Dead on Demand : The Best of Ghost Story Weekend

by Elizabeth Engstrom

For a decade, writers have been congregating at the misty, mysterious Oregon coast to write ghost stories at the annual Ghost Story Weekend. The agenda for the event is Write a ghost story during the weekend. Naturally, the topic of conversation runs to the universal mysteries, as well as to the confession of fears. Each writer must be creative on demand, and invoke those thoughts, feelings, speculations and spirits that combine to make a good story. And in the end—though many refuse to believe it upon arrival—everybody completes a ghost story by the end of the weekend. And every writer there learns something new about his/herself in the process. In this anthology of twenty stories, you will read what scares these writers. There is something in these pages for everybody, from the retooled urban legend to the sweetly sentimental to the horrific. We have haunted castles, haunted mirrors, haunted boathouses, haunted houses, haunted train tracks, haunted woods, and to be sure, haunted graveyards. So light a candle, cozy down and get ready to explore the depths of your own ideas of death, and beyond.

Genres: Horror

245 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2001

About the author

Elizabeth (Liz) Engstrom grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois (a Chicago suburb where she lived with her father) and Kaysville, Utah (north of Salt Lake City, where she lived with her mother). After graduating from high school in Illinois, she ventured west in a serious search for acceptable weather, eventually settling in Honolulu. She attended college and worked as an advertising copywriter.

After eight years on Oahu, she moved to Maui, found a business partner and opened an advertising agency. One husband, two children and five years later, she sold the agency to her partner and had enough seed money to try her hand at full time fiction writing, her lifelong dream. With the help of her mentor, science fiction great Theodore Sturgeon, When Darkness Loves Us was published.

Engstrom moved to Oregon in 1986, where she lives with her husband Al Cratty, the legendary muskie fisherman. She holds a BA in English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing, a Master’s in Applied Theology, and a Certificate of Pastoral Care and Ministry, all from Marylhurst University. An introvert at heart, she still emerges into public occasionally to teach a class in novel or short story writing, or to speak at a writer’s convention or conference.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would rather be stranded in shark-infested waters while menstrating than read another story by any one of these authors or, dear lord, another collection in this series. I'm an optimistic person, but even Ray Charles could see this book sucked.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and spooky set of shorts stories with the feel of a campfire ghost story