Wednesday, October 29 at 7:00 pm
Regal House Publishing Presents
Haunted forests, Gothic castles, Ouija boards, spirits, phantoms, and things that go bump in the night: throughout literary history, audiences and authors have been captivated by ghosts, whether they be frightening or benevolent, literal or metaphorical. Just in time for Halloween, a group of genre-bending authors with new middle grade, young adult, and adult novels from Regal House will share excerpts from their work, talk about their writing processes, and offer strategies for writing haunted stories. A few copies of their books will be available for purchase and signing.
Elizabeth Costello's The Good War (January 2025): A mother and daughter in mid-century America pursue art, science, and autonomy while wrestling with the continued presence in their lives of their deceased husband/father, who was a prisoner of war in the Philippines. (Historical/Literary Fiction)
Carolyn Korsmeyer's Riddle of Spirit and Bone (February 2025): A skeleton discovered buried beneath a city sidewalk leads a group of archaeologists to the 19th century spiritualist movement and the journey of three women seeking answers from beyond the grave. (Historical/Literary fiction)
Valerie Nieman's Upon the Corner of the Moon: A tale of the Macbeths (March 2025): The children who will become the Macbeths grow up in a dangerous world, guided and misguided by prophecy, an ancient goddess, and the spirit of a powerful saint as their paths converge in a fiery bid for royal succession. (Historical/Literary fiction)
Nancy McCabe's Fires Burning Underground (April 2025): In a year of turmoil and transition, creative games, new awareness of loss, and a fear of being haunted after the death of a friend, Anny struggles to find meaning in tragedy, come to terms with her questions about her sexuality, and negotiate her own ever-shifting new friendships. (Middle-grade fiction)
Crissa-Jean Chappell's SUN DON'T SHINE (January 2024). Sixteen-year-old Reece is haunted by her past. For as long as she can remember, she’s been on the run, sneaking food out of the dumpster and sleeping in the woods. Every time she moves, the same rules apply—cut your hair, change your name, and, above all, don’t let anybody get too close. Reece has no choice except to obey Dad’s orders. When Reece meets her first real friend, a boy named Shawn, she begins to realize that everyone else has secrets too. And the deadliest secret of all is the one her father has kept from her all these years. (YA)
Crissa-Jean Chappell was born in Miami and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of several award-winning novels including TOTAL CONSTANT ORDER (a VOYA Perfect Ten and New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age), MORE THAN GOOD ENOUGH, which Kirkus calls “compelling and emotionally nuanced...” (a Florida Book Award medalist) and SNOWBIRDS (“...an engrossing mystery...” School Library Journal). Her most recent novel is SUN DON’T SHINE (a Children’s Book Council Favorite). She holds a PhD and MFA from the University of Miami and is a professor of creative writing at Lehman College. When she misses South Florida, she talks to the parrots in Green-Wood Cemetery.
Elizabeth Costello's poetry and prose have appeared in venues including Lithub, SF Weekly, 7x7, and Crab Orchard Review. Her poetry chapbook RELIC can be found at Bird& Beckett bookstore in San Francisco. She works as an editor for UC Berkeley and lives in Portland, Oregon. With Portland painter and Soliloquy fine arts gallery owner, Ruth Meijer, she co-founded the ekphraestival, a collaboration among West Coast poets and visual artists that culminates in exhibitions and readings in the spring. The Good War is her first novel.
After years teaching and writing in the field of philosophy, Carolyn Korsmeyer has turned her hand to fiction. Her first novel, Charlotte’s Story, imagines the life of Charlotte Lucas outside the pages of Pride and Prejudice. The second, Little Follies, is a contemporary thriller set in Krakow at the turn of the millennium featuring an art heist, murder, and hopeful magic. Riddle of Spirit and Bone, her third, involves the journey of three women seeking answers from beyond the grave.
Nancy McCabe is the author of ten books in multiple genres, most recently the middle grade novel Fires Burning Underground, the YA novel Vaulting through Time, the comic novel The Pamela Papers, and the memoir Can This Marriage Be Saved? Her eleventh book, Creating Some Measure of Beauty: The Healing Power of the Artful Essay is under contract with University of New Mexico Press. Her work has received a Pushcart and ten recognitions on the notable lists of Best American Essays.
Valerie Nieman's new novel, Upon the Corner of the Moon, begins the story of the historical Macbeths, with The Last Highland King coming in 2027. She is the author of six other novels, including the Sir Walter Raleigh Award-winning In the Lonely Backwater, plus short fiction and poetry collections. She attended Jamestown Community College and graduated from West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte.