ready to explore the depths of your own ideas of death, and beyond.

There is something in this anthology for every taste, from the humorous, to the retooled urban legend, to the creepy, to the downright horrific. Contributing authors include Rupert Hughes Award winner Christina Lay, mystery-play award winning author Lynn Bohart, novelist Susan Palmer, renown artist Alan M. Clark, horror novelist Denise Bruchman Sandra Aikman, Dianna Rodgers, Val Ford, Lynn Bohart, Kelly Rudd, Cindy Foster, Kathryn Mattingly, Dixie Gaede, Pamela Herber, Bill Odell, Tobin Blake, Millen Myrmo, Bill Smee, Maggie Morgan Doran and Banjo Bandolas, all edited by novelist Elizabeth Engstrom.

GHOSTS

The discussion is about the things that terrify us. It takes place in the dark.

Bats flit above, waves lap below, candles flicker in the windows of the creaking boathouse. It’s Saturday night, and the writers steel their minds for the reading of the ghost stories they gathered at the misty, mysterious Oregon coast to write.

Outside are the train tracks, the water, the clouded moon, the old train station. Deeper outside are the woods, full of things moving, things hunting, things listening. Things waiting.

One writer pulls a blanket up around her neck, nervously shuffles her papers, brings the candlelight a little bit closer, and begins to read. The others tighten the circle, finding comfort in the closeness.

For a decade, this ritual has taken place at Siltcoos Station. Here are twenty of the best stories written during the annual Ghost Story Weekend, where deadlines are final.

Editor Elizabeth Engstrom has written seven books and edited three anthologies. She has had over a hundred short stories, articles and essays published. She's the Director of the Maui Writers Retreat and its Department of Continuing Education.