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Freelance journalist Kate Silver has always gravitated toward oddball events, quirky destinations and unusual spectacles.

Growing up in Texas, she and her sister attended a Benny Hinn Ministries “miracle service” held in the arena where the Houston Rockets played.

“We were curious,” she says. “We didn’t get saved, but it was really strange to see the floor of a basketball stadium covered in sick beds.”

Other experiences that have served as article fodder: going to a ghost hunting conference; attending a Butterball University in Naperville; spending a year as a Mary Kay beauty consultant; the list goes on.

In her and her husband’s Ravenswood home — a loft in a former car dealership — Silver’s book collection mirrors her offbeat interests: “Mushroom Houses of Charlevoix” (hobbit-like homes in Northern Michigan); “The Twinkies Cookbook” (her go-to party recipe? Twinkie sushi); and “Taxidermy Art,” among others.

“I’m at my happiest when I’m exploring subcultures or writing about obsessives of some sort,” she says.