Alan Brown was born in Alton, Illinois, on January 12, 1950. After earning digress from Millikin University, Southern Illinois University, Illinois State University and the University of Illinois, he taught high school English in Flora and Springfield, Illinois. In 1986, he joined the English faculty at the University of West Alabama. When he is not teaching, Alan enjoys watching old movies, traveling with his wife, Marilyn, and spending time with his grandsons, Cade and Owen. Since publishing his first book, Dim Roads and Dark Nights, in 1993, he has explored his interest in folklore, especially ghost tales, in more than thirty publications, including Stories from the Haunted South (2004), Haunted Georgia (2006), Ghost Hunters of the South (2006), Ghost Hunters of New England (2008), Haunted Birmingham (2009), The Big Book of Texas Ghost Stories (2010), Haunted Meridian (2011), Ghosts Along the Mississippi River (2012), Ghosts of Florida's Gulf Coast (2014), The Haunted South (2014), Ghosts of Mississippi's Golden Triangle (2016), The Haunted Southwest (2016) and The Haunting of Alabama (2017).