Local writer and educator Patricia Heyer has combined longtime interests in local folklore and writing to produce her new book entitled Thirteen Ghostly Tales and Yarns of the Navesink.  The retired special education teacher has researched and put together some little known stories from Monmouth County’s macabre past. Patricia’s writing combines historical research with local legends.

Her new book focuses on the Navesink River and surrounding towns. It tells paranormal stories from Old Monmouth’s Native American past, Colonial history, and modern haunts.

Readers learn of the evil sacrificial practices of a Lenape magician and soothsayer, of heroic slaves that were the area’s first freedom fighters, and even of a mysterious sea serpent that was so well documented in ended up in Scientific American.

History meets the supernatural in Thirteen Ghostly Tales and Yarns of the Navesink. Story titles include: Beyond the Veil: a Victorian Ghost Party, The House That Crossed the River, Graveyard Shift at the Oceanic Bridge, Serpent of the Navesink, The Case of the Canis lupus, Ghostly Revenge of Indian Jack, Heartless Ghost of Passage Point, Shadows of the Great War, The Oyster War, Strange Happenings at Old Balm Hollow, The Ghost of the Greek Club, Civil War Silhouettes, and Ghostly Legends of Whippoorwill Valley.

Patricia is a long time Monmouth Country resident. She was born in rural Pennsylvania and was schooled in one room school house. She is a graduate of Slippery Rock State University and  received her Master of Arts degree from Kean University. After retiring she was accepted into the children’s writing program at the Institute of Children’s Literature. Her first submission after graduation won a cash prize and was published. Her second was accepted and published by the first magazine queried. Since retirement she has devoted her full time to educational writing and has been published in several notable children’s magazines including Kid Zone and Listen Magazine.

She retired from the Red Bank Board of Education after thirty two years of service. Her most recent work is the first in what she plans to make a series on local ghost stories and folktales. Ghostly Tales and Yarns of the Navesink will be on local shelves this fall.