Strange Ghosts

by Scott William Carter

Equal parts riveting and stirring, Carter takes a staple of campfires and rainy nights – the ghost story – into surprising new territory in this collection. No gore or gratuitous splatter here – these tales are meant to raise the hairs on the back of the neck and leave the reader feeling quietly discomfited hours after reading.

On a dark night in the Virginia woods, a boy encounters a former slave protecting the Confederate sword of Robert E. Lee in the spellbinding "The Sword of Surrender." In "All My Invisible Friends," a grieving child psychologist who's lost his way finds meaning again with an assist from an invisible friend. An old amusement park called "The Enchanted Grove" helps the parents of children who died tragically find closure – but maybe not for everyone. In "The Easel," a man on an evening walk buys an old drawing easel at a garage sale and soon discovers it has a secret power. And finally, a recently divorced reporter randomly picks a town to start over with his life and happens upon a "Stone Creek Station" in the woods where no train has a right to be.

Moody. Atmospheric. Provocative. These five tales have all the makings of good ghost stories with a touch of strange thrown in for good measure.

"Carter's writing is on target." - Publishers Weekly

SCOTT WILLIAM CARTER's first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a "touching and impressive debut" and won the prestigious 2011 Oregon Book Award for Young Adult Literature. His fantasy from Simon and Schuster, Wooden Bones, is due out in the summer of 2012. His short stories have appeared in Asimov's, Analog, Ellery Queen, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales and other popular magazines and anthologies. Visit his website at swcarter.com.

Genres: Ghost Stories

Nook

First published June 29, 2011

About the author

Scott William Carter’s first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “touching and impressive debut” and won an Oregon Book Award. Since then, he has published many books and short stories, his fiction spanning a wide variety of genres and styles. His book for younger readers, Wooden Bones, chronicles the untold story of Pinocchio and was singled out for praise by the Junior Library Guild. He is the author of the popular Garrison Gage mystery series set on the Oregon coast, as well as the provocative Myron Vale Investigations, about the private investigator in Portland, Oregon who works for both the living and the dead. He’s also the cartoonist behind the Run of the House comic strip.

If that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, in his “day job” life he works as an Instructional Designer and Digital Production & Publishing Specialist at Western Oregon University, where he manages the Digital Media Center and provides training and expertise to the campus community on a variety of topics, including Web page creation, digital video production, print-on-demand and ebook publishing, and many software applications related to publishing, distribution, and education in all its forms. He also teaches occasional classes for both the English department and the College of Education.

In past lives, he has been an academic technologist, a writing instructor, bookstore owner, the manager of a computer training company, and a ski instructor, though the most important job — and best – he’s ever had is being the father of his two children. He currently lives in Oregon with his wife and two children.