'Weird Ohio' co-author to visit SSCC's South Campus
By
Kris Cross-
Meet “Weird Ohio” co-author James Willis at a special event to be held 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, in the Learning Resources Center on Southern State Community College’s South Campus, 12681 U.S. Route 62, near Sardinia. The event is free and refreshments will be served.
For his book, which features a collection of spooky, strange and just-plain-weird sites, Willis traveled across the entire state covering everything from headless motorcycle ghosts and crybaby bridges to the world’s largest cuckoo clock and buildings covered in gum.
Fueled by a steady childhood diet of Boo Berry cereal, Creepy magazine, and late-night Vincent Price movies, Willis developed an early taste for the unexplained and quickly began seeking out all things strange and spooky. When he wasn't trying to coax the boogeyman out from under his bed for a photo shoot, Willis pondered such eternal questions as what happens to us when we die, is there life on other planets, and what possesses someone to decorate their house with 1,001 milk jugs?
In 1999, after spending more than 15 years chasing after ghosts and visiting crybaby bridges, Willis moved to Ohio and founded The Ghosts of Ohio (ghostsofohio.org), a nationally recognized paranormal research organization.
In 2004, in what seemed to be destiny, Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, the creators of the Weird US series of books, approached Willis and asked him to contribute to their latest volume, Weird US. To date, Willis has been involved with six books in the Weird US series. He is the co-author of Weird Ohio (2005) and Weird Indiana (2008) and was also a contributing author to Weird US (2004), Weird Hauntings (2006), Weird US II: The ODDyssey Continues (2008), and Weird Encounters (2010). Willis' unique and offbeat writing style was officially recognized in 2006 with his induction into the Grand Order of Weird Writers. In addition, Willis has been a contributing author to several books in the Armchair Reader series, beginning with Weird, Scary & Unusual (2008) and continuing with Armchair Reader Goes Hollywood (2010), Armchair Reader's All About Ohio (2010), Armchair Reader: The Mammoth Reader (2010), and Armchair Reader: Haunted America (2011).
Willis currently resides in Columbus with his wife and daughter, a Queen-loving parrot, and three narcoleptic cats.
For more information on the Nov. 3 event at Southern State, please contact Carissa Thatcher, South Campus LRC Manager, at 1-800-628-7722, ext. 3680, or cthatcher@sscc.edu.[[In-content Ad]]
For his book, which features a collection of spooky, strange and just-plain-weird sites, Willis traveled across the entire state covering everything from headless motorcycle ghosts and crybaby bridges to the world’s largest cuckoo clock and buildings covered in gum.
Fueled by a steady childhood diet of Boo Berry cereal, Creepy magazine, and late-night Vincent Price movies, Willis developed an early taste for the unexplained and quickly began seeking out all things strange and spooky. When he wasn't trying to coax the boogeyman out from under his bed for a photo shoot, Willis pondered such eternal questions as what happens to us when we die, is there life on other planets, and what possesses someone to decorate their house with 1,001 milk jugs?
In 1999, after spending more than 15 years chasing after ghosts and visiting crybaby bridges, Willis moved to Ohio and founded The Ghosts of Ohio (ghostsofohio.org), a nationally recognized paranormal research organization.
In 2004, in what seemed to be destiny, Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, the creators of the Weird US series of books, approached Willis and asked him to contribute to their latest volume, Weird US. To date, Willis has been involved with six books in the Weird US series. He is the co-author of Weird Ohio (2005) and Weird Indiana (2008) and was also a contributing author to Weird US (2004), Weird Hauntings (2006), Weird US II: The ODDyssey Continues (2008), and Weird Encounters (2010). Willis' unique and offbeat writing style was officially recognized in 2006 with his induction into the Grand Order of Weird Writers. In addition, Willis has been a contributing author to several books in the Armchair Reader series, beginning with Weird, Scary & Unusual (2008) and continuing with Armchair Reader Goes Hollywood (2010), Armchair Reader's All About Ohio (2010), Armchair Reader: The Mammoth Reader (2010), and Armchair Reader: Haunted America (2011).
Willis currently resides in Columbus with his wife and daughter, a Queen-loving parrot, and three narcoleptic cats.
For more information on the Nov. 3 event at Southern State, please contact Carissa Thatcher, South Campus LRC Manager, at 1-800-628-7722, ext. 3680, or cthatcher@sscc.edu.[[In-content Ad]]