Saturday, April 11, 2009

"Haunted Theaters" soon to go to print!

It's been a frantic couple of weeks, and I've had to put the ghost research on hold for a bit while I finished up my second book with Schiffer, The Well-Dressed Puppet (yes, a book about puppet costumes--quite a switch from ghosts!). But that one is now complete and in to my editor, and I can get back to concentrating on Ghosts of Greater Charlotte.

The big news, though, is that I just received the final edit for my first book, Haunted Theaters of the Carolinas--after I approve this edit, it's ready to go to print! I have to say that it's pretty exciting to see your words/photos in book form, and the design team at Schiffer did an amazing job laying it all out. Plus it's been a truly interesting ride learning about the ins-and-outs of the publishing process--I've had to print out this version (at 160 pages and 30+ photos and illustrations, it took me over FIVE hours to get it all printed out, and my printer ran out of ink towards the end!), and will mark the corrections and mail it back to my editor. But again, once that's done, my book will be ready to print!

So that's the first one finished, and I'll be starting the process again with the puppet book, not to mention Ghosts of Charlotte when all that is completed. My last bit of research had been on the ghost stories connected to nearby gold mines, and it occured to me to wonder if the Charlotte Mint--the southern branch of the U.S. Treasury that had collected all that gold from the nearby mines and minted it into coins--had any ghost stories as well. The original mint building constructed in the early 1800s still exists, although it had been moved from its downtown location (it's literally a stone's throw from where I live) and is now the Mint Museum of Art. Preliminary research hadn't turned up anything about the building being haunted, and it made me wonder if there wasn't anything to find; not giving up so easily, though, I stopped by the museum and spoke with the employee at the front desk. She was very helpful and gave me some good info on the building's history, as well as the contact number for the Museum's librarian, whom she said could tell me more about the Mint's history; and when I asked her if there were any good ghost stories related to the building, she smiled and leaned forward conspiratorily.

"Yes," she confirmed. "But you should ask the librarian about that as well."

So I will. It's always exciting to find a previously un-heard story, and I'm very much looking forward to hearing this one!