 of Fine Arts in the program for writing for children and young adults. He studied theater and folklore at Oberlin College, English at the University of Vermont, and creative writing at Clarion, but where did he study ghosts? Tonight we have cupcakes and refreshments available at the table in the back. It's on the other side of the desk, the front desk there. If you'd like to purchase Will's books tonight, you can purchase them downstairs at the front counter. Not only do we have his newest novel, A Festival of Ghosts, but we have the prequel, a properly unhaunted place, and we have his other titles, Ambassador, Nomad, Goblin Secrets, and Ghoulish Song. We last left off in a properly unhaunted place with Rosa and Jasper in the only ghost-free town in the world. Now in A Festival of Ghosts, Rosa and Jasper are chasing off Engelbert Jones with a horse made of pebbles, then watching a spirit-wisp flicker and disappear while strange things move between the trees. Let's find out what happens to Rosa and Jasper in this properly haunted place. Please help me welcome Will Alexander. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Happy Art Walk Day and first week of school, second week of school. Second. Yeah. I'm not really sure you know it. Yes. And it's getting, it's pretty warm today, but it's getting autumnal. You know, it's getting time for ghost stories. So I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read a bit of this book. It is a sequel and I'm not even reading the first chapter. I'm gonna read like the third chapter, which is disorienting, but that's okay. I'm pretty sure you can all keep up. And then we'll talk. We'll talk about ghost stories and why I love them. Maybe, maybe I'll figure that out by the time we get to that part of the conversation. Okay. Chapter three. Rosa ditched the wheelbarrow in the shed behind the library. She pushed it in too hard and the edge dinged against the rusting motorcycle sidecar and rattled all the copper scrap inside. We need to get rid of that stuff, she thought. The motorcycle sidecar and scrap had all belonged to Bartholomew Theasifras, Baron the founder of Inget. He had used the copper to spoiler, spoiler stuff about the first book. Rosa went around to the front entrance, which was locked. Library hours were over for the day, but she lived here and this place knew who she was. The locks inside the door clicked themselves open when they saw her coming. Doorways are always haunted. Appeasement specialists are very good at moving through endings, beginnings and haunted boundaries of every other sort. She went inside and waved at the portrait of old Baron that looked out over the lobby. The musty air around her shifted from warm to cold and back as the ancestors of Inget moved between shelves looking for the books that remembered them. Whistle interns dangled from the rafters. Rosa walked slowly through the library listening. One of the biographies made an unhappy noise about being miss shelled. She put the book back where it needed to be. Three novels made gleeful noises about miss shelving themselves on purpose. She put them back in their voices. Excuse me? Said a small voice behind her. Rosa looked and saw no one. She blinked looked again and noticed the shape of a small boy suggested by dust motes drifting in the whist planks. Yes, she said quietly, looking for a book. He told her, I don't know what it's called, but it has a swimming dragon on the cover and some jellyfish. I think I know that one. Rosa did know it. He always asked for the same book. But she didn't know where to find it exactly because the book kept moving. Let's go look for it. It wasn't on the shelf where it should have been. It wasn't stashed underneath that shelf either or tucked between the window sashes. Rosa finally found it behind one of the glass side teddy bears that decorated the children's book section. She sat on the floor and read it aloud until she felt the dust motes of the boys settled themselves and just comfortably down to the floor. Her stomach growled. She said to her stomach. Rosa! Mom called from behind the audio books. Is that you? Are you home? Rosa shelved the bedtime story in its proper place, even though she knew it wouldn't stay there. Mom found her. Don't you dare shush me. I still outrank you in the order of librarians. Now hurry downstairs now brought burgers and yours is getting cold. Rosa's stomach snarled again. She followed her mother downstairs. Appeasement specialists always live inside their own libraries or at least very close to their libraries. They need to be on call at all hours. Some kinds of haunted disgruntlements only happen at night. Rosa and Athena Diaz lived in a cozy basement apartment underneath the Inget Public Library. Athena loved it and said it felt like a Foxborough. Rosa was still getting used to living in a