PulpFest 2026 will celebrate the centennials of Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories, plus a great deal more at this year’s convention. Hugo Gernsback’s groundbreaking science-fiction pulp and Bernarr Macfadden’s purportedly “true” magazine concerning the spirit world both debuted one hundred years ago.
A bodybuilding and physical fitness fanatic, Bernarr Macfadden had become fabulously wealthy after debuting True Story in 1919. It featured first-person stories that were purportedly written by the readers of the magazine. It proved a tremendous success. In 1926, Macfadden tried to duplicate that success with Ghost Stories.
Most likely the brainchild of Macfadden’s chief editor Fulton Oursler, a practicing magician with an interest in spiritualism, Ghost Stories was filled with first-person encounters with the supernatural, generally recounted by the very person who had the horrific experience. The confessor then “told” their story to one of Macfadden’s seasoned writers.
Filled with stories and departments intended to be interpreted as “true,” with a few uncanny, creepy, and spooky tales thrown in for good measure, Ghost Stories ran for a total of 64 issues, starting with its July 1926 number through its December 1931/January 1932 issue. It was, by and large, a confession magazine for spiritualists.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest on Friday, July 31, at 10:20 pm as we welcome former paranormal investigator David Walker and PulpFest marketing and programming director Mike Chomko to our programming stage for “Ghost Stories: Truth or Fiction?,” an examination of the Macfadden magazine and the real world of ghost-hunting.
Mike Chomko is the marketing and programming director for PulpFest. The winner of the 2010 Munsey Award, Mike is a member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society where he started Purple Prose, a highly respected pulp fanzine that ran for seventeen issues in the late 1990s and early 21st century. Around the same time, he founded Mike Chomko Books, an independent purveyor of genre fiction and related materials. His specialty is pulp-related material. In “real life,” Mike is a retired registered nurse who worked in the operating room for nearly 20 years. At PulpFest 2024, he teamed up with award-winning artist Mark Schultz for a presentation on dinosaurs in the pulps
David Walker has been a devoted attendee of Pulpfest and its predecessor, Pulpcon, since 1991. He has also contributed several articles to The Pulpster and continues to write as life allows.
Watching Universal’s horror movies as a kid, David developed an interest in the supernatural. He joined his first paranormal investigation team in the early 2000’s. To advance his ghost-hunting skills, he joined a second group before cofounding a third team of supernatural sleuths.
For over a decade, the Indiana Society of Paranormal Research conducted hundreds of investigations throughout Indiana, Southern Michigan, and Western Ohio. At the group’s prime, there were twenty members, including a police homicide investigator, a professional photographer and journalist, a Shaman with psychic abilities, and several electronics specialists. The team dissolved after one of its three co-founders retired and moved to a different state.
Today, David lives and works in Fort Wayne, Indiana, along with his wife, Stacy, and their dog, Cassie. He considers himself retired from ghost-hunting.
PulpFest 2026 begins on July 30 and runs through August 2 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. In addition to honoring the centennials of Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories, we’ll also be celebrating the sesquicentennial of writer Jack London’s birth, the centennial of the birth of artist Robert Kennedy Abbett, and more at this year’s convention.
The general public is welcome to attend our programming free of charge. To learn more about our presentations, please click the 2026 Schedule link found on our website.
For those who also want to enjoy our dealers’ room, you can join PulpFest by clicking the register link found on our website. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree. They’re going fast!
Remember, in addition to your membership in PulpFest 2026, you’ll also be a member of Doc Con 2026, FarmerCon XXI, and The Shadow Con 2026. That’s four conventions for one price! You can’t beat that deal.
If you’re interested in selling at PulpFest, all of our wall and foyer tables have been reserved. A few island tables are remaining for $110 per table. Please click the “register” link on our website to learn how to join the convention as a dealer.
Our featured image was excerpted from Dalton Stevens’ cover for the November 1930 issue of Ghost Stories, published by Harold Hersey. Macfadden’s supervising editor for a brief period and the editor and publisher of Ghost Stories in its final years, Hersey wrote of the magazine’s demise in his autobiography, Pulpwood Editor:
“I . . . did my best, but I was vain indeed to imagine that I could succeed where so wise a publisher could not.”
Stevens also painted the cover for the October 1930 issue of Ghost Stories, which William Lampkin has adapted as our lead image.
Our final image is the March 1928 number of Ghost Stories, featuring cover art by Delos Palmer, a talented artist who studied under the American impressionist, George Bellows, at The Art Students League in New York City. Palmer painted at least seven Ghost Stories covers for Macfadden Publishing. We’re not sure if one of David Walker’s ancestors is one of the three psychic investigators depicted on Palmer’s cover.
For more on Ghost Stories, please visit our YouTube Channel for Craig McDonald’s video on Bernarr Macfadden’s “haunted” magazine.
And if you’ve not done so already, join the nearly 1,000 pulp fans who’ve already subscribed to the PulpFest YouTube Channel.
