Chattanooga State director of grants development Georgiana Kotarski has written a book on Chattanooga area ghosts.
Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley is published by Blair Publishing Company.
Ms. Kotarsi will have a publication party at The Chattanooga Store, 401 Broad St., on Sunday, June 25, from 1-3 p.m.
She will also sign books at the Battles for Chattanooga Museum at 827 East Brow Road on Lookout Mountain on Friday, June 30, from noon-2 p.m.
Her interest in ghosts began with an assignment to write a cover story about local haunts for Chattanooga Life & Leisure. She said, "The lead-time was short, but the supply of ghost stories was not."
Numerous readers wrote to tell her about their own eerie encounters, which supplemented her early research.
In the new book, she offers 30 of the best stories she found.
This is the first collection that focuses on ghosts in the region of the southern Tennessee Valley, which includes Chattanooga, Southeast Tennessee, North Alabama and Northwest Georgia.
"Wherever there are people," Ms. Kotarski writes, "there are tales of the restless dead."
In fact, the restless dead may have played a bigger role in her writing than just providing subject matter. She dreamt one night about interviewing two well-dressed ghosts. The next evening she received a call from an editor, asking her to write the magazine article about Chattanooga's ghosts.
The search for ghost stories led her first to the local library, then
to interviews with people who had tales they were willing to tell. The
article led to radio and television appearances, which in turn led more people who had encountered ghosts to seek out Ms. Kotarski and share their experiences.
She said, "I set out with a journalistic approach but often found myself being spooked not only by what I had heard but also by who told me. The initiated were not hysterical, neurotic, or addled. They were generally educated, deliberate, and composed. Their very credibility was unnerving."
She talked to members of the Overland band who were run out of their old home on the side of Lookout Mountain near Cravens House by ceaseless, spectral Civil War drummers.
She learned about "the Headless Outlaw," John Murrell, once known as "the Great Western Land Pirate."
She spoke with several people who had met Annalisa, the ghost in room 311 of the Read House.
"There exist enough stories in the lower Tennessee Valley to fill
several books," Ms. Kotarski writes, "but that does not solve the problem of digging them out of the nooks and crannies where they reside, often only in the memories of people."
Born in Coral Gables, Fla., to a musical mother and artist father, Georgiana grew up with a love of nature and the outdoors. She graduated from the University of the South in Sewanee with a B.S. in forestry in 1976. In 1977, she moved to Spangdalem, Germany, where she learned how to grow vegetables from her landlady and taught piano lessons on the side.
In 1983, she graduated from Kennesaw State University with a B.B.A. in accounting and moved to Chattanooga.
She later started a mail-order herb business and, from 1992 to 1997, she served as the director of the Chattanooga Area Food Bank.
Ms. Kotarski is the director of the Sequatchie Valley campus of Chattanooga State.
She lives in Dunlap with her husband, Dan, in a 120-year-old house they renovated themselves. They share their farm with two donkeys, Pancho and Juanita; Farkle the duck and his flock; Bossy the cow and her herd of 30 bovines; two dogs, Sandy Ann and Noodle; two cats, one horse and four hens.
This is her first book, though she has written more than 40 articles.
Title: Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley
Author: Georgiana C. Kotarski
Price: $10.95 trade paperback
ISBN: 0-89587-326-5
Specifications: 5 x 8, 217 pages, b&w photos, bibliography
Publication Date: May 2006
Subject: Folklore
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