Straw hat tilted at a jaunty angle, Kathleen Walls circled the antiques-filled living room at Hills and Dales, the Fuller Callaway family home, then sidled up to docent Emily Morton with a question.

“Are there any ghost stories?” she asked.

It was the kind of question any typical tourist might ask, but Walls is no tourist. She’s a travel writer with a website called AmericanRoads.org and a book in progress on “ghost tourism.”

She and 27 other travel writers were in LaGrange as part of the annual Travel Media Marketplace organized by the tourism division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. The 2010 tour, which began Thursday night and wrapped up Saturday afternoon, was dubbed “Georgia’s West Side Story” and focused on introducing writers to attractions in Coweta and Troup counties.

During a daylong bus tour of Troup County on Friday, the group visited Hills and Dales, downtown LaGrange, the Kia Motors plant, Highland Marina Resort, West Point Lake and the Explorations in Antiquity Center.

Even before the group left Hills and Dales, its first stop, the telling of “Georgia’s West Side Story” was in full swing.

Kevin Werzbicki, a Tucson-based writer on his fourth visit to Georgia, settled into a wicker chair under the porte-cochere at Hills and Dales and said, “I am constantly amazed at what you can find here. It’s not really hidden, but to the normal person, these are hidden treasures.”

Renee Gordon, a retired teacher from Pennsylvania who writes about historic travel, was intrigued by the story of the three women - Sarah Ferrell, Ida Callaway and Alice Hand Callaway - who tended Hills and Dales’ historic boxwood gardens which date to the 1840s.

“I want to see God!” Gordon cracked as she set out in search of the letters G-O-D planted in boxwood near the garden’s original entrance.

Later, she hurried off to check out the gift shop because, “no matter what you are writing about, people always want a place to shop.”

Nationally known photojournalist John Nash snapped dozens of photos.

“I really like this place,” he said.

The visiting writers were a diverse lot. Calvin Young, a former member of Gen. Colin Powell’s management team at the Pentagon, writes on travel to black history sites. Lazelle Jones writes for numerous RV publications and websites, plus human-interest stories with a travel angle. Sophia Dembling is working on a book featuring “100 places every woman should see.” Doc Lawrence of Atlanta is regarded as a top wine writer, but covers a wealth of other topics, all with Southern angles.

All said they expected to get multiple stories from the trip.

“I’m just incredibly impressed with what you’ve got here,” said Pam Keene, a garden writer from Flowery Branch.

With several food and dining writers in the group, LaGrange-Troup Chamber of Commerce officials arranged to spotlight “farm to table” dining, a growing trend in food circles, pioneered locally by C’Sons restaurant on Main Street.

Over lunch prepared by his son, Carey Wolfe, the chef at C’Sons, County Commission Chairman Ricky Wolfe described their family-operated farm called W.O.L.F.E. (Wolfe Organic Local Farm Experience), which grows virtually all the produce and much of the beef served at the restaurant.

“Basically we pick whatever is ready in the morning, Carey looks it over, then makes his night’s menu based on what’s available,” Ricky Wolfe said.

The writers ate WOLFE-grown spring salad, a sirloin kabob of local grass-finished beef and grasshopper cheesecake with local mint and fresh strawberries. Ricky Wolfe distributed copies of the garden’s spring/early summer planting guide, two full pages of common favorites like corn and green beans, plus more exotic items, including kohlrabi, oriental eggplant, rhubarb, eight types of hot pepper and 21 varieties of tomatoes.

Storyteller Carol Cain, toting a flintlock rifle and portraying Civil War heroine Nancy Morgan, told the story of the Nancy Harts, LaGrange women who formed a militia to defend the city.

Civil War travel is considered a “big niche” and several writers asked for more information on local Civil War connections, including Fort Tyler in West Point and Bellevue, home of Confederate Sen. Benjamin Harvey Hill, in LaGrange, said Laura Jennings, the chamber’s tourism director.

Several writers took the chamber’s invitation to drive new Kia Sorentos from the local dealership on Lafayette Parkway to the Kia manufacturing plant in West Point, where free public tours will be offered beginning in late summer or fall. West Point Mayor Drew Ferguson IV said he expects the plant tours to become “a destination.”

“Touring the plant will be as exciting and intriguing as any amusement park you’ll ever see,” he said.

An afternoon downpour cleared just in time for some of the writers to cruise on West Point Lake with local fishing guides, while others relaxed on the dockside deck at Highland Marina Resort, enjoying cool beverages and chatting with lake experts and marina owner Kris Ellrich.

A trip to the “one of a kind” Explorations in Antiquity Center for a biblical meal and tour concluded the day.

“They had guides in biblical costumes, and the writers really liked that and had their cameras clicking away,” Jennings said.

She and chamber President Page Estes will follow up with the writers, sending books by artist Annie Greene and on bridge builder Horace King to those writing about travel to black history sites, for instance. The “ghost writer” will be put in contact with Troup County historian Clark Johnson and Vickie Brown of Hogansville’s Victoria Belle. State officials will monitor the feedback and capture the results of the trip, which could last for several years.

The first step toward increased tourist visitation is to get the word out, and travel articles are a powerful way to do that, Jennings said.

“Tourism is a good, clean industry. We need more of it,” she said.