At an early age, Illinois native son William Gorman became enamored with ghost stories. His grandfather, a magician during the last great days of vaudeville, got him interested in the mystical and the macabre when he was a boy. He has pursued things that go bump in the dead of night ever since. His first book, Ghost Whispers: Tales from Haunted Midway, journeyed deep into what modern master and fellow Illinoisan Ray Bradbury called the ‘October country’; that dark, unseen region where the natural and supernatural worlds touch and sometimes bleed into each other. The story collection helped spawn popular bus excursions and walking history tours now conducted by the local library in his hometown.
When not making his way through overgrown cemeteries, he can usually be found with assorted four-legged creatures somewhere around him. He enjoys rereading the eminent maestros of horror he grew up on whenever he can: Derleth and Poe, Wakefield and Machen and Howard, Blackwood and Bloch, to name a few. Mr. Gorman also spends time searching for out-of-the-way magic museums and artisan cheese shops to browse . . . or just listening to classic rock & roll. His debut novel, Blackwater Val, is now available from award-winning Crystal Lake Publishing. The book is a suspense thriller brimming with elements of mystery and nostalgic lore, dark fantasy and witchcraft, grim-faced fallen angels, and of course ghosts—all set in the brooding Midwest of his youth.
When not making his way through overgrown cemeteries, he can usually be found with assorted four-legged creatures somewhere around him. He enjoys rereading the eminent maestros of horror he grew up on whenever he can: Derleth and Poe, Wakefield and Machen and Howard, Blackwood and Bloch, to name a few. Mr. Gorman also spends time searching for out-of-the-way magic museums and artisan cheese shops to browse . . . or just listening to classic rock & roll. His debut novel, Blackwater Val, is now available from award-winning Crystal Lake Publishing. The book is a suspense thriller brimming with elements of mystery and nostalgic lore, dark fantasy and witchcraft, grim-faced fallen angels, and of course ghosts—all set in the brooding Midwest of his youth.
You can read William's interview here: Mysterious Heartland.