by intern Carly Maltzman
Photo credit: intern Nicole Nicholas
Do you believe in ghosts? Well if not, Tim Krepp and Canden Schwantes, authors of Ghosts of Georgetown and Wicked Georgetown respectively, might change your mind.
Schwantes and Krepp were at the historical Dumbarton House on Wednesday, October 30th to share spooky and wicked tales about the Georgetown neighborhood.
Krepp, author of Ghosts of Georgetown, only became interested in ghosts on a fluke while discovering that there is a lot more to just the enthrallment of such stories: “I was never really a big ghost guy, but I was giving tours and it was the right time of year – Halloween – so I sort of accidentally started digging into them and I discovered that it’s actually a great way to discover our cultural history,” Krepp explained.
Although he has a lot to write about in his book about apparitions and other spirits, he remains neutral about their existence. Until a ghost disturbs him in his sleep or haunts his house, he has yet to become completely convinced that he is not sleeping alone: “I am strictly agnostic about the present of ghosts. I’m a story teller that’s trying to research and find the true history of these things so I’m willing to believe it if they show up but I don’t disbelieve; so I guess I keep a zone of neutrality about the presence of ghosts.” Krepp said.
While his successful book covers a myriad of stories, his work is not done. Ghosts of Georgetown only focuses on spooky tales in the Georgetown area, which is not nearly the entity of D.C.: “There are plenty of more ghosts stories out there, I may do something about the downtown area or the White House, or the Smithsonian castles, so there’s a lot more of ghosts to be seen and I want to branch out beyond just ghosts.”
Audience members fidgeted in their seats and struggled to put on their poker faces as they listened to these fictional stories that will undeniably haunt us all. “I like to talk about things you wouldn’t normally find out in history classes,” Schwantes said. Like Krepp, Canden Schwantes, author of Wicked Georgetown, is interested not merely in ghosts and phantoms, but what these stories say about history: “I like to focus on the darker side of history, kind of the secrets that you wouldn’t really talk about and things that are really gossipy,” she added.
Canden Schwantes
While Schwantes has a keen interest in ghosts and history, part of her motivation to write a book on Georgetown’s secrets was the apparent competition amongst cities: “There’s sort of this whole North-East North-West rivalry going on in D.C. and I live on Capitol Hill, so when I got the opportunity to spill all of Georgetown’s secrets I had to take it, and that is legitimately what started this book,” Schwantes confessed.
She aspires to continue writing stories about ladies of Washington, D.C.: “I am working on a book that is coming out in March called The Wild Women of Washington, so it’s the same wicked series but it focuses on the DC ladies who didn’t do what they were told and we didn’t want to call them wicked because they weren’t; but there are people who had affairs, there were suffragettes and a couple of stories that I have been told about Georgetown ladies after I wrote this book that will be in it because as soon as you tell people you’re writing about secrets, they all have something to share. I could probably do a part 2 on this book,” she laughed.
Towards the end of the event, both authors signed copies of their books and may as well have promised audience members sleepless nights for the next week. Happy Halloween everyone!
