Eerie short stories for adults (or high school and up; Trespassing Time is not a children's book) from the anthology by four Manhattan, Kansas authors: Barbara J. Baldwin, Jerri Garretson, Linda Madl and Sheri L. McGathy. Learn some of the stories behind the stories. What are ghosts? What are the theories about them? Why do they haunt? Why are we afraid of them? Jerri may be accompanied by one or more of the other authors. Enjoy chilling, poignant, or even humorous selections read from the book. Not intended for children under thirteen; best for high school and adult audiences. 60 minutes or more.
More about the book, Trespassing Time.

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A love of ghost stories inspired these four Kansas authors to pool their diverse talents. The wraiths in the stories do more than scare readers. They are as varied as their authors; touching, funny, and thought-provoking.

After writing her ghost story and mystery, The Secret of Whispering Springs, Jerri Garretson, author of six books for children and young adults, was intrigued with the idea of haunted prairie stories.

"Readers from ages 10 to 92 were asking me for more ghost stories," Garretson says.  When she discovered that three of her author friends, Barbara J. Baldwin, Linda Madl and Sheri L. McGathy, also shared an interest in ghosts, she invited them to join in creating an anthology.

None had written ghost stories before, but they were well read in weird tales. They brought to the project enthusiasm and their own expertise in such varied popular genres as romance and fantasy. 
  
"I have always thought ghosts were capable of almost everything," says Barbara J. Baldwin who is the author of Indigo Bay, a time travel romance, and contributor of poetry and articles to Crumbs in the Keyboard.  "The challenge in writing a ghost story is gauging how much to tell and still keep it eerie, scary and suspenseful."

Displaying their unique outlook on specters, they each wrote four stories of desperate spirits wandering the windswept plains burdened with the pain of their unsettled lives.  Well, most of the ghosts are desperate.
  
Sheri L. McGathy, author of three anthologies and two fantasy novels, including Within the Shadow of Stone and Elfen Gold, changed her ideas about ghosts while working on the book.
 
"Before writing these ghost stories, I saw ghosts as nothing more than frightening creatures," she says. "But after creating a humorous ghost story, I began to see them as shades of the living, carrying on with what once defined them in life."
  
The tales in Trespassing Time span the pioneer days to the present and offer the ghost of a murdered cat, the residents of the Seven Cities of Cibola, a cursed bone bracelet and a long-dead barnstormer. The stories are frightening and spooky, poignant, and even laugh-out-loud amusing.
  
"Writing about ghosts opens up new themes to explore," says Linda Madl, author of eighteen published historical romance novels and novellas, including Silks and Secrets.  "Good, evil, sources of folklore and legends, reality, and the concept of time. I found the experience kind of liberating."
  
The common denominator in the stories is the setting -- the prairie. What better backdrop for ghosts dreamed up by four Kansas authors?
 
"...Is there really anything as eerie as the vast open fields and dark stands of woods that stretch across America’s Heartland?" writes Troy Taylor, founder of the American Ghost Society and author of the book's mood-setting Introduction.
  
Warning: Don’t read these stories when you’re home alone.