Troy_Taylor

Troy Taylor is the author of 49 books about history, hauntings and the
unexplained in America for Whitechapel Press and Barnes & Noble Press
respectively. He is the founder and president of the “American Ghost
Society”, a national network of ghost hunters that collects stories of ghost
sightings and haunted houses and uses investigative techniques to track
down evidence of the supernatural.

Taylor was born on September 24, 1966 in Decatur, Illinois, a Midwestern city
that is steeped in legend and lore. Even the hospital in which he was born is
allegedly haunted by a phantom nun! He grew up fascinated with “things that
go bump in the night”, as well as the writings of haunted travel writer Richard
Winer and legendary ghost hunter, Harry Price. In school, Taylor was well-
known for his interest in the paranormal and often took friends on informal
ghost tours of haunted places all over downstate Illinois. He would later turn
this interest into his full-time career.

In 1989, Taylor started working in a bookstore and a few years later, he wrote his first book on ghosts. It was
called Haunted Decatur and delved into the ghosts and hauntings of the city where he grew up. He also created
a tour that took guests to places that he had written about in the book. The book became an immediate
success and its popularity, along with his previous experiences with ghost hunting, established Taylor as an
authority on the supernatural. The book and tour led to media and public appearances and numerous requests
to investigate ghostly phenomena.

In 1996, Taylor organized a group of ghost enthusiasts into an investigation team and the American Ghost
Society was launched, gained over 600 members in the years that followed. The organization continues today
as one of America’s largest and most honored research groups.

In 1998, Taylor moved his operations, which now included the American Ghost Society, a history and hauntings
bookstore and a publishing company called Whitechapel Press, to Alton, Illinois, near St. Louis. In Alton, Taylor
started his second tour company, Alton Hauntings, which took guests to local haunted places in the small
Mississippi River town. He would go on to put the place on the map as “one of the most haunted small towns in
America.”

Taylor remained in Alton until 2005, when he returned to Decatur. By then, he had also established two more
tour companies, in Springfield, Illinois and another company that arranges overnight stays in haunted places
called American Hauntings. These tours, including those in Decatur and Alton, were organized under the
heading of the Illinois Hauntings Ghost Tours. Taylor also continued the operation of Whitechapel Press, which
specializes in ghost-related titles and has more than a dozen authors working under its banner.

In 2006, Taylor also launched the Weird Chicago Tours, which are based on his book, Weird Illinois, which was
published by Barnes & Noble Press. In 2007, Illinois Hauntings also launched ghost tours in Lebanon, Illinois
and in Jacksonville.

In 2007, Taylor incorporated as Dark Haven Entertainment, Inc., a parent company for Whitechapel Press, the
Illinois Hauntings Tours and for the Ghosts of the Prairie Website and Magazine. The new company also
handles the film rights to Troy's ghost books and stories. Currently, there are three of his works optioned for
possible film and television production.

Along with writing about the unusual and hosting tours, Taylor is also a public speaker on the subject of ghosts
and hauntings and has spoken to literally hundreds of private and public groups on a variety of paranormal
subjects. He has appeared in newspaper and magazine articles about ghosts and has also been fortunate
enough to be interviewed hundreds of times for radio and television broadcasts about the supernatural. He has
also appeared in a number of documentary films, several television series and in one feature film about the
paranormal.

He currently resides in Central Illinois with his wife, Haven, in a decidedly non-haunted house.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/abtauthor.html#Biography