Legends of the Mountain State

Now back in print! This thirteen book ghost story collection will entertain readers as West Virginia makes a perfect setting for these horror tales.

All entries are well written as ghosts haunt the mines, mountains, and towns without one reference to Byrd or pork. From the onset with Thomas F.Monteleone’s strong opening “Images in Anthracite” in which a dad reaches from a mine cave in grave to plead with his adult son to stop that cavern from being opened to Jude-Mari Green’s closing act “Wild Mountain Freesia” of picking up a hitchhiker heading to a memorial park, readers will enjoy the stories. Some have twists like the hitman’s final shot in “Money Well Warned” by Joseph Nassise and others are simply haunting like the reporter investigating “The Blackwater Lights” by Michael M. Hughes. Legends of the Mountain State is a superior horror anthology filled with all new tales to keep the lights on at night and the out of state tourists away from West Virginia.

Legends of the Mountain State is currently the best selling collection of ghost tales in West Virginia. This ghostly anthology includes thirteen accounts of Mountain State ghostly manifestations, myths and mountain mythology, based on known legends from West Virginia. The title is Legends Of The Mountain State: Ghostly Tales From The State Of West Virginia. Themes included in this work are Mothman, the Ethel coalmine spector, the Chapmanville school haunting, the Ghost of #22 Mountain and many others.

West Virginia noted fiction writer Michael Knost, of Logan, WV, is serving as the anthology’s editor. Writers for this project will be an amalgamation of professional authors in the horror, science fiction and fantasy fields, and up-and-coming writers in and around the state of West Virginia. Many are award-winner authors currently in the national spotlight. All 13 of these stories take place in West Virginia and are of a family-friendly nature.

"This could be Woodland Press' most ambitious project to date," said Tim Fortune, CFO of the Chapmanville based book-publishing firm. "In planning this unusual project we targeted many of the best writers in the industry to insure that the outcome would be a captivating and entertaining literary work. We believe this book will garner national attention, as well as state interest. The final galleys I am looking at are chilling and fascinating."

Here is a list of authors who will be contributing to this soft-cover book, along with their credentials:

Thomas F. Monteleone is a 4-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, the highest honor for writers in the horror genre. He has written television scripts for American Playhouse, George Romero’s Tales from the Darkside, and a series on Fox TV entitled Night Visions. He is also the author of the bestseller, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel.

Tim Waggoner’s novels include Forge of the Mind Slayers, Darkness Wakes, Pandora Drive, The Thieves of Blood, the Godfire duology, Like Death, and A Nightmare on Elm Street: Protégé. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and is a faculty mentor in Seton Hill University’s Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program.

Kealan Patrick Burke is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Currency of Souls, The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, Midlisters, Ravenous Ghosts, and The Number 121 to Pennsylvania, and the editor of the anthologies: Taverns of the Dead, Night Visions 12, Brimstone Turnpike, Quietly Now, and Tales from the Gorezone. He lives in Ohio with his wife, and son.

Scott Nicholson is the author of six Appalachian Gothic thrillers, including They Hunger and The Farm. He was a 1999 winner of the Writers of the Future award and a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. As a journalist in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, he has won several state press association awards and has written a number of writing articles. He is also the current vice-president of the Horror Writers Association.

Joe Nassise is the author of the internationally best-selling series, The Templar Chronicles. He's a Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award nominee, as well a former president of the Horror Writers Association. He lives in Arizona with his wife and family.

Bev Vincent is a contributing editor with Cemetery Dance magazine, the horror industry’s standard. His first book, The Road to the Dark Tower, an authorized companion to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, was published by New American Library in 2004 and was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. He co-edited The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book with Brian Freeman for Cemetery Dance Publications.

Mark Justice is the author of Bone Songs, a collection of stories from Delirium Books, Deadneck Hootenanny (Novello Publishers) and, with David T. Wilbanks, Dead Earth: The Green Dawn ( PS Publishing). He also hosts the nationally-recognized radio program Pod of Horror. He lives with his wife and cats in Ashland, Kentucky.

G. Cameron Fuller is an author, editor, and writing teacher who lives in Charleston, West Virginia. His fiction, nonfiction, and personal essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines, and books, and has won numeroous writing contests and Fellowship competitions. For several years, Fuller was on the editorial board for Writer's Digest.

Michael M. Hughes is an up-and-coming writer in the horror genre with his first novel in the works for this year. He went to college in Elkins, WV and spends many weekends in Great Cacapon and Berkeley Springs. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and daughter, where he writes fiction, lectures on paranormal topics, and performs as a mentalist.

Jude-Marie Green is an author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She is also an assistant editor (and review columnist) for Noctem Aeternus Magazine. She lives in Southern California with her cats and books.

Brian J. Hatcher is a writer, poet, oral storyteller, actor, magician, fire eater, and indy wrestling manager from Charleston, West Virginia.

Trent Walters is a science fiction, fantasy, and horror writer. His work has appeared in The Golden Age SF anthology, Electric Velocipede, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Pindledyboz, and BSFA's Vector. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Marta Murvosh is a journalist in Northwestern Washington. She is an up-and-coming writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

“It is especially exhilarating to see writers of this magnitude focusing on our great state," said Michael Knost. "This is the first work of its kind in the Mountain State.”

This title was recommended for the National Bram Stoker Award in 2007.