Supernatural Friday: Tribute to L. B. Taylor

A few days ago, I received the news that author L.B. Taylor Jr. passed away on Sunday, February 23, 2014.  This man is one of two ghost book authors that inspired me when I wrote my own nonfiction ghost books.  

L.B. released at least a dozen volumes of his most popular title, "The Ghosts of Virginia,” besides many like “Ghosts of Richmond,” etc… Taylor's interest in ghost stories goes back three decades. According to a short biography in Volume XII of "The Ghosts of Virginia," Taylor was researching for the 1983 book "Haunted Houses" and became intrigued by stories of the paranormal. He began to get more stories, filling the pages of 20 books about Virginia ghosts. His most recent book of ghost stories released in 2013, focused on tales from Roanoke; “Haunted Roanoke.”

I got to see him one last time back in October 2013 when both he and I were authors signing at the Williamsburg Book Festival. He brought over my latest nonfiction ghost book,  “HauntedRichmond II” and I took out my copy of his book, “Monstersof Virginia:Mysterious Creatures in the Old Dominion.”  We signed our books for each other.

His books helped me to find the places I would research for my own books. This is one reason I tell ghost hunters to check out the ghost books—to find haunted spots to investigate. Writers are the modern day shamans. Instead of around a campfire or a roaring fire in a hearth, they put the tales to pen so readers can check the books out of libraries or buy in bookstores, then read them by the light of lamp at night. Thanks to authors like Taylor, the stories won’t disappear into obscurity, but remain with us years down the line.  Isn’t that the point of writing them? That our descendents will learn the legends and stories, too?

So for Supernatural Friday, I felt he deserved to be blogged about. Check out his published works. Reading their books is the best tribute anyone can give any author.

To find L.B. Taylor’s books, so you can order them from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or even from your independent bookstore (new and used), here is the link for them on LibraryThing (includes his non-ghost books): http://www.librarything.com/author/taylorlbjr.