Ghost Stories of North Carolina: New Tales from the Mountains to the Coast

Fifteen of North Carolina’s finest writers reimagine and reclaim the stories of the ghosts who have haunted all corners of the state.

North Carolina ain’t what it once was: forests and fields have given way to suburbs and vacation homes, textile mills to high tech, tobacco farms to tourism. That doesn’t mean, though, that the ghosts of the Old North State have gone away.

In this anthology, readers might glimpse some of the ghostly apparitions, headless fiends, and creepy hollers they heard about around their childhood campfires. Now, fifteen of the state’s finest contemporary prose writers and poets have reimagined these stories--bringing us fresh tales that are bound to scare the living daylights out of us all over again.

Contributors include: Michele Tracy Berger on the ghosts of the Great Dismal Swamp, Wiley Cash (and his daughters) on the Maco Light, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle on the Raven Mockers, Tyree Daye on family hauntings, Jeremy B. Jones on the phantasms of Chimney Rock, Ed Southern on the Jack Tales and the Devil’s Tramping Ground, Ross White on the Little Red Man of Old Salem, and many more.

The Devil’s Done Come Back reclaims these old ghost tales as living stories, told and retold to frighten and delight.

Editor Ed Southern is the author of Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South, The Jamestown Adventure, Voices of the American Revolution in the Carolinas, and the short-story collection Parlous Angels. His work has appeared in South Writ Large, the Asheville Poetry Review, storySouth, the NC 10x10 Play Festival, and elsewhere. Since 2008, he has been the executive director of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. He lives in Winston-Salem, NC.