About the author
Gerina Dunwich was born on December 27, 1959. After discovering at a very young age that she possessed certain psychic gifts and the ability to make contact with spirits of the dead, she developed an intense interest in the world of the occult. In the summer of 1969 she was formally introduced to witchcraft and spiritualism by an older family member, and has since devoted her personal life and writing career to educating the public about the ways of the Craft.
As a teenager, Gerina Dunwich (using a different nom de plume at the time) began writing poetry, short stories, magazine articles, and stage plays complete with musical scores. Her first published newspaper article, His Voice was His Vehicle, was an interview with singer/songwriter Jim Peterik from the rock n' roll group, the Ides of March (and later, Survivor). Co-written with her cousin, Barbara Williams, it was published in October 1976.
By the spring of 1980 Gerina Dunwich was publishing a small press literary journal called Golden Isis, a one-woman operation that specialized in Goddess-inspired poetry and offbeat fiction. Its international circulation grew to nearly 3600 and it attracted subscribers from places as far away as Puerto Rico, Australia, Italy, and Japan. Circle of Shadows - a collection of Gerina's own poetry, was self-published a decade later.
After visiting Salem, Massachusetts, in April of 1984, Gerina relocated to the North Shore of Boston, residing first in Beverly, and then in Ipswich. In the winter of 1986, she purchased the historic Moses Day Homestead - a stately 17th century Colonial house in Haverhill that had been built around the time of the infamous Salem witchcraft trials. The house, which had been featured in a local television documentary about haunted houses in the Boston area, was a hotbed of paranormal activity. Soon after moving there, Gerina experienced a vivid dream in which the spirit of the late witchcraft author Sybil Leek appeared and whispered to her that her destiny as an author was "written in the stars." The dream proved to be prophetic when, in 1987, Gerina landed her first book contract with Citadel Press. (Appropriately, the contract was dated October 31st.) The following year saw the publication of her first book, Candlelight Spells, and the start of her successful career as a prolific book author.
In December of 1993 she moved into a century-old Victorian mansion located in the quaint and historic town of Fort Covington, New York. She soon opened a small shop on High Street called "The Country Witch" (later renamed "The Calico Cat Whatnot Shop"), which sold antiques, curios and various occult supplies. (Coincidentally, the antique shop run by Sybil Leek in the New Forest was also located on a High Street.) The business proved to be instrumental in bringing together many of the area's Pagans, including several who would later become Gerina's close friends and members of her coven.
In February of 1998 Gerina Dunwich received a ministerial license from the Universal Life Church. Ironically, the first handfasting she performed as a legally ordained minister was for the younger brother of the cousin who had introduced her to witchcraft nearly thirty years earlier.
Gerina has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows throughout the United States and Canada. She has lectured and presented workshops at festivals and gatherings across the country, including the CraftWise Pagan Gathering (Waterbury, Connecticut), the Real Witches' Ball (Columbus, Ohio), and Panpipes' Pagan Day Festival (West Hollywood, California).
She is a member of the International Ghost Hunters Society, the Author's Guild, and the Fellowship of Isis. Her biography is listed in a number of reference works, such as Who's Who in the East; Who's Who of American Women, Personalities of America; and Crossroads: Who's Who of the Magickal Community (published by The Witching Well Education and Research Center, 1988). She is also mentioned in Anne Carson's Goddesses and Wise Women, Raymond Buckland's The Witch Book, and other works.
In addition to being an occult author and respected spokesperson for the Neo-Pagan community, Gerina Dunwich is a freelance paranormal researcher who specializes in ghost animals and animal-related hauntings. In 2005 she founded the Paranormal Animal Research Group, which investigates haunted places and researches animal sensitivity to paranormal anomalies.