basement, but she did like the place better now that they had mostly unpacked. It felt smelled and sounded like all of their familiar belongings. It also smelled like burgers. I know, Rosa said. Hi kid. Now mumbled through a mouth, half full of burger. She was the town blacksmith. Now made swords, spears, and armor for the Renaissance Festival. But that was before the festival shut down, unable to cope with the excessive number of revenants who haunted the fairgrounds. Now she mostly worked as a farrier. Now made sure that the horses stayed shot at the Chevalier farm. She also spent her time dismantling the huge circle of copper that spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, stuff. Her empty burger wrapper started to move across the kitchen table. The foil crinkled itself into a shape with legs. Nails chair squeaked against the floor as she inched away. Rosa tore into her own burger. She offered its wrapper to the thing that now haunted the tabletop. It pounced on the extra foil and used it to make itself larger. Did you do that just to freak me out? No asked. Pleasant. No, Rosa said, between large bites. Are you still squeamish about ghosts? Most locals are. No, but no, I am more squeamish about bugs. That foil thing looks like a huge cockroach. Do roaches ever haunt? Do I need to deal with the lasting grudge of every bug I have ever squished? Probably not, Rosa said. And if kitchen ghosts are bugging you, try grinding sage in your garbage disposal. Or Rosemary, for remembrance, either one. Thanks, Nails said. I do so love hearing ghostly advice from the Diaz ladies. Rosa smiled politely. You're welcome. She started in her fries, which were cold, but still good and salty. Then she noticed more strange things piled onto the kitchen table. Notebooks, binders, number two pencils. What's all this? Mom poured tea for the three of them and took a seat. This is all for you. Rosa felt suddenly unsettled. I don't like pencils. Pencil sharpeners kind of freaked me out. I like pens. But only if I've mixed up the ink myself, because then I can trust it to write down what I meant to say. Remember that one red pen at the front desk of our old library? It hated vowels. You can't trust a pen that disembowels all your words. You'll learn to use a pencil. Mom said. Rosa looked at her mother who sips tea and looked back at her with a perfectly neutral expression. Rosa sent a pleading look at now. Now only shrugged, clearly unwilling to interfere in Diaz family business. So Rosa gave in and asked directly. Why? Did you buy me school supplies? Yes, mom said. No, no, no, no, definitely no. The greasy taste of cold fries turned unpleasant in her mouth. You can't send me to school. I'm too busy. I need to make more lanterns. Ghost hating vandals keep smashing mine. Now made a growly noise. Even the ones I made for you. Yes, Rosa, even the ones you made completely wrecked. The blacksmith cracked her knuckles, right? I'll make more. Thanks, Rosa said. Mom sent her mug on the table. The haunted foil thing cautiously sniffed it. It is time to take a break from the whisper lanterns, Rosa. You need to go to school. Don't make me go. Rosa hated to hear pleading in her own voice. I will do anything else. Dishes, bookbinding repairs. I will deliver overdue notices personally. That is not a chore. Mom pointed out you enjoy it too much. Then I'll promise to hate it instead. Just please don't put me in the classroom. Mom gently nudged the foil thing away from her mug. Not all teachers are like Mr. Frumkin. What was he like? Mean, Rosa told her and he had haunted hair. I was just trying to help. Rosa, is this about making friends? Rosa asked. I don't need any more friends. I have Jasper. I can probably find another one if you really, really want me to I'll start looking tomorrow. Rosa, Mom used the voice. I didn't quite get it. It was it was the voice. This is not about you. Not exactly. And you should learn how to talk to the living without scaring most of them away. But that's not why I'm sending you to school. It isn't just that you need to go. It is that the school needs you. That's ridiculous. Rosa said. Why would the school need? Oh, yes. Because the school is haunted. They're extremely haunted. They don't already have a specialist on staff. Not even in the school library. I guess not. They've never needed one before. And now they need you. Mom told her you will go to class like everyone else. But you will also be on call for emergency appeasements. Our emergency appeasements likely to happen. Rosa munched on the cold fries, which had become palatable again. I'm starting to like this idea. I thought that you might. Will she get paid for this? No, that's not helping. No, she won't get paid. She's too young to take the job officially. And the school can't afford to hire themselves a specialist on such