Macabre Michigan

Do you believe in ghosts? I do — and just not Casper, but also malevolent ghosts of the kind found in “Ghostbusters.”

So who you gonna call when you want to read about ghosts? 

Naturally, “Ghostwriters.” That’s the title of acollection of short stories, written by 12 Michigan authors and editedby Keith Taylor and Laura Kasischke, both University of Michiganwriting professors.

Kasischke, who contributed the story “Ghost Anecdote,”says she personally doesn’t believe in ghosts, but emphasizes that “myfamily was big into ghosts.” She said her mother’s side of the familywas Irish and English, so it came naturally: “She put on a good showfor a child.”

The author of several novels — including the recent “TheRaising,” which has tinges of the paranormal — said that once you talkto people about ghosts, you find “there’s a lot of it going on.”

Her belief is that “since the material world is all there is for us, we want to believe in the impossible.”

She candidly admits that several stories in “GhostWriters” got her going, including Laura Hulthen Thomas’ “Bones on BoisBlanc,” the tale of a woman trying to find a final resting place forher mother’s remains. Hulthen Thomas is from Ann Arbor and teachescreative writing at U-M.

“It really did creep me up,” Kasischke said. “It evoked that place so beautifully.” 

She said she was also impressed by the 27-year-old writerElizabeth Schmuhl from St. Joseph, whose short story “Belief” is set ona farm on the Paw Paw River. It is the first major publication forSchmuhl, who teaches high school. 

Keith Taylor says his short ghost story, “The Man at theEdge,” is a metaphor for race and the homeless, and that the idea forthe book grew from Kasischke’s story “The Gray Lady of Lake Huron,”which she wrote for a collection titled “Fresh Water.”

 “We were sitting around talking about ghosts and wondering how many people have those experiences,” Taylor said. 

He said it dawned on them to put a collection togetherwith only two requirements: All the authors needed to be from Michiganand the stories all had to have a Michigan setting.

Taylor said he believes that ghost stories have beenpopular throughout the ages because “we are bound by our own mortalityand we are desperate to crossover. We put ourselves against limits andghosts secure that line. When we lose people we love we can’t believethey are dead.”

He said that he’s not sure there will be another anthology of ghost stories, but he added, “I want to write some more myself.”

As we talked, Taylor conjured up the idea of tracking thepath of his Irish grandmother, who died by her own hand on the barrenplains of Alberta Canada early in the last century. He said no one knewshe had committed suicide until 90 years later when he accidentallydiscovered an obscure book of Canadian police reports while sortingbooks for a sidewalk sale in Ann Arbor. That alone would make a greatstart for a ghost story.

Not all the ghost tales in “Ghost Writers” will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  U-MProfessor Eileen Pollack’s short story, “The Devil in Cross Village,”is more of an essay about Father Weikamp and the time he spent in CrossVillage, establishing a mission there in the 1800s. Weikamp’s crypt isjust a short walk from the tourist attraction Legs Inn, where localsstill tell tales of Weikamp rising from the dead. Pollack’s atmosphericwriting would be right at home in a segment of “Tales from the Crypt.”

Another Ann Arbor writer Steve Amick delves into locallegend Harry Bennett, who built a “castle” on the Huron River inYpsilanti, complete with a moat and lions. He also built a lodge inNorthern Michigan, outfitted with extraordinary precautionary devicesto protect against attack.

Taylor said Bennett’s name has slipped back into obscurity and he now has to explain who the anti-union thug was.

 Bennett wasthe muscle for Henry Ford, but he also was said to be haunted byvoices. Amick writes about the depths of Bennett’s depravity and theelaborate schemes he would undertake to eliminate the “haints” orvoices. As those familiar with Amick’s writing would expect, “The Lake,the River and the Other Lake” is worthy of its own “Weird Tales” comic.

Other writers contributing to the collection includeNicholas Delbanco, author of 25 books and U-M faculty member; LolitaHernandez (“Autopsy of an Engine”); James Hynes, whose most recentnovel, “Next,” was a little creepy itself; and Elizabeth Kostova,author of “The Historian,” the bestseller written in pure Draculeanprose.

Taylor said he knows the collection is not as spine-tingling as others might like, “but that was kind of the point.”

“Ghosts become ways we understand our fears,” he said.“Maybe even our hopes. Sometimes they are the way we test belief. And,yes, sometimes they define place.”

‘Ghostwriters’

Keith Taylor, Elizabeth Schmuhl andElizabeth Kostova will take part in the Zombie Night festivities atSchuler Books & Music

2820 Towne Center Blvd., Lansing

7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 27

Lansing

(517) 316-7495

www.schulerbooks.com