The writers

The people behind the books

Our five authors work independently, each on the subjects they know best - local hauntings and old legends, overlooked towns worth a detour, and the leading edge of science and technology. CWMK provides the press; the research, the curiosity and the stories are theirs.

Great Britain · 53 titles

L T James

Based in Buckinghamshire, England

L T James is a folklorist and former county archivist who has spent the better part of three decades collecting local ghost stories from pub regulars, station masters, and parish historians across the British Isles.

His work for CWMK draws on field notebooks, reading-room transcriptions, and long correspondences with the sort of people who still remember what their grandparents refused to talk about. He lives in a crooked cottage in North Buckinghamshire with more books than shelving.

When he isn't writing, he lectures on oral tradition at small historical societies and walks the railway lines that no longer exist.

View L T James's full shelf →

Cover of Ghosts of Airports and Airliners

Cover of Ghosts of British Stately Homes

Cover of Ghosts of Historic British Battlefields

Ireland · 28 titles

G Hughes

Based in County Cork, Ireland

G Hughes writes from a farmhouse outside Kinsale, where the fog rolls in off the harbour and, according to the neighbours, never quite leaves. A graduate of University College Cork, Hughes spent years as a local journalist before turning full-time to folk history.

Hughes's volumes for CWMK are rooted in the seanchaí tradition - the Irish storyteller - and in painstaking parish-record research. The books span the island from the Wild Atlantic Way to Dublin's quays and the cathedrals of Ulster.

Hughes prefers interviews conducted over tea, notes longhand in Moleskine, and claims never to have seen a ghost personally - though, it is said, they have seen plenty of things they would rather not explain.

View G Hughes's full shelf →

Cover of Ghosts of Ireland's Ancient East

Cover of Ghosts of Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way

United States · 12 titles

R R Miller

Based in Bozeman, Montana

R R Miller grew up in a ranching family in the Gallatin Valley and has been listening to strange stories for as long as he has been able to sit still for them. A former reference librarian, Miller now writes full-time on American folklore, maritime mysteries and the stranger corners of mid-century military history.

His CWMK titles range from the quiet sagebrush country of rural Montana to the tiled platforms of the New York City Subway and the classified airspace of the American Southwest. He values the primary source, the first-hand account, and the long drive to a town where something once happened.

Miller writes from a cabin outside Bozeman, Montana, with a black dog named Cinders and a very patient wife.

View R R Miller's full shelf →

Cover of Ghosts and Legends of Rural Montana

Cover of The Secrets of Area 51 and the Black Projects

Cover of Ghost Stories of the American Civil War

Cover of Ghost Stories from Canadian Hospital Staff

Great Britain · 6 titles

B R Johnstone

Based in Northampton, England

B R Johnstone taught physics and computing in Northamptonshire secondary schools for over thirty years, and never lost the habit of turning a hard question into a lesson plan. Former pupils remember the lunchtime club where faster-than-light travel, time machines and the latest computing breakthroughs were argued over with the help of a whiteboard and a packet of biscuits.

Retirement brought time to chase the subjects that move too fast for any curriculum - large language models, quantum computing, platform engineering, and the curious economics of cryptocurrency. Johnstone's books for CWMK set out to do what a good teacher does: start from what the reader already knows, avoid jargon where possible, explain it properly where not, and never pretend a difficult idea is simpler than it is.

Johnstone lives in Northampton, still reads the research papers so readers don't have to, and keeps a running list of questions from friends and family that each new book tries to answer.

View B R Johnstone's full shelf →

Great Britain · 3 titles

J A Richardson

Based in Buckinghamshire, England

J A Richardson spent twenty years as a market researcher for regional tourist boards, compiling visitor numbers for places that, as the reports politely put it, "underperformed their potential". Richardson came to the opposite conclusion: the towns that tourists skip are usually the ones with the most to say for themselves.

Richardson's guides for CWMK are written from the ground up - from bus timetables, station cafés, local museums staffed by volunteers, and long conversations with the people who actually live there. Each book aims to give a first-time visitor a reason to stay an extra day, and a lifelong resident something they didn't know about their own doorstep.

Richardson lives on the edge of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, keeps a dog-eared Ordnance Survey map for every county, and has yet to find a British town without at least one good reason to visit.

View J A Richardson's full shelf →