About Ursula

An historian, author, and parapsychologist, Ursula Bielski has been investigating the paranormal for more than three decades. Ursula is the author of twelve popular and critically-acclaimed books on history and the supernatural, including the groundbreaking Chicago Haunts series and Graveyards of Chicago, as well as several books for the History Press and a number of academic articles on parapsychological subjects. Ursula has been featured on scores of television shows, including the Travel Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” and “The Maury Show” (NOT a baby daddy episode), and radio shows such as Coast to Coast and Darkness Radio. She also edited children’s books on the paranormal for Bearport Publishing in New York and teaches courses in Paranormal Studies for Chicago’s Harper College and College of Lake County. She and her husband, historian, journalist and author David Cowan, operated the Chicago Hauntings Tours for two decades. Since handing the reins to American Ghost Walks in 2020, Ursula has started a legend-inspired perfume business and a small press, Magic Lantern Publishing, which publishes journals, planners, coloring books and workbooks, as well as republishing classic novels with fresh art, introductions and annotations. A lifelong Chicagoan, Ursula attended St. Benedict Elementary and High Schools and received her Bachelors degree in history from Benedictine University and a Masters in American cultural and intellectual history from Northeastern Illinois University. When she’s not doing fifty other things at once, she loves home canning, doing cozy things with her daughters and watching film noir.