Denver History Plays a Role in Erika T. Wurth's New Book

Erika T. Wurth grew up around the spiritual and supernatural — but she never really bought it. "My family was all about believing in ghosts and seeing demons and Satan, and I was like, 'Okay, sure. I'm an atheist, don't care,'" she says. "But I had this friend that used to do ghost-hunting. She had this tape recorder, and she caught some wild stuff, like voices out of nowhere."

But Wurth says that her real moment of belief came from two experiences she had at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. "I walked into that place, and I just had this crazy feeling that I'd been there before," she says with a performative [or is it?] shiver. "And it was a horrible feeling. Overwhelming."

Wurth, whose family is Indigenous and traces its roots back to the Chickasaw, Cherokee and Mexican Apache Nations, was traveling with a friend, who laughed at her reaction. "That's so rez," teased her friend. "Whatever," Wurth replied, "I'm urban. Whatever."

Fast forward to a few years later, that weird occurrence all but forgotten, and Wurth found herself back in Santa Fe. When she and a different friend went to the Loretto Chapel, the same thing happened. "I was like, what is this?" Wurth exclaims. "It was so weird. Had to mean something, right? I love that place, but I'm never going back there. I'm done."

It's often the inexplicable that feeds fiction, which is why her next novel might just include — you guessed it — the Loretto Chapel. But that's the next supernatural stop for Wurth. Right now, she's focused on her new book that launched on March 18: The Haunting of Room 904.
Wurth has two upcoming appearances at Tattered Cover Colfax: on Friday, March 21, she'll be debuting the book with the help of fellow Denver author (and husband) David Heska Wanbli Weiden (who wrote the award-winning Winter Counts) and Ina Barrón, actress and voice of The Haunting of Room 904's audiobook. Exactly one week later, she'll return to Tattered Cover Colfax, this time in conversation with Jon Bassoff about her book and his new novel, The Memory Ward.

There's a lot of talk about Wurth's new novel on the local level because there's a lot of talk about it on the national level, too. After the smash-hit success of her last Denver-based novel, White Horse — spotlighted in a praise-filled review in the New York Times, where it was also an Editor's Pick; named a "GMA Buzz Pick" on ABC's Good Morning America; and on too many Book of the Month lists to count — advance word on The Haunting of Room 904 is strong and anticipatory.

"I toiled in obscurity for many years," Wurth laughs. "So it's nice to see my stuff getting recognition." 

Haunting shares the same universe as White Horse — so in literary terms, there's a Wurth-ian Denver being built here, and purposefully so. "I like the idea of urban-Indian Denver, with the city and its outlying areas and all these loose connections," she says, motioning with her hands to suggest distance and layers within the city she imagines. "And living there are a lot of people like me — people who are Mexican Native and Southeastern Native whose people met in Texas and came north and ended up in Colorado."

Her two female protagonists, while they share that similar ancestry, are pretty different. "Kari [from White Horse] was this rugged GenXer, working-class, smart, aware, biting sense of humor. Sort of Old Denver, or my Old Denver, anyway," Wurth says. "With Olivia [from Haunting of Room 904], I wanted to do something a little more Millennial, more New Denver. She's getting her Ph.D. in Psychology, a little more in tune with the modern world, maybe — a scientist, really, who gets dragged into this world of the paranormal. One of the differences between the two novels is that one Native woman has a Ph.D. and the other a GED; it was important to me to show the dignity in both."

The supernatural elements common in both novels are a reflection of Wurth's own personal interests and experience. "I'm obsessed with paranormal horror," she admits. "And my family — they have visions. They all see things like shadow figures and ghosts. I've only had one or two experiences that you might call vaguely paranormal, but I think that's part of why I love it so much, because I'm sort of trying to prove it to myself, that it's all real. That compels me.

"Plus," she adds, "I'm just a geek, and I want stories about portals and ghosts and elves and spaceships. I love that stuff."

Fair warning: While The Haunting of Room 904 does have portals and ghosts, it does not contain elves and spaceships. What it does contain is a real Denver basis for the titular haunting — there supposedly really is a spirit that lingers in Room 904 of the legendary Brown Palace Hotel. It's said that a Denver socialite by the name of Louise Hill lived in that room for fifteen years, from 1940 to 1955 — and some say she never left.

"It's just such a cool story of Denver history," says Wurth. "I actually had never stayed at the Brown Palace before, but growing up in Denver, you feel like you know it. When I started working on the book, my sister and I stayed there — not in Room 904, which is a very fancy suite. I don't think it's like the Stanley Hotel where they charge more for the supposedly haunted rooms."

And it's not just Denver history that plays a role in The Haunting of Room 904 — Wurth ties together that ghost story and the tragic Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 with a complex and satisfying knot. It's a narrative feat not unlike the time-traveling back to the 1970s and '80s accomplished in White Horse. "I wanted to separate those brutal past events with language — a little more poetic, maybe — from the present-day of the book," she says. "Just so I could approach subject matter like the Sand Creek Massacre, and do it both justice and respect."

So that's two books about ghosts and the paranormal, plus one to come. "I'm writing what I love," Wurth says. "That's all I'm doing." Which suggests that at some point, we'll get an Erika T. Wurth book — based in Denver, perhaps? — that includes elves and spaceships.

"Never say never," says Wurth. "Never say never."

Erika T. Wurth will discuss The Haunting of Room 904 at events on March 21 and March 28 at Tattered Cover Colfax. For more information, see the Tattered Cover calendar or Wurth's website.