Beth Dolgner, Writer and Editor

Halloween is my favorite holiday, so here’s a little Halloween treat for everyone. Cynthia Rintye is a tour guide with both the Lawrenceville, GA Ghost Tours and the Atlanta City Segway Ghost Tour. Cynthia generously shared several stories for my book, and she helped me track down leads for a few others. Her favorite story is about the old jail in Lawrenceville, which is haunted by a former inmate named Elleck. This video features Cynthia’s alter ego, Madame Macabre, relating the details of Elleck’s story. She’s a wonderful story-teller, so enjoy!

My book of Georgia ghost stories won’t be out in bookstores until 2009, but it’s never too early to start promoting! I will be a guest on Dimension X, a paranormal radio show hosted by Dr. William Lester, this Saturday, November 1. I am scheduled to be on the air from 11pm – midnight Eastern Time. If you’d like to tune in, you can listen online here: http://www.apsrradio.com/

I’ll be discussing all things paranormal, from my favorite stories in the book to paranormal investigations and anywhere else the hour takes us. Is there a question you’d like to know the answer to? Send it to me and we’ll try to talk about it on the air!

When I go to the bookstore, I often stop by the shelf that holds the local ghost books: stories about Atlanta, North Georgia, and yes, even the entire state. (Several others have beaten me to it, but it takes more than that to keep me down!) My husband and I stopped by last night and there was a new book there: Haunted Georgia.

Needless to say, I was a little horrified at finding my own working title already on someone’s published book. I had perused Georgia ghost book titles all while I was working on my manuscript to ensure that my title didn’t match someone else’s. This new book has a 2008 copyright, so that explains why I hadn’t spotted it before.

The first thing I did this morning was to fire off an email to my editor, telling her the news. Although I can still use Haunted Georgia as my title, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t come up with a new one to avoid confusion. A lot of the obvious titles are taken, like Georgia Ghosts, so I’m in a bit of a quandary as to a new title. It’s amazing that I could write an entire manuscript, then get writer’s block over a title that’s just a few words long. Any suggestions?

Yes, I have finally broken down and decided to try out this whole blogging thing. The past six months have been incredibly busy, between doing work that I actually get paid for, and wrapping up the manuscript for Haunted Georgia. I got the bulk of the manuscript finished in only six months, including all of the pictures I had to take to accompany the stories, and I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders the day I took everything in to the UPS Store and shipped it all to my editor Dinah at Schiffer Publishing.

Haunted Georgia will be my debut book, and I’ll finally get to call myself an author! Needless to say, I can’t wait for my collection of Georgia ghost stories to hit the shelves. But, of course, waiting is exactly what I have to do. An editor at Schiffer will go over my manuscript, we’ll do several rounds of copy editing, the text and photos have to be laid out, the cover has to be designed… you get the picture. I won’t be able to sign my first copy until sometime in the early fall of 2009. The good news is that my book will be out before Halloween of next year, so I can do some great promotions leading up to my favorite holiday.

Now that the book is done, I’ll have extra time to work on my latest manuscript, which is a work of fiction. I’m not sure what category it falls into, but if I had to guess I’d call it paranormal fantasy, or possibly paranormal romance. I haven’t even considered trying to find a publisher yet – right now, just the fact that I’m working on the manuscript is enough to keep me happy. It also helps with the long wait between now and the debut of Haunted Georgia… if you want to wait with me, check back for my updates, adventures, short stories, and maybe even some ghost stories that didn’t make it into the book.