short notice. Rosa fiddled with a number two pencil. Won't you need me here, though, at the library? Of course, mom said, our first duty is to the library, but you do still live here. I will squeak by during school hours somehow. The interlibrary loans will be the worst of it, but otherwise this place is in pretty decent shape, at least compared to the rest of town. Inga used to be the least haunted place in the world. Now it might well be the most haunted place. That school needs you more than the library does. Rosa did not mind feeling indispensable. Okay, she said, I'll go. Thank you. Off to bed. You need sleep for tomorrow. Don't worry about chores. I'll settle the rest of the library down tonight. Even the newspapers, Rosa asked. You hate dealing with newspapers. Yes, mom said. What did they do? Now last. Is it something that would freak me out? Probably. And then don't tell me about it. Night, kid. Good night, everybody. Rosa left them to their tea. The haunted foil waved. Her bedroom was mostly unpacked. Her own book sat on their shelves sorted by size and color, rather than the strict fussiness of the alphabet. Roland, the toy penguin sat in the corner quietly haunted by the ghost of a taxi driver, also named Roland, next to a ukulele that Rosa's father had never learned how to play. Rosa didn't know how to play it either, but maybe she would someday. She hung her tool belt on the wall next to her sword, which now had forged out of local copper. Rosa wished she could bring the sword to school with her. Better not, she figured. Local ghosts are practically allergic to this and whatever haunts that place might take offense if I showed up heavily armed. The teachers probably wouldn't like it either. She lit five of the six vote of candles as she kept on the windowsill, four small white ones for her grandparents who Rosa had never met or heard from dead or living, and one big red one for her patron librarian, Catalina de Arraso. Rosa had never met patron Catalina either, but ghosts of that old and venerable tended to dissipate and did not usually answer the call of Kendall. Recuerdo, she said, because her parents all spoke Spanish and because patron Catalina lived in Spain 500 years ago, it felt wrong to say remembrance in any other language. A tolos o recuerda. Por favor, recuerda a me. Recuerda a me. Sorry. It also felt a little weird to promise that she would remember five people she never really known, but she did know their stories and wished they could know hers. She also wished she could speak more Spanish than just a few phrases, but even long sense of the language seemed rusty now. Her quilt started humming. Every patched piece knew a fragment of a different lullaby, and altogether it sounded like a discordant mass, but Rosa still found comfort in the notes. It reminded her of traffic, which she missed. Ingrid was a much quieter place. From her basement bedroom, she couldn't hear whatever small noises the town made anyway because her window wasn't real. Someone had once tried to make up for the claustrophobic lack of windows by painting a landscape on the wall and then nailing a wooden frame around it, but the fake window did a decent impression of the outside world. Maybe it remembered another view from another place. A sixth vote of candle was marked with the name Ferdinand Diaz. Rosa lit it, but only briefly. Don't haunt us, dad, she said, and then she licked her fingertips and pinched all of the flames. And that's chapter three. Okay, ghost stories. So this is a sequel to a properly unhaunted place, which came about from many conversations about ghost stories that I've had while studying folklore and traveling, and one conversation in particular with my friend Rio, who taught Japanese in the college in Minneapolis where we were both teaching at the time. And we were both just going off about how weird American ghost stories are. Just utterly bizarre because the goal of pretty much every American ghost story, every horror movie, every monster movie is to get the weird thing to go away completely gone. Like if a place is haunted by a nice ghost, you help them find peace and they leave. And if it's a meme ghost, you banish them and cast them out and send them away and they leave. No matter what the ghost leave. The rest of the world, ghost stories aren't always like that or even usually like that ever. Like haunted place, if you know a place is haunted, you don't necessarily presume that you can unhaunt it. You just know not to go in there. Or if the haunted place is your house or place of work, for example. If you work on the college at the top of the hill. You just get a sense for what sorts of things will not annoy the ghost who shares that space and you make sure not to do those things. And sometimes it changes which bathroom you use. But that's more, that's how most ghost stories are. But here, especially our monster movies, all of our monster movies, you kill the monster at the end. And my friend Rio was like, you don't you don't kill Godzilla. You just try to survive Godzilla and eventually he goes back in the water. Like that's not that's not how much. Yeah, you can't presume that you get to that anything that's scary, you can make it explode by the end of the movie. So I wanted to write an American ghost story that was utterly different from all of these. There was just the complete reverse of these. So it's said in a world where everything is haunted. And of course everything is haunted. Haunted just means the memory of a place. Which is really fun as a storyteller, as a novelist. Because haunting is its backstory. It's the history of a setting made manifest because it's still happening. And this combines in my brain with annoyance at how we talk about history here. And I don't know about how they teach history now. I think better. I learned history as though it were over. And it's not. It's still happening. Many of the things we thought were settled aren't. So that sense that history is happening. That sense that we haven't transcended it. We haven't woken up from it. We haven't we're not past it. It's still a part of us and it's still part of every place. That everything that happened there is still a part of that place is something I've wanted to write about. And ghost gives you a really fun way to write about it. Because it's true. The thing, the stuff that happened there is still happening in that place. So in the first book the really weird thing about that place is that there are no ghosts. It's the only place in the world with no ghosts. And that's weird. I mean if you've ever been through a place that's known as a ghost town, the scary thing about it is that it is empty. Emptiness is scary. It's scarier than presence usually. So the creepy unsettling weirdness of the first book is that there are no ghosts at first. And we don't know where they went. And then stuff happens. And now there's lots of ghosts. And that's also very unsettling for the people who lived there. And we're perfectly content to be in a ghost-free place. To be in the only ghost-free place in the world. And it's not anymore. And really pretty much the only person happy about that is Rosa. She's really happy about that if anyone else hates it. So, yeah. And it's also a love letter to libraries. Because libraries need love letters. And libraries are obviously haunted in this good way. I mean they're places of memory. And there's that, you get it from a good used book too. There's that sense of you're reading a book that lots of other people have read. And way back when we had cards you could see what their names were. And you can't anymore. Because now they just can't remember. But yeah, you used to just see like oh look for the past 40, 50 years here are the people who've read this book. And it's like their eyes are still on it. It's like the book remembers them. You can tell if you just open the book you can find the most popular scene. That way. So, yeah, all of that. Obviously turned into a story about a haunted renaissance festival. Because, why not? I'm Micky. So I'm happy to keep babbling. There are also cupcakes. I can take questions. We can swap ghost stories. Any questions? Do you have any ghost stories? Um, not off the top of my head. We have a question. Yes. Can I get a book? Can I get a book? Sure. Do it right here. Go. Which one? The new one or some of his older ones? The new one. The new one. I will pass. Oh, he did. Awesome. Yeah. I'll sign it. Well, here. You look at it. I'll sign it in a sec. I'm not here right now. That's okay. Turn it out. Um, okay. All right. Ghost story. Um, personal experience ghost stories. Let's see. Um, here's one. I spent a semester abroad in college. And the mid-semester break, I spent wandering around Scotland just by myself. Just because I thought that would be fun. And I wanted to track down some ghost stories. And I found lots of them in Scotland just all the time. Lots of ghosts. Lots of ghosts in Scotland. And people weren't even trying to be like, cool, you're a tourist. I will tell you ghost stories. There was, it was like really a matter of fact. I was um, um, I was staying at a hostel and just checking in and the person behind the desk was clearly new. I said, okay, yeah, here's your room. And someone older came by and said, no, no, no, don't get in that room. Why not? They're not even talking to me. They're just muttering. Ghost in that room hates men with beards. He won't get me sleep. Like, oh, okay, here, take this room. Thanks. Okay, so yeah, tons of, tons of ghost stories. Um, and I was on my way up to the Isle of Skye. And but staying somewhere in the, which is mostly because that's where they filmed Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Um, that's really the only reason I was going. Um, and there was a little town, I don't even remember the name. There was a little town in the Midlands that just happened to be where I spent the night. Um, but they were very, they're, they were proud to inform me that they had a castle nearby. Um, because, um, cliche American backpackers in Europe love castles. Um, so I said, sure, I'll go check out the castle. It was getting late, but I wanted to see a castle. Um, and so I sort of hiked into the woods and up into the hills as it was getting foggy because Scotland. And, um, so in the forest on a hill, there was indeed a pile of rocks that apparently used to be a small castle. They were some rocks. I checked out the rocks. It was neat. It was kind of neat. There wasn't much of it left. It was, um, but you know, um, lovely evening for a walk in the woods. And then, okay, the first weird thing that I noticed was that I started to get angry. And I did not know why. I had nothing in particular to be angry about. I felt great a moment ago. Like, dude, did you, I'm hiking in Scotland. Now I'm really pissed about something. And like, my memory was conjuring any, like, old grudges just to have an excuse to be angry. Like, old ones. Like, kindergarten to think that one guy and the juice box and the just, I was just really angry. I said, I had not thought about kindergarten level grudges for many, many years. But, but it was just pissed and I needed a reason. Um, and then I noticed that I didn't really have a reason to be angry about anything. And so I thought, you know, all this anger doesn't really feel like it's mine. And the moment I thought that the wind picked up, in a perfect spiraling whirlwind surrounding the place where I stood. And I couldn't see it because it was picking up leaves and twigs. So I'm watching a whirlwind of leaves and twigs. Um, just surround me and contract. Um, and as someone who studied folklore, the thing that it occurred to me to do in a panic was to draw a circle in the ground. Just, just, I had a stick, circle, ground, there. The wind stopped outside the circle and kept spinning. This was both intensely terrifying and after a while kind of boring. Because here I am in a circle and for a whole bit nothing changed. Just angry wind did not let up. Just continuing spiral of angry wind outside the circle in the dirt where I am. And I can't go anywhere. And so eventually, I said, the only thing I said aloud while exploring this castle was, I'll leave but you're gonna have to let me go. Boom, wind dies. In that moment, I don't want to leave my circle. But the wind stopped. So I sighed and leave. Fast, it is now very foggy, the sun has gone down, it is dark. I go straight back to town. I know, I remember which way town is, but there's a field in the way. Sheep are large and scary when you run smack into the side of them, by the way. They're all, yeah, they, I mean they, they don't react at all. Old grumpy sheep, but yeah. So ran into some sheep, made it back into town, went directly to bed. And the next morning, as I was leaving, first thing in the morning, I looked at a map, a little hand drawn badly Xeroxed map that they handed to tourists to say, look, we have a castle. There's like a bad drawing of what the castle used to look like with the grounds and the stuff. But you could sort of see where things were and the spot where I was standing, they had marked off as the executioner spot. Lots and lots and lots of people died right there. I guess they're still pissed. I would be, yeah. Maybe the headsman had a beer. So, yeah, that's my ghost story. Most of the ones I collected when I was still collecting ghost stories were theatrical, because all theaters are haunted. All theaters are known to be haunted, all backstage places are haunted. Whether or not anyone has ever died there, whether or not they know, I mean sometimes they have a, oh yeah, techie fell from the grid and is still haunting, or something, or like the founder of the theater is still taking care of the place, like 80 years after they died. But, but they don't always have a, who this person was that they're just haunted. Weird things happen, and they either help the show or they do everything they can to make it, to unscrew it. Will that be your next book? My next one? Maybe? I don't know, I'm right. Yeah, the next one's slow. Next one's happening slow. Is this the last one in this? For now. Okay. It is, there is no cliffhanger. The second book does wrap, wrap things up immediately. There is, in my head, a third book. Just one more. There's one more, and it happens the following summer. And I haven't written it yet, but I'll hopefully get to it. The festival needs to be over. That's the thing. And a whole bunch of other stuff. Yeah, never mind. Never mind, haven't written