When I did, I took substantial liberties – one of the oft-told tales of Bachelors Grove is that a house appears to people, but when you walk towards it, it disappears. When I wrote my second short story about Bachelors Grove for an anthology a few years ago, it occurred to me that I could set a whole book there. And back in the ‘60s, there were actual devil worship ceremonies performed there.

It’s a great place for horror stories, because there already are so many tales of wandering ghosts attributed to it. When I got my first job at a newspaper, I wrote a Halloween feature story about it, and I’ve written a couple of short fiction stories over the years set there. I grew up a few miles away from the place, and heard about the ghosts that haunt it all my life. It’s often referenced as one of the most haunted places in Illinois. What inspired you to write about an abandoned house by a cemetery?īachelors Grove Cemetery is a real place –it’s an abandoned cemetery set in the middle of a forest preserve near the Midlothian Turnpike (which isn’t really a turnpike – just a forest preserve road!). And when the haunted house staff open the place to the public, the previous occupant has far more sinister plans for the Halloween crowd than cheap scares. Then when a cute girl shows up who takes an interest in him and helps him with the work, well, he has to finish the job! There’s only one problem – the house already IS haunted. And while he wants to walk away when he finds bones and evidence of satanic rituals inside, he sticks around because he really needs the money. So… when his friend comes to him with the idea of turning an old house reputed to be haunted into an actual haunted house attraction for Halloween, he really can’t say no. He’s lost his wife and is about to lose his house if he doesn’t quit drinking and get some steady work. The House by the Cemetery is about a down-on-his-luck carpenter, Mike Kostner, who gets roped into rehabbing an old abandoned house near a cemetery. Please give us a short introduction to what The House by the Cemetery is about. As our Author of the Day, Everson tells us all about his book, The House by the Cemetery. In addition to his own twisted worlds, he has also written stories in shared universes, including The Vampire Diaries and Jonathan Maberry's V-Wars series, as well as for Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Green Hornet.

Over the past 25 years, his short fiction has appeared in more than 75 magazines and anthologies and received a number of critical accolades, including frequent Honorable Mentions in the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror anthology series. He is also the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Covenant and its two sequels, Sacrifice and Redemption, as well as seven other novels. John Everson is a staunch advocate for the culinary joys of the jalapeno and an unabashed fan of 1970s European horror cinema.

The house by the cemetery john everson