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S'more Spooky Stories: A National Park Anthology
A collection of family-friendly spooky tales set in US national parks, with all proceeds going to the National Park Foundation.
Many of the U.S. national parks are huge swaths of wild and barely explored land. While it's true millions visit the parks each year, most people stay within a mile or so of the popular attractions. Not many people go into the hinterlands where maybe, just maybe, there are all kinds of monsters.
It’s that wildness, that invitation to contemplate the mysteries of life, that makes the national parks so important to the health of our nation's psyche…as well as something to give you chills and keep you up late at night.
Join us for a collection of scary stories set in national parks, where 21 amazing authors have chosen a national park, monument, or historic site as a setting for a spooky story. Stories you can read by the campfire, that will haunt your dreams as you lie in your tent, listening to the sounds of nature in the darkness.
A collection of tales that is sure to both entertain and raise awareness of our precious national lands, so we and future generations can continue to enjoy them, including stories from Dan Wells, Fleur Bradley, Ally Malinenko, Josh Roberts, Steven Bohls, Kim Ventrella, Darcy Marks, Deke Moulton, Erin Petti, Jennifer Jenkins, Laura Parnum, Nicole Brouwer, Sarah Allen, Leigh Statham, Candice Marley Conner, Russ Colson, Adam Seable, James Francks, and Camille Leigh, with an introduction by Peter Black.
Are you ready to try some S’more Spooky Stories? Come on. We dare you.
Many of the U.S. national parks are huge swaths of wild and barely explored land. While it's true millions visit the parks each year, most people stay within a mile or so of the popular attractions. Not many people go into the hinterlands where maybe, just maybe, there are all kinds of monsters.
It’s that wildness, that invitation to contemplate the mysteries of life, that makes the national parks so important to the health of our nation's psyche…as well as something to give you chills and keep you up late at night.
Join us for a collection of scary stories set in national parks, where 21 amazing authors have chosen a national park, monument, or historic site as a setting for a spooky story. Stories you can read by the campfire, that will haunt your dreams as you lie in your tent, listening to the sounds of nature in the darkness.
A collection of tales that is sure to both entertain and raise awareness of our precious national lands, so we and future generations can continue to enjoy them, including stories from Dan Wells, Fleur Bradley, Ally Malinenko, Josh Roberts, Steven Bohls, Kim Ventrella, Darcy Marks, Deke Moulton, Erin Petti, Jennifer Jenkins, Laura Parnum, Nicole Brouwer, Sarah Allen, Leigh Statham, Candice Marley Conner, Russ Colson, Adam Seable, James Francks, and Camille Leigh, with an introduction by Peter Black.
Are you ready to try some S’more Spooky Stories? Come on. We dare you.
334 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 2, 2025
About the author
Jo Schaffer Layton
8 books63 followersJo Schaffer Layton was born and raised in the California Bay Area in a huge, creative family. She is a YA novelist, speaker, writer at BYU TV, works in film production and is a Taekwondo black belt.
She's a founding member of Operation Literacy and co-founder of the Teen Author Boot Camp, one of the largest conferences in the nation for youth ages 13-19. She and a crew of local and international bestselling authors present writing workshops to hundreds of attendees at the Utah-based conference as well as hundreds of others worldwide who view the conference online.
Jo loves being involved in anything that promotes literacy and family. She is passionate about community, travel, books, music, healthy eating, classic films and martial arts. Her brain is always spinning new ideas for books and sometimes she even gets around to blogging.
Jo is mom of 3 strapping lads as well as two wonderful bonus kiddos. She lives in Texas with her hunky tattooed husband.
She's a founding member of Operation Literacy and co-founder of the Teen Author Boot Camp, one of the largest conferences in the nation for youth ages 13-19. She and a crew of local and international bestselling authors present writing workshops to hundreds of attendees at the Utah-based conference as well as hundreds of others worldwide who view the conference online.
Jo loves being involved in anything that promotes literacy and family. She is passionate about community, travel, books, music, healthy eating, classic films and martial arts. Her brain is always spinning new ideas for books and sometimes she even gets around to blogging.
Jo is mom of 3 strapping lads as well as two wonderful bonus kiddos. She lives in Texas with her hunky tattooed husband.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 8, 2025
It’s always hard to read an anthology, so I’m gonna try to sum up each .
1- Set up as the Util this is a campfire story. Actually really creepy and it would be wonderful to perform!
2- Really fun and I love that the revolutionary war era hero was a girl from the time period.
3- cute rock gargoyles protecting our girls from rocky human- devouring gargoyles?! Yes please!
4- loved this one!! I got to read it in beta mode, and just really loved once again a historical site being used in such a unique way.
5-skipped. The short story is written from an adults character perspective, and definitely more of an adult level? Also, I am always personally annoyed when non-veterans try to write a veteran perspective. Also, it really seems like the tragedy of the story is that the confederates did picketts charge and lost so a big no from me dog.
6- Seriously my favorite story out of this entire bunch. Werewolves? But also the interesting character dynamics of being a forced YouTube star with your parents wanting to capitalize on you? The end where she refused to join the werewolf pack simply because she knew her parents would milk her disappearance, sacrificing her own happiness and belonging because her family would profit off of it? Just absolutely gutted me.
7- Didn’t really like this one actually. It was really confusing like there was a poacher that wanted the main characters little brothers notebook because he was writing down what animals he saw, even though he announced them quite loudly. Every time he saw one, so anyone could’ve just written down the same exact thing? And then this poacher shoots his son in like the last two paragraphs and it just kind of ends like that? Also, really not digging the “ghost Indian princess” angle.
8- This one was oddly sweet, and I love that it tied the formation of the national park to its ghost story.
9- Another short story written for adults that I skipped.
10- I really enjoyed this one! I love that the heart of the story was grief and connection, and rock monsters that eat the a holes that want to destroy the National parks and make money off of is resources.
11- Another adult story?! Skip.
12- LOL mine!
13- Out of all of these stories, this was the most enjoy your blue creepy. Not only creepy because caves are just absolutely terrible but the ghost element was really well done and he had you guessing until the end. Only note is that it had to wrap up so quickly, but it was done so so so well.
14- This one was a little difficult to read, because these cousins are just so absolutely terrible to the main character? And that always makes me so highly uncomfortable. But I did learn about the jersey devil! And not just as a Seinfeld meme.
15- Another adult story? Skip
16- Ali is simply the best when it comes to horror, And now, I really want to know if there is a random staircase in the woods. Don’t climb them!
17- I think this is another random adult short story? I skipped it.
18-Also, I’m pretty sure this is another adult story because it talks about people being undergraduate volunteers and archaeologists in so I just skip this one. I think I misunderstood when it was calling for a “family friendly” short stories, that this would be generally a middle grade anthology. But I was wrong apparently.
19- another adult story??? I don’t know I slipped this one too.
20-Great way to end the anthology is to tell the story of a lost child.
1- Set up as the Util this is a campfire story. Actually really creepy and it would be wonderful to perform!
2- Really fun and I love that the revolutionary war era hero was a girl from the time period.
3- cute rock gargoyles protecting our girls from rocky human- devouring gargoyles?! Yes please!
4- loved this one!! I got to read it in beta mode, and just really loved once again a historical site being used in such a unique way.
5-skipped. The short story is written from an adults character perspective, and definitely more of an adult level? Also, I am always personally annoyed when non-veterans try to write a veteran perspective. Also, it really seems like the tragedy of the story is that the confederates did picketts charge and lost so a big no from me dog.
6- Seriously my favorite story out of this entire bunch. Werewolves? But also the interesting character dynamics of being a forced YouTube star with your parents wanting to capitalize on you? The end where she refused to join the werewolf pack simply because she knew her parents would milk her disappearance, sacrificing her own happiness and belonging because her family would profit off of it? Just absolutely gutted me.
7- Didn’t really like this one actually. It was really confusing like there was a poacher that wanted the main characters little brothers notebook because he was writing down what animals he saw, even though he announced them quite loudly. Every time he saw one, so anyone could’ve just written down the same exact thing? And then this poacher shoots his son in like the last two paragraphs and it just kind of ends like that? Also, really not digging the “ghost Indian princess” angle.
8- This one was oddly sweet, and I love that it tied the formation of the national park to its ghost story.
9- Another short story written for adults that I skipped.
10- I really enjoyed this one! I love that the heart of the story was grief and connection, and rock monsters that eat the a holes that want to destroy the National parks and make money off of is resources.
11- Another adult story?! Skip.
12- LOL mine!
13- Out of all of these stories, this was the most enjoy your blue creepy. Not only creepy because caves are just absolutely terrible but the ghost element was really well done and he had you guessing until the end. Only note is that it had to wrap up so quickly, but it was done so so so well.
14- This one was a little difficult to read, because these cousins are just so absolutely terrible to the main character? And that always makes me so highly uncomfortable. But I did learn about the jersey devil! And not just as a Seinfeld meme.
15- Another adult story? Skip
16- Ali is simply the best when it comes to horror, And now, I really want to know if there is a random staircase in the woods. Don’t climb them!
17- I think this is another random adult short story? I skipped it.
18-Also, I’m pretty sure this is another adult story because it talks about people being undergraduate volunteers and archaeologists in so I just skip this one. I think I misunderstood when it was calling for a “family friendly” short stories, that this would be generally a middle grade anthology. But I was wrong apparently.
19- another adult story??? I don’t know I slipped this one too.
20-Great way to end the anthology is to tell the story of a lost child.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 21, 2025
A collection of spooky stories set in our National Parks with proceeds going to the National Park Foundation? Absolutely. Especially now when our parks need our help badly. There are field guides in the back of the anthology for your own notes as you explore our national parks.
From ghosts to time slips to winding trails, this family friendly anthology breaks down into 11 middle grade stories (2 being upper MG with a 14 yo protagonist, and one lower MG), 2 YA, and 6 adult. Then there's one that I'm just going to categorize as all-around family friendly because even though the main character is an adult, the narrator tells us the story in a campfire way that makes it accessible to all ages. In full disclosure, one of the YA stories is written by me. I hope you like it. "Ghost Orchid" speaks from my heart because I adore a creepy forest, conservation, and environmental stewardship :)
The age categorizations are mainly based on age and relatability of the main character as each story is rated at the beginning for its scare-factor. Which is much appreciated. Most, regardless of age levels, are threes and fours then there's "Patient Zero" which scored 5 slash marks and gave me nightmares. I know better than to read a zombie story before bed, so that's on me.
I highly recommend this great addition to the Owl Hollow Press line-up!
From ghosts to time slips to winding trails, this family friendly anthology breaks down into 11 middle grade stories (2 being upper MG with a 14 yo protagonist, and one lower MG), 2 YA, and 6 adult. Then there's one that I'm just going to categorize as all-around family friendly because even though the main character is an adult, the narrator tells us the story in a campfire way that makes it accessible to all ages. In full disclosure, one of the YA stories is written by me. I hope you like it. "Ghost Orchid" speaks from my heart because I adore a creepy forest, conservation, and environmental stewardship :)
The age categorizations are mainly based on age and relatability of the main character as each story is rated at the beginning for its scare-factor. Which is much appreciated. Most, regardless of age levels, are threes and fours then there's "Patient Zero" which scored 5 slash marks and gave me nightmares. I know better than to read a zombie story before bed, so that's on me.
I highly recommend this great addition to the Owl Hollow Press line-up!
April 9, 2025
I'm not usually a fan of anthologies. Mostly when I read short story collections, I stick to ones from a single author, because with anthologies you often get an uneven mix of stories of varying quality and tone. I gave this one a try though because I love the theme and as a teen librarian I was already familiar with several of the authors listed in this collection.
This ended up being a wonderful group of stories. There were several that I loved and quite a few others I enjoyed as well. There were only a couple that weren't my kettle of fish, but I think that's to be expected. My favorites in this collection were Leave the Dead to Lie in Peace (Laura Parnum), The Monstrous Murderer (Dan Wells), Monster of the Pinelands (Kim Ventrella), Lore (Josh Roberts), Lead the Way (Jennifer Jenkins), and Stay on the Path (Darcy Marks).
Overall, a great collection. I'd love to see a volume two. There are so many more national parks to explore.
This ended up being a wonderful group of stories. There were several that I loved and quite a few others I enjoyed as well. There were only a couple that weren't my kettle of fish, but I think that's to be expected. My favorites in this collection were Leave the Dead to Lie in Peace (Laura Parnum), The Monstrous Murderer (Dan Wells), Monster of the Pinelands (Kim Ventrella), Lore (Josh Roberts), Lead the Way (Jennifer Jenkins), and Stay on the Path (Darcy Marks).
Overall, a great collection. I'd love to see a volume two. There are so many more national parks to explore.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews