Chillermaina! Michigan Chillers Turns 25

Author Johnathan Rand takes us back to the beginning of the spooky series

By Ross Boissoneau | Jan. 25, 2025

For Johnathan Rand, March 2, 2025, is a landmark date. It’s his 25th birthday, after a fashion.

It was on that date in 2000 that Mayhem on Mackinac Island was published, marking the debut of the “Michigan Chillers” series of scary stories—and the first appearance of Johnathan Rand.

Rand is the nom de plume of Christopher Tod Wright. The writer behind the series of scary stories for kids had by then already been on the planet for more than three decades, but he felt this new career mandated a new name.

That was old hat for Wright, who was already familiar to radio listeners under the name Christopher Knight. He had begun writing and working in radio in 1983 at WQON in Grayling, and when he went on the air, there was another DJ on the airwaves with the name of Wright. So Christopher Wright became Christopher Knight to avoid any confusion.

He came to his calling gradually. Though a lifelong reader, “Growing up I never had any aspiration to be a writer,” he says. He wasn’t sure of a career path, and after high school he went to college to study natural resources, but decided that wasn’t for him. “I didn’t do so well in school. I didn’t apply myself,” Wright says.

“WQON was looking for somebody to be a DJ. I applied and kept calling,” he says. He eventually was hired to write commercials, and it turned out that Wright enjoyed tapping into his creative side writing to fit the format. Eventually he found himself on the air. He’d found his niche, or at least one of them, eventually landing gigs at radio stations KHQ and WGFM.

In 1995 he left the airwaves to concentrate on writing for commercials and doing voice work from his own studio. In 1998 he wrote and recorded the audiobook St. Helena, under his radio name of Christopher Knight. That was followed by another that same year, entitled Ferocity. Both were thrillers, a genre he’d loved as a youngster.

He set the latter, a story about a killer muskellunge invading Mullet Lake, in the fictional town of Courville. In so doing, he wanted to populate the town with all things northern Michigan, down to a local favorite beverage. “I wanted to take all of northern Michigan and put it in a bottle,” he says. The name that came to him was Courville Cooler.

But he’d considered another. While Michigan Chiller didn’t fit the story as well as Courville Cooler, “That stuck with me,” Wright says.

Scary-Good Inspiration

When he came across some boxes of books he’d read growing up, most of them scary stories, it struck him that maybe he should try writing such books for younger people. So he decided to write a story geared toward third- to sixth-graders.

As a resident of northern Michigan, Wright knew Mackinac Island was a popular tourist destination. So he decided to set his story there, and out came Mayhem on Mackinac Island. “I had a blast with it. I felt like I was in the book, like as a kid,” he says.

Wright believed he had stumbled on an original concept that could lead to other books set in various Michigan cities. Spoiler alert: He was right. “I wanted a hook, and thought I could do other cities if it takes off,” he says.

So right behind Mackinac’s mayhem came Terror Strikes Traverse City. By October, he’d written four Michigan Chillers. All stood alone, but he also connected them by having the last chapter in each book lead into the next.

In fact, the stories eventually led to the rest of the country. Soon he was off to American Chillers, with Michigan Mega Monsters, Ogres of Ohio, Florida Fog Phantoms—today there are 45 American Chillers, with only five states to go. There are 21 Michigan Chillers, plus several other series.

Frightening Changes

When he first started writing the books, publishers weren’t interested in them, believing there wasn’t an audience. So Wright hawked them to grocery stores, gas stations, motels, anywhere he thought people, especially tourists, might find them and be intrigued.

The Chillers books led him to two career tangents he had never considered. One is his own retail outlet: Chillermania in Indian River, where Rand, ahem, Wright, his wife, and a small staff hold forth. There you can find his books, along with Chiller-themed paraphernalia such as hats, trading cards, posters, bookmarks, and, as it says on the website, items not available anywhere else in the world!

The second finds him back in school. A teacher friend in Cheboygan asked him to come in to talk to her students, as they were reading the books. Then a friend of hers called, asking him to visit her school. Now Wright travels around the state and the country to schools and libraries, talking with kids and extolling the virtues of reading, writing, and using your imagination.

He even founded a camp/workshop, Johnathan Rand’s Author Quest, in 2007. The four-day, three-night camp grew to three such events yearly, with 60 kids each. While that ended with the onset of the pandemic, he continues to do a shorter version with students. He even leads them to create their own version of a Chillers story. “It’s become another part of my career,” he says.

It’s obvious from the enthusiasm in his voice that he’s still having a ball. Asked whether his career is a dream come true, he says it is, though he has a different perspective on that dream nowadays. “When I started, I wanted to write adult fiction. With Michigan Chillers, the dream has changed,” Wright says.

Collectively, he’s written over 120 books with nearly 7 million copies in print, with more to come. “I’m still writing Michigan and American Chillers. I'll finish up the American with all 50 states, but I think I’ll just keep on writing the Michigan Chillers as long as the ideas keep coming,” Wright says. “Hopefully there’s no end in sight.”