For accomplished folklorist and author S.E. Schlosser, ghost stories aren\u2019t just reserved for Halloween.<\/p>\n
Schlosser has made a name for herself in the folklore world since 2003, when she partnered with the publishing group Globe Pequot to create the Spooky Series \u2013 a 33-book collection with each book being dedicated to a certain theme or specific United States region.<\/p>\n
This past July, the Pacific Northwest received its first mention.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpooky Pacific Northwest,\u201d officially published on July 1, contains 25 stories with origins in states such as Washington, Idaho and Oregon, as well as some parts of British Columbia, Schlosser said.<\/p>\n
Being a folklorist, the stories Schlosser writes are not entirely her own, but retellings of the stories she encounters through an extensive research process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s traveling, interviews, archives \u2013 visiting the locations, my own personal impressions of what\u2019s going on there,\u201d Schlosser said. I just fell in love with Oregon and Eastern Washington \u2026 There\u2019s a lot of good ghost stories all along there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the stories can come from spontaneous interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how I got the story for Hell\u2019s Canyon,\u201d Schlosser said, referring to one of the book\u2019s stories based in Idaho. \u201cI went out for dinner, and I was the only one at the restaurant. And that guy (there) absolutely knew all the UFO stories from Hell\u2019s Canyon, and had his own personal experience that went into the collection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not all of the stories Schlosser collects come from interviews, however. A large amount is found in archives, with the University of Oregon\u2019s Special Collections and University Archives in Eugene playing a significant role in Schlosser\u2019s research. Anything from a seventh-grader\u2019s typewritten essay on supernaturalism from the 1970s to stories on spiritualism that were frequently published in 19th century newspapers can be found in these kinds of university folklore archives, Schlosser said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, nobody\u2019s looked at them since the newspaper was published, and sometimes the stories would go through the whole country and every state would end up with their own version, like urban legends \u2013 the hitchhiker stories,\u201d Schlosser said.<\/p>\n
Although it\u2019s located in Oregon, Schlosser said the Special Collections and University Archives in Eugene contain a great deal of folklore records from various places in the Pacific Northwest \u2013 Spokane being one of them.<\/p>\n
According to the archive\u2019s website, some of these Spokane-related archives include manuscripts from longtime columnist for The Spokesman-Review in the early 20th century, Stoddard King, as well as a collection of papers from founder of the Spokane Press, George Putnam.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people of Spokane have a history of ghost stories (and) of people who are saving something or saving somebody in a bad situation. So I had a plethora of stories to choose from,\u201d Schlosser said. \u201cThere\u2019s just the spirit about Spokane where people are very helpful and help people who are in need.\u201d<\/p>\n
One Spokane-based story that made the final cut into \u201cSpooky Pacific Northwest\u2019s\u201d table of contents, Schlosser said, is titled \u201cSteak and Eggs,\u201d and dates back to the mid-20th century. In short, the story involves a poor family who comes across a restaurant attached to a motel in an isolated stretch during a road trip to Western Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that, they got the car to the motel because they wanted to recommend the place to friends. So they were telling the story all over the place and one of the guys who lived in Spokane said, \u2018Wait a minute, there\u2019s no restaurant with that motel, what are you talking about?\u2019\u201d Schlosser said. \u201cThe restaurant had burned down several years before (the family) went in and got their steak and eggs. It was a moment where that waitress reappeared in that restaurant to feed these people in need.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Schlosser, what keeps her working with folklore after so many years is the way it balances history with humanity.<\/p>\n
\u201cFolklore is almost like the old version of social media. It\u2019s where people emote. It\u2019s where people tell stories \u2026 It\u2019s how we used to do things, so I feel like it\u2019s the heart of the people,\u201d Schlosser said. \u201cIf you have history on one side of a coin, you don\u2019t get the complete picture until you turn it over and you hear how people interpreted the history.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s in those interpretations, Schlosser said, that folktales emerge \u2013 whether it\u2019s over a family game of checkers or in the tavern on a late night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are absolutely true stories, including ones from my family and myself in the collection,\u201d Schlosser said. \u201cThere\u2019s urban legends that have been passed along so many times, I couldn\u2019t even begin to tell you where they started anymore. There\u2019s regional folktales, there\u2019s Native American folktales and belief stories and wonder stories that are in there that are collected from the tribes. It\u2019s just fascinating, because it\u2019s listening to the heart of the people and where they were at at a certain period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlosser\u2019s love for folklore began far before she started writing it. During her childhood, Schlosser said the fascination was particularly influenced by old ghost stories her father would tell \u2013 with Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill being some of the most prominent ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad used to tell folklore stories out of the old books when we got bored \u2013 you know, the squirmy kid syndrome,\u201d Schlosser said. \u201cI\u2019ve been a folklorist as long as I\u2019ve been a writer at this point \u2013 probably even longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
While in pursuit of a masters degree in library science for information retrieval in 1997, Schlosser unknowingly laid the groundwork for the Spooky Story Series. One of the requirements for the program at Rutgers University in New Jersey was to design and publish a website, which led Schlosser to americanfolklore.net<\/a> \u2013 a website featuring a compilation of folklore stories hand-selected by Schlosser from all over the United States. Globe Pequot found the site and loved it, Schlosser said, and the first book in the Spooky Series, \u201cSpooky New England,\u201d was published six years later.<\/p>\n \u201cSchlosser is a talented storyteller and has guided readers to haunted corners in each area of the country, keeping whispered, campfire folklore alive,\u201d said Globe Pequot\u2019s acquisitions editor, Greta Schmitz in an email. \u201cWith a dramatic coastline and cloudy, rainy weather, it was no brainer to create (the Pacific Northwest) its own regional collection.\u201d<\/p>\n While all of the material from the original 1997 website is still there, Schlosser said a current focus has been using the platform to bring older, lesser known stories to light.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve started specializing now in finding the older stories, ones that are out of print \u2013 the ones that are basically only in a dusty archive or were only captured once in a student paper that\u2019s somewhere in some university. So a lot of those stories are now starting to publish out on the American Folklore website, or in the Spooky Series, because I hate for them to get lost \u2013 they\u2019re fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n Schlosser said the books are intended for an adult audience, but that they are still suitable for children aged middle school or older.<\/p>\n \u201c(The books) cross over very well with young adult literature, but the intention has always been for people who wanted to live in the area or go to the area and travel to have these as a companion,\u201d Schlosser said.<\/p>\n Two weeks after \u201cSpooky Pacific Northwest\u201d was published, Schlosser had her 33rd book in the collection released \u2013 \u201cSpooky Halloween.\u201d Both books, as well as several others in the collection, are available for purchase on Globe Pequot\u2019s website, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million and Auntie\u2019s Bookstore<\/a> in Spokane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For accomplished folklorist and author S.E. Schlosser, ghost stories aren\u2019t just reserved for Halloween. Schlosser has made a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-351121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115042902926543540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}