SHELBY — The setting will be appropriate Thursday at The Little Shops of Shelby when a 1988 graduate of Shelby High School will sign two of his books from 6 to 8 p.m.
Meet your neighbor Mark Sebastian Jordan, a Mansfield-area resident and local historian.
Jordan thanks some of his classmates for challenging him to learn more about local history.
"(They would say) this place is so boring. Nothing interesting ever happens here; nothing interesting ever has happened here," Jordan said. “I took the simple little step of checking to see if that was true.”
He discovered how wrong those students were and “got hooked."
Jordan said Mansfield is a natural borderland because it “sits right on the first foothills of the Appalachian Mountains" — between Ohio’s hill country and the flat rolling farmlands.
“It’s a place where different kinds of people have always crossed paths," he noted. "Any place where people cross paths, there’s going to be interesting things happening.”
His writings share tales of murder and witchcraft
The History Press has published some of his work. Jordan said two of his books are on sale in The Little Shops of Shelby. Before writing books, he wrote plays.
“I originally wrote dramas, stage plays that told stories, and we performed them for years down at Malabar Farm State Park,” Jordan shared.
The "Ceely Rose Murders at Malabar Farm" and "The Witch of Mansfield: The Tetched Life of Phebe Wise" feature two historical characters from North Central Ohio who seized his fascination.
“Those were very popular," Jordan added. "I decided to take all of that research and make a book of record for each of those stories.”
He now does a lot of historical research and writing. "I have a weekly column that I do about local history, and so I’m always finding more,” Jordan explained.
Plans for more prose
Time restricts his availability for additional projects, but he still has five or six books "waiting in the wings" he wants to do in the future.
The year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of "The Shawshank Redemption," so Jordan wants to finish his memoir about his time on the set as an extra in the film.
“I’ve got some stories to tell, and I’m hoping to have that all finished and out for everyone to read by this summer,” he shared.
An easygoing conversationalist, Jordan is looking forward to his upcoming book signing.
“People love to chat with me about the books or they know of other stories they think might interest me, many of which do," he noted. "It’s very possible that future projects could come out of conversations like that. Plus, I just love to see who’s reading the books.”
Each reader is different. Jordan said some will "tear through it in one evening.” Others tell him they love the amount of detail from his research and they read it very slowly and even read it again.
"That’s great because it emphasizes the importance of stories," he said.
"Science can tell us what we are; religion and philosophy can tell us why we are; but the arts, which is all about storytelling in one way or another, that’s what tells us who we are," Jordan said. “If we don’t know what happened then, how can we expect to know ourselves right now?”
Learn more about Mark Sebastian Jordan on his Facebook page .
Correspondent Joe Di Lullo can be reached at muckrack.com/dilulloj or jp.dilullo0926@gmail.com .
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Mansfield-area author Mark Sebastian Jordan brings Richland County's history to life
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