Come Chat with Sharon Hatfield about her book Enchanted Ground

Sharon Hatfield is a nonfiction author living in Athens, Ohio. Her newest book, Enchanted Ground: The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons, was published by Swallow Press in November 2018. 

Jonathan Koons was considered one of the most impressive physical mediums of the 1850s, and today Koons is credited with developing the trumpet used for voice communication in séances. His Athens County “spirit room,” offered public demonstrations of instrumental music, singing, and spectral hands. During her eight years of research, Hatfield found visitors’ accounts in the spiritualist press as well as letters and essays penned by Koons himself. The Journal of Scientific Exploration has termed her book “a fascinating snapshot of the Spiritualist movement in its infancy.” 

A native of Ewing, Virginia, Hatfield earned undergraduate degrees in English and biology at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee. She became a newspaper reporter and later earned a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio University and an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College in Maryland. She also has worked as an editor, English professor, and manuscript consultant. 

Sharon has twice received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, most recently in 2018 for her work on Enchanted Ground. Her previous book Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell won the Weatherford and Chaffin awards for nonfiction.