Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland: Virtual book launch and storytelling event

Author Charis Cotter

 

who has brought young readers creepy stories, true and imagined, in her numerous books

 

is getting everyone ready for Halloween with

 TWO spooky events.

 

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First,

 

she is launching her latest book

 

Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland

Written by Charis Cotter

Illustrated by Genevieve Simms

Nimbus

978-1771089067

156 pp.

Ages 8-12

August 2020

 

on Tuesday, October 27, 2020

at

8 PM NL (6:30 PM EDT)

 

with

• a reading from the story "The Ghosts of Pushthrough"

• a chat with artist Genevieve Simms about her illustrations in the books

and

• signed book giveaways

 

Although the event is free, you will need to sign up at
https://www.facebook.com/events/763834864396397

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Second,

Charis Cotter will be telling a story from

Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland

 

at the St. John's Storytelling Festival, 

Mythic Beasts
Virtual Storytelling on YouTube

on

 

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

at

7:30 PM NL (6 PM EDT)

You will also need to sign up for this free event at
https://www.facebook.com/events/1260137937677869/

(Note: Although these events are organized on Facebook, you don't have to be on Facebook to sign up! Just follow the links.)

 

 

Happy Halloween

courtesy of Charis Cotter!

 

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Footsteps in Bay de Verde: A mysterious tale

Written by Charis Cotter

Illustrated by Jenny Dwyer

Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides

978-1-927917282

44 pp.

All ages

May 2020

From the extraordinary teller of ghost stories, Charis Cotter, comes another haunting tale of old Newfoundland from a time when listening to adults talk was entertainment for children and mysterious tales weren't from the imagination alone.

From Footsteps in Bay de Verde: A mysterious tale by Charis Cotter, illus. by Jenny Dwyer

An hour past their bedtime, children John, Bridie and Theresa–8, 6 and 4 respectively–sit squished on a daybed with others, trying to stay invisible to the adults who visited, sharing news of the fishing, the union, and the weather. They also speak of the health of Mother's cousin, Jim Keye, ever known as Poor Keye, who'd gone to hospital in St. John's. Poor Keye who was already afflicted with cataracts and a bad leg that gave him a recognizable "step–shuffle–thump" footstep was a favourite of Birdie's for his jokes and candy in his pockets.

From Footsteps in Bay de Verde: A mysterious tale by Charis Cotter, illus. by Jenny Dwyer

Just as Mr. Fleming begins his story about Billy Cotter going stark raving made one night, "screaming bloody and foaming around the mouth," the front door crashes open with a bang and they all hear the familiar shambling footsteps coming down the hall. As they wait for the returned Poor Keye, Mr. Fleming continues his story. They all hear the footsteps but no one comes in. Bridie's mother even takes the lamp and goes to check on him, sure that he'd lost his way because of his cataracts.

There was a moment of silence that seemed to fill the whole house. Bridie could feel her heart thumping under her sweater. The wind was picking up now, rattling the windows furiously.
     Suddenly there was a loud crash from the back kitchen, and the sound of breaking glass.

When their mother returns without Jim and sees her children still up at quarter past nine, she shuffles them off to bed, leaving a candle for the three children who huddle in their bed in darkness of their room.

From Footsteps in Bay de Verde: A mysterious tale by Charis Cotter, illus. by Jenny Dwyer

But it's in the brightness of the next morning that brings the scariest of news when a telegram arrives from St. John's that confirms that last night's visit was not limited to those seen in the kitchen.

Charis Cotter is a ghost storyteller. From her award-winning The Swallow to her The Ferryland Visitor, Charis Cotter, who lives by the sea in Western Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, paints wildly spooky stories from the mundane. It’s the wind and the rain and a road or a picture. It's friends gathering to chat and a soul far away and right at hand. She tells it as it was, placing the reader in a house pounded by a wind, chilled and dark by weather and something else. From little Theresa whimpering to Mr. Brady spitting out his chewing tobacco to the wind trying to get in, Footsteps in Bay de Verde recreates a story told to Charis Cotter by Brian Walsh, a Newfoundland storyteller himself, of a story his mother experienced in the 1920s and makes us believe what the characters saw and heard.

"It could've been the wind."
"Well, if it was, it's the first time I've ever heard the wind make footsteps."

This is Newfoundlander Jenny Dwyer's first picture book and she gives powerful imagery to Charis Cotter's words. That wind, the cold, the dark and the haunting atmosphere of Bridie's family home on that night is delivered with a starkness and an authority. Through her limited palette of cool blues, greys and black, with just the mere touch of red–in a ribbon, on a candy, a stamp on a telegram–Jenny Dwyer upholds the eeriness of the night and the revelation of the next morning. Even on this hot summer day as I review this story, I feel that chill and the mysteriousness of something experienced but unexplained.

For another haunting picture book, set in old Newfoundland, Footsteps in Bay de Verde makes the real just a little bit dark and a whole lot mysterious.

The Ferryland Visitor: A mysterious tale

by Charis Cotter

Artwork by Gerald L. Squires

Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides

978-1-927917-05-3

36 pp.

Ages 7+

2016

This is a mysterious tale but a true one of a visitor to the Ferryland Newfoundland lighthouse taken over by artist Gerald L. Squires, his potter wife and two young daughters, Esther and Meranda, in the early 1970s.  Believe it or not.

“They could always see when somebody was coming to visit, because they could see most of the road from the kitchen window–curving through the downs, inching along the narrows, twisting up the hill and disappearing around the corner.” (pg. 6)

The Narrows on the Road to the Ferryland Lighthouse 

by Gerald L. Squires

From The Ferryland Visitor by Charis Cotter

So the family is surprised when a knock on the door heralds a large man in a long black coat and big boots. When he says “Your dog asked me to come in” (pg. 14) it seemed true, as Houndie was more pleased than alarmed by the stranger’s appearance on their doorstep.

A former policeman in Ferryland, the man regaled them with stories, including one about the death of a boy from pneumonia and his wake at the lighthouse.  But when he left, thanking them for their hospitality and acknowledging  “now I know you’ll be good for this lighthouse” (pg. 17), Esther couldn’t spot him on the road.

The next day when visiting  a neighbour on the other side of the hill, Esther and her father tell Arch about their visitor.  After asking a number of questions, Arch reveals that the man sounded like Dick Costello, a constable who had been good friends with the keeper.  But Dick Costello had died twenty years earlier.

The following year, Gerald L. Squires shared the story with the visiting daughter of Dick Costello who, though stunned, confirmed that her dad always said the same thing when he walked into someone’s house: “Your dog asked me to come in.”

The story of The Ferryland Visitor could well be considered a ghost tale, something Charis Cotter, whose own The Swallow: A Ghost Story (Tundra, 2014) won the 2015 IODE Canada Violet Downey Book Award, knows a thing or two about telling well.  But this is a true story, and one that publisher Marnie Parsons recounts hearing upon her own move to Newfoundland with her family.  Still, at its heart, it’s a story of family and community, and using Gerald L. Squires’ own artwork, as well as photographs, brings that sense of place and people to the story’s core.  There’s a feeling of desolation and isolation and expanse, along with surprise and magic, to the landscape and the story, told spookily but straight up.  The Ferryland Visitor is an amazing story for eerie October, the month in which the mysterious visitor came to call, or anytime young readers want to be transported to the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland and stay for a good yarn.

Dark Cave Under the Light by Gerald L. Squires

From The Ferryland Visitor by Charis Cotter