News Release: Searching for the Ghosts of Devils Lake

For release: July 2, 2009
Contact: Corrine Kenner
Website: www.ghostsofdevilslake.com
Email: ghosts@ghostsofdevilslake.com
Phone: 701-540-5405

Is your house haunted? Do spirits share space in your store or office building? Are there any ghostly goings-on in your fields or on your farm? If so, there’s an author looking for you — and your terrifying tale could be included in a book about the haunted hollows of Devils Lake.

Corrine Kenner, an award-winning author who was raised on a farm near Devils Lake, is compiling a collection of ghost stories from the Lake Region.

“Like most people in the area, I grew up hearing stories about the Dakotah men who died in battle on Devils Lake, and the ghostly sightings of the steamboat Minnie H,” she said. “Devils Lake has more than its share of ghost stories — but almost no one beyond North Dakota’s borders has heard them. That’s one reason I’m really excited about this book. It’s going to put Devils Lake on the map for readers across the country and around the world.”

Kenner is hoping to uncover a wide range of new stories, too.

“I’m really interested in stories about very old ghosts,” she said, “from the days when Devils Lake was a pioneer town. I’m also interested in legends from the Spirit Lake Nation — like the descriptions of wood and water spirits, and the ‘little people’ you can only see out of the corner of your eye.”

Kenner’s search for ghost stories isn’t confined to city or tribal limits.

“I’m interested in any paranormal events in a 50- or 60-mile radius,” she said. “I’m looking for spooky stories of supernatural phenomena, and sights and sounds that can’t be explained. This book will have a definite ‘X-Files’ and ‘Twilight Zone’ feel.”

If you have a supernatural story to share, you can call Kenner at (701) 540-5405, or email her at ghosts@ghostsofdevilslake.com. You can also contact her through the Ghosts of Devils Lake website at www.ghostsofdevilslake.com.

Kenner currently plans to include the stories of:

• Lillian Wineman, the eccentric pioneer woman who stayed with her belongings — even after she died, and her furnishings were moved into a local history museum
• The untimely deaths of two young brothers, found hanged on their homestead after they picked a drunken fight with the wrong crowd
• Ghostly sightings of the Minnie H steamboat and her captain, Edward Heerman, who patrolled the shores of Devils Lake at the turn of the last century
• The lost graveyard of doomed Jewish settlers, who tried to establish their own farming community during the late 1800s
• A mysterious “stairway to hell” discovered in a farmer’s field
• The ghostly shadows and cries of Dakotah warriors, drowned by the angry spirits of the lake during a terrible battle
• And a Loch Ness-style monster who lives in the deepest center of the lake

Kenner is the award-winning author of ten books and the editor of several anthologies. Her books have been translated into several languages and distributed around the world.

The Ghosts of Devils Lake will be released by Llewellyn Worldwide, a global publisher based in Woodbury, Minnesota.

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