PORT HENRY, NEW YORK – Sep 1, 2023 – Co-authors Richard Rossi and Kelly Tabor of Lucy and the Lake Monster, a best-selling children’s novel and adapted film set to release in 2024, announced that the book’s success is supporting a search for the story’s real-life cryptid inspiration in Lake Champlain. Researchers who specialize in the Loch Ness monster, many of whom recently garnered international attention for their latest search efforts in Scotland this summer, are coming to New York and Vermont to join the project.

“‘Lucy and the Lake Monster’ is catalyzing the biggest search for Champ ever in Lake Champlain,” said co-author and retired teacher Kelly Tabor, who was nominated with Rossi for Best Children’s Author at the Red Letter Awards 2023. Tabor has researched Champ longer than anyone on record, over fifty years. “Champ means so much to so many people, and it’s long overdue we bring him the spotlight he deserves.”

Lucy and the Lake Monster tells the story of an 8-year-old orphan girl and her Grandpa looking for a sea serpent named Champ. The story’s cryptid is drawn from over 300 real-life accounts and legends of a large, horned monster living in Lake Champlain, one of the largest lakes in the Adirondacks, on the border between New York and Vermont.  Other accounts describe Champ’s head as a horse’s head.  Sightings of the creature date back to indigenous legends of the native Abenaki and Iroquois people.

The co-authors were inspired by the latest search efforts to locate the Loch Ness monster, which culminated with the largest hunt for the creature in 50 years throughout August 2023.

“We’re bringing top scientists to go through all of Lake Champlain and find evidence of Champ once-and-for-all,” said Richard Rossi. “We are building on what was done in Scotland,” Rossi said.

Preliminary scouting of Lake Champlain by Loch Ness scientists is slated for fall.  “The larger Champ search will occur April to June 2024 before the lake is inundated with a lot of boats and when weather is most conducive,” Scottish scientist Cameron McMillan said. 

“Our limited knowledge of the Champ species is that he has been seen most often during this time,” Port Henry Chamber of Commerce President Rick Lewis said.

Lucy and the Lake Monster was filmed in 2022 at Lake Champlain with co-author Richard Rossi in the lead role of Papa and Emma Pearson as Lucy. The film is in post-production and will be released in early 2024.

Dot Mackenzie, a Scotland resident who has searched Loch Ness, invited Rossi to screen the Lucy and the Lake Monster film in Scotland, suggesting the Eden Court Theater in the Highlands.  She plans to join the pilgrimage of Loch Ness researchers coming to Lake Champlain. “It’s a wonderful connection between Champ and Nessie, between New York and the Highlands,” Mackenzie said.

To learn more about Lucy and the Lake Monster and its authors, stay up-to-date with the film’s progress, and track the latest news from the Champ search, please visit www.lucyandthelakemonster.com.

Media Contact
Company Name: Eternal Grace
Contact Person: Kelly Tabor and Richard Rossi
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City: Port Henry
State: NY
Country: United States
Website: www.lucyandthelakemonster.com