Mothman and Me: My Creative Journey So Far

Today, across social media, I announced that I will be returning as a speaker at this year's Mothman Festival for the fourth time. My presentation is called "Mothman and Me: Our Creative Journey So Far."

I will also be debuting my novel "Mothman Was Here," based on 16 years of research, visiting Point Pleasant, and telling this story in multiple ways through fact and fiction.

Bringing This Story to Life: A Few Notes on the Blending of Fact and Fiction

Like every work of fiction “based on a true story” (sometimes framed as “inspired by true events”), the narrative you are about to read is filled with liberties and fabrications from the author’s imagination, although most of those liberties and fabrications are based on facts. It was especially challenging and a lot of fun to work with some of the lore and mythology researchers and enthusiasts have been whispering and debating about since 1966.

For the past sixteen years, I have been visiting, researching, and writing and giving presentations and interviews about Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and the events of 1966 and 1967. Like many people, it was the film The Mothman Prophecies (based on the book by John A. Keel) that introduced me to this charming, resilient little town on the Ohio River.

Point Pleasant, and the Ohio River, with its multitude of bridges and barges, entered the center of my heart on the very first day I visited this part of Mason County with my wife in August 2009. Its effect on me only strengthens with time. I know many, if not most, of those reading this book will understand. 

My story is somewhat fictionalized in these pages as the story of Charlie Munafo. Most of what you will read about the events of 2009, strange as they may seem, are true.

Some of the characters you will recognize by name, such as Mary Hyre, John A. Keel, and Gray Barker. These are people who have been deceased for quite some time and who had achieved a certain level of fame as a result of the events of 1966 and 1967, with which this novel is primarily concerned.

You will also encounter FBI Director Hoover, LBJ and Lady Bird, and President Eisenhower.

Other characters I have based on real people that were or are intimately involved with the history of Point Pleasant, although, for various reasons, I have changed their names. Despite the name change, I have written these characters based on my interactions with these people, many of whom I knew or have known for many years, and I have made every effort to portray them accurately and with the utmost respect.

The rest of the characters you will meet in this novel, and the ones to follow, are purely fictional, such as additional Mothman witnesses, journalists, investigators and Point Pleasant politicians, business owners, and local law enforcement. I did this so that I could take the considerable liberties I needed to tell the story in the alternate world that I have created.

Speaking of an alternate world, some of the names of geographical and physical locations have remained, although I have chosen to use alternate names for many others.

A substantial amount of material for this novel I have taken from previous scripts I wrote for the stage, one of which I had the honor of presenting as a partial staged reading at the 2010 Mothman Festival at the State Theatre, with the help of some of my closest friends. I have had the pleasure of spending countless hours with those actors-for-a-day and many others doing investigations and discussing all things Mothman in the TNT Area, the lobby of the Lowe Hotel, and at the Harris Steakhouse (aka The Mothman Diner).

This novel also closely parallels the setting and events that are central to the Mothman ’66 Escape Room, upstairs from The World’s Only Mothman Museum, for which I wrote the narrative and designed the puzzles. You may also recognize me (and Charlie Munafo) from the found footage of the missing paranormal investigator, MR1166, whose abduction is at the center of that adventure.

It kicks off the adventure within these pages as well. 

For more on the escape room, see:

https://joeymadiastoryteller.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-mothman-66-escape-room-joey-madia.html

This story will continue in three more novels: Memories of the Mothman, Mothman Says, and Echoes of the Mothman.

Although this book and series can stand by themselves, they are part of a larger world of story I call The Stanton Chronicles. Mothman Was Here is the tenth book in that series.

https://joeymadiastoryteller.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-stanton-chronicles-historical.html