Cranford author tells a hair-raising tale in ‘Ghost Room’

By David Jablonski Managing Editor

Just in time for Halloween, a local author released her first book, ready to give teens and tweens a little scare.

The hair-raising story is called “Ghost Room” and Cranford author Janelle Schiecke says it’s about friendships and things that are spooky, but it all got its start from a scary dream.

“I had that dream about the room and I wanted a spooky story and I wanted friends to come together and discover this mystery,” said Schiecke in an interview with LocalSource on Friday, Oct. 25. “I’ve always loved ghost stories and reaching beyond the realm, so to speak.”

Schiecke hasn’t always lived in Cranford, although she has called it home for 17 years. Born and raised in Ohio, it was there that she first got the horror bug.

“I read ‘Misery’ when I was 11 or 12,” said Schiecke, speaking of Stephen King’s frightening novel and Academy Awardwinning movie. “I had to use a dictionary to know most of the words. But after I read it, I had never gotten so scared. I’ve loved words and language ever since.”

Graduating from John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, where she majored in English, Schiecke said she knew she wanted to be an editor. Two years later, she was one. Unfortunately, she was later laid off, and she and her husband moved to Brooklyn. After seven years in the Big Apple, they moved to Cranford to start a family.

“I love Cranford so much,” she said. “It’s such a great family town.”

It was about this time she had that scary dream.

“I had this dream,” she said. “And I had it for so many nights. My husband said I should just start writing and it started evolving and I was too scared to do anything with it. My parents both passed away the first year of COVID and, after they passed away, I was spurred to finish it.”

Of course, there are far too many writers to count who create that great masterpiece, yet never get it published. For Schiecke, however, she had a leg up over a lot of wannabe authors.

“I’m a freelance editor myself. I am at this company, Urban Writers, where I edit books for people who self-publish,” she said. “I self-published. It wasn’t that hard. I had to create my own logo. Emerald Link Press. I found a platform.

“I found a company called Reedsy that helps you self-publish. I hired an editor there. I hired a book designer there. You can just kind of add your book there and export into your pdf and your Kindle and then just upload it onto Amazon and then you can order it and get a paperback. There was a lot to do, but I really wanted to get it out there.”

Without giving away too much, “Ghost

See AUTHORS, Page 11

Janelle Schiecke