it. So anything I say might change. Will, could you talk more about what you were talking about? Your friend, Rio, the non-American way of dealing with ghosts, like just not using that room or going to a different, you know, like sort of peaceful coexistence or something? Well, I mean, like this is massively generalizing, because it, you know, of course changes place to place in culture to culture and family to family. But, so even with this broadly generalizing reductive summing up of just everything, there does seem to be an oddness about American ghost stories. And I do think it connects to our sense of history. And just the whole, the whole idealism of there being the new world. The Europeans leaving the old world behind. And not, and not being burdened by the past. And there's still that sense of idealistic, dubber, and amusia, collectively. Not just about the old world, but about everything that's happened in the new one since. It's, there's a, there's a sense that, okay, Eddie Izard dressed to kill is clearly his best show, as far as stand-up goes. And he talked about being on tour, and I think it was in Florida somewhere, just like watching TV, and watching local news. And they said, and these homes have been restored, what they looked like more than 50 years ago. Everyone says, no, surely not. No one was alive then. And then he jokes about how in Europe everyone lives in castles. So, but just like that, that thing he's joking about. That, that European history where you, where, where all of the layers of history are just, there's just an anachronistic mess, like everyday life is this massive anachronism, where you're in, you're in Rome, and so your house is partly built with stones they just took out of the Coliseum, just right over there to make your house. And it's, and everything is happening at once. There's, there's, and it's visible, and it's solid, and it's right here, and it's thousands and thousands of years that are, that are all happening at once. And that's, like, like, no, more than 50 years. Like that thing that Europeans get to make fun of or anyone gets to make fun of here, that sense of, and of course this place has a history. We just tend to ignore it slash burn it down. And in order to imagine ourselves free of it. And that's, that's a, that's a huge part of our national identity on this continent is, is the new world that the fresh starts. The, like, the ghosts are going away. And we can, and they will rest, and they will not haunt us anymore until they do. And then, and then we respond badly. But everything, all sorts of things, all sorts of just, every time, all of the various debates about history, every time we argue about what to do with a civil war statue, or why the statue was there in the first place, or when did it go up? Or just, like, that, that. What do we, how, how and what do we remember and why? How, in what way do we honor it and what way are we haunted by it? I'm babble, babble, babble. I'm pretty sure that that is why American ghost stories are different than anywhere else in the world. History, a sense of history, a sense of ancestry, a sense of collective memory is weird here compared to everywhere else. And, and I swear that's what crops up in the way we tell ghost stories. So obviously, while thinking about all of that, one writes about a haunted Renaissance festival. Because, sorts, sorts. There's a cane sword in every single one of my books. So far, probably now there's going to have to be in just all of them. But yeah, all six, really different books. They all have cancels. What, is that a cane sword? This one is not a cane sword. Like last year, Maybe you should get one. I have to write about them. I may or may not know. I think it was last year, a woman who had not gone on a plane in many, many years came to an airport and the TSA found a sword in her cane. She had no idea it was a what? Yeah, every, I heard that story and was like, and I've been disappointed. Like that happens. You kind of wonder how she got around. I know. Clearly they didn't let her on the plane with the thing or that probably put it in checked baggage. Yeah, there's a whole another rant. Airlines are terrible with canes. They're terrible with canes. Yeah, if it doesn't fold up into a pocket and go away, they take it away from you and put it up top. Even if you need the cane to get to the thing. Yeah, they're like, they're like, oh, it blocks the aisle. Like, if I don't have it to move around, I will be blocked. Like, yes, there is. Oh, I'll just have to take that. Anyway, different rant. Different rant. Yeah, ghosts and history and Renaissance fairs, geekery. We covered a lot of that. Drawing circles, very important. Any other question or things you would like me to babble about? Because if not, there's cupcakes. Are we done? We're done. Thank you for coming.