Author Hoffman's Haunted 'House'

By Liane Hansen

Published August 1, 2004 at 12:00 AM EDT

Alice Hoffman has never actually seen a ghost. But the author of 15 novels and five children's books is certainly willing to believe. Her latest effort, Blackbird House, is a collection of short stories with a common thread: an isolated -- and possibly haunted -- farmhouse on Cape Cod.

Hoffman tells NPR's Liane Hansen that she based the setting on her own cottage on Cape Cod -- a house built from the wood of old shipwrecks that came with its own ghost story.

As the story goes, a young boy who once lived there was lost at sea, but continues to haunt the house. Hoffman says she has yet to encounter the boy, but he served as her main inspiration for the Blackbird House stories.

Liane Hansen

Liane Hansen has been the host of NPR's award-winning Weekend Edition Sunday for 20 years. She brings to her position an extensive background in broadcast journalism, including work as a radio producer, reporter, and on-air host at both the local and national level. The program has covered such breaking news stories as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Columbia shuttle tragedy. In 2004, Liane was granted an exclusive interview with former weapons inspector David Kay prior to his report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The show also won the James Beard award for best radio program on food for a report on SPAM.

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