A free public reception Tuesday will launch the latest book by the University’s resident writing professional.

Ghost Road and other forgotten stories of Windsor is a new collection of local legends—only this is the Windsor we don’t know, says Marty Gervais. The best-selling author of The Rumrunners and My Town, he says these stories carry with them traces of the city’s weird and wonderful history.

“These forgotten tales of Windsor will show you devastating tornadoes, explosions at the riverfront symphony, and 19th-century race riots,” Gervais says. “And they’ll show the murderers and war heroes, the presidents and prime ministers, the sports legends, faith healers, ambassadors and artists, who have all left their mark on the place we call home.”

Gervais, Windsor’s most popular historian and its first-ever poet laureate, is an award-winning journalist, poet, photographer and editor. He has written more than a dozen books of poetry, two plays and a novel.

Ghost Road is available cloth-bound for $37.95 or paperback for $22.95 in the local authors section of the University Bookstore. Its launch party will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, October 23, at Biblioasis, 1520 Wyandotte Street East.