Author Natalie Lund Casts Spell Over Students

The gloomy weather outside the library of Oak Forest High School lent just the right amount of ambiance as author Natalie Lund spoke about the ghostly ideas that sparked her debut novel, We Speak in Storms, published in 2019.

Lund, formerly a seventh and a tenth grade teacher, knew just how to hold her audience in the palm of her hand, showing a picture of Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter in her slide presentation.

“Who is this?”She asked the audience, telling them that the school she had spoken to previously had no clue who it was. Students at Oak Forest High School scoffed at that idea. One student proclaimed, “Obviously, that’s Moaning Myrtle!”

Lund then led into real life ghost stories about her home in Geneseo, Ill. She explained that her town cemetery, nicknamed, Blue Light Cemetery,was spooky and that the monuments had no carvings on them because they were worn away by time. The stories surrounding the cemetery were just as spooky, as it was rumored to have blue orbs said to be spirits of the dead circling the graves at night.

Lund also told a story of a time when she was driving down a dark country road to see a friend at a nearby farm. As she was driving, she could see a woman in white standing at the edge of the cornfield near the road. As she drove closer to the woman, she turned her head to look around for her, and she was gone. Lund later tried to find out what happened to the lady of the cornfield, but could not.

These spooky stories and more were what Lund described as a terrific introduction to the ideas that sparked her novel.

We Speak in Storms begins with a tornado that takes the lives of many young people in 1963. Then, on the same day, more than fifty years later, a tornado strikes again. This time, three high school outsiders will band together to help the spirits killed in the storm half a century previously.

Outside of her presentation, students also eagerly asked Lund questions about her book, career, and writing process.

Students were amazed that writing a book takes so long. Lund explained that an author may take a year to write a book, and then there might be revisions that take another year followed by an additional year before the book can be printed.

She also shared some advice with students and said, “If I had to go back in time and tell my younger writing self anything, I would tell myself that publishing a book is not the end goal. I thought that publishing is the end answer. [In truth,] Writing is a business, a stressful business, and it is hard to have another job in addition to writing. But art needs something else to support it. It is really about the writing of the book that you want to write and not really about publishing it."

Like a great writer, Lund left her audience clamoring for her book! Oak Forest High School students will be looking forward to reading this book and her next book, which comes out in 2021.