You’ve seen her on Ghost Hunters… now listen to her on Thorne & Cross: Haunted Nights LIVE! Join us this week where we talk about all things ghosts with author and paranormal expert, Sylvia Shults. I love this lady…
Just click the link on Thursday at 9 pm Eastern, 6 Pacific: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheairbookstoo/2015/01/16/sylvia-shults-joins-thorne-cross-haunted-nights-live
Sylvia Shults has been a paranormal investigator for several years. She began her career as a ghost hunter
as a result of doing the research for her nonfiction book Ghosts of the Illinois River (Quixote Press, 2010). Her
fascination with ghosts dates back to her childhood, as she is an avid reader who was raised on Grimm’s Fairy
Tales.
A few years ago, Shults was inspired to write a collection of people’s supernatural experiences at the Peoria
State Hospital in Bartonville, Illinois. This project quickly swelled into Fractured Spirits: Hauntings at the
Peoria State Hospital. The book incorporates the history of the asylum as well as the many ghost stories that have
arisen out of the asylum’s abandonment. In an effort to separate fact from fiction, Shults thoroughly explores the
true history of the hospital.
“It’s fascinating,” she says. “The Peoria State Hospital was a place of great advances in mental health
care. Was there agony there? I don’t doubt it. Mental illness is an agonizing thing. So is alcoholism. So is TB.
But that’s not nearly the whole story of this remarkable institution. There was also incredible tenderness and caring.
Dr. George Zeller was responsible for unprecedented reforms in the field of mental health care. I feel incredibly
fortunate to have been able to write a book that not only tells some really unnerving ghost tales, but also the
true stories of Dr. Zeller and his dedicated staff.”
Fractured Spirits: Hauntings at the Peoria State Hospital is a result of years of research. Shults spoke to
dozens of people who have had paranormal experiences at the abandoned asylum. She has also done many investigations
of her own. The book, and Shults’ research, was featured on an episode of Ghost Hunters (“Prescription
for Fear”, which aired January 30, 2013).
Shults lives in Illinois with her husband. She works at the Fondulac District Library, mostly in order to
feed her book addiction. She also serves as the Publicity Director for Dark Continents Publishing. In addition to
nonfiction, she also writes romance and horror. She is the first to admit that there is a fine line between the two.
Thorne & Cross 