THINGS TERRIBLE & UNGUESSABLE:
READ:
Read Chapter 7 of Dracula by Bram Stoker HERE. Titled "The Captain's Log," it focuses on the fate of the ship Demeter and its crew. A storm forces the Demeter, a ship carrying boxes, to crash ashore in Whitby, England. The captain is found dead, tied to the wheel with a crucifix, and a huge dog leaps from the ship and disappears. The chapter also includes a newspaper clipping containing a logbook entry from the captain, revealing the crew's unsettling voyage from Varna to Whitby, where men were disappearing one by one
Read Turn of the Screw by Henry James (novella) HERE. Turn of the Screw is ghost story about a governess who is hired to care for two orphaned children, Miles and Flora, at Bly Manor, an isolated country estate in Essex. She becomes convinced that the children are possessed and the house are haunted by the former governess, Miss Jessel, and the former valet, Peter Quint.
Read Caterpillars and Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson HERE and HERE. Benson, a prolific English author known for his ghost stories, was the Mayor of Rye, East Sussex, from 1934 to 1937. Many of his ghost stories are also set in Rye and its surrounding area.
Note: Benson lived at Lamb's House in Rye after James. Will be visiting Rye and Lamb's House. The current exhibition, Ghost Written, uncovers the haunted histories of Lamb House through the works of its former resident authors (featuring never displayed items from their collection, reproduced auto-writings, spirit photography, a Pepper's Ghost stage mirror, and more.
Horror Stories of H.G.Wells (The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost, The Stolen Body, Flowering of the Strange Orchid, The Sea Raiders, The Moth, The Cone, The Magic Shop, The Red Room),
Read the short story, A Haunted House, by Virginia Woolf HERE. "Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.”Such was the first sentence of Virginia Woolf’s short story A Haunted House. Sitting comfortably on the edge of reality and subconsciousness, Woolf’s 600 word piece both is and is not a ghost story.
Read the article, "What It Means to Feel and Flow," about Woolf's story HERE.
Note: We'll be visiting Monk House, where Woolf lived, and where, walking down the path to the River Oouse and jumping in, her pockets filled with rocks, she died.
Listen to The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire by Arthur Conan Doyle HERE. Listen to The Adventure of the Lion's Mane by Arthur Conan Doyle HERE. Both stories are set in Sussex, with Lion's Mane being set in 1907, when Sherlock Holmes has retired to a villa near the coast on the Sussex Downs. We'll visit the villa that is labeled such.
Read The Phantom Rickshaw, My Own True Ghost Story, and The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes by Rudyard Kipling HERE. We'll be visiting Bateman's, the 17th-century house that was the family home of Rudyard Kipling from 1902 until his death in 1936. It is said he still haunts the library and moves his stationery around on the desk. The ghost of his wife Caroline has also been witnessed tending flowers outside Kipling's study window.
Read On the Brighton Road by Richard Barham Middleton HERE
Read The Signal Man by Charles Dickens HERE. Strongly connected to the Clayton Tunnel near Brighton. The Clayton Tunnel crash of 1861 is believed to have inspired the ghost story
Listen to A Little Place off the Edgware Road by Graham Greene HERE.
The Haunting of Lamb House and Return to Harken House by Joan Aiken
Watch this brief clip about The Weir, in which a several people gather in a rural Irish pub to share stories, some of which are supernatural, by Connor McPherson HERE. We'll be seeing McPherson's new play, The Brightening Air, and entrancing tale of fate, family and unseen forces
WATCH:
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| Gary Oldman as the titular vampire in Bram Stoker's Dracula. |
Other suggestions: Wicked (the Seven Sisters in East Sussex was used when Glinda arrives at Shiz University on a pink sailing boat and for when Elphaba sings "The Wizard and I"), Quadrophenia (the quintessential Brighton movie), The Others and The Haunting of Bly Manor (both versions of Turn of the Screw), American Werewolf in London (why I love England), Hot Fuzz (hilarious), Crimson Peak (partially set in Cumbria, close to Whitby), The Woman in Black (just a great English ghost story), and Brighton Rock.
Movies shot in Sussex: Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire (Seven Sisters), Atonement (Seaford), Mr. Holmes (Seaford, Seven Sisters), Never Let Me Go (Bexhill-on-Sea), The Living Daylights (Beachy Head).
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WHERE DIPS THE ROCKY HIGHLAND
AUTHORS:
RODDY
DOYLE is the author of ten acclaimed novels, including The Commitments,
The Van (a finalist for the Booker Prize), Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
(winner of the Booker Prize), The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, A Star
Called Henry, The Guts and most recently, Love. Doyle has written
several collections of stories, as well as Two Pints, Two More Pints and
Two for the Road, and several works for children and young adults
including the Rover novels.
DEIRDRE SULLIVAN has written seven acclaimed books for young adults, including Savage Her Reply and Tangleweed and Brine, a collection of feminist retellings of classic fairytales which won the Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year Award in 2018 (and Young Adult Book of the Year in 2017. She lives in Galway.
VANESSA FOX O'LOUGHLIN is a former agent andwrites crime as Sam Blake, the No 1 bestselling author of the Cat Connolly Garda police trilogy, and the standalones Keep Your Eyes on Me and The Dark Room. She is a No. 1 bestselling author, even outselling Graham Norton (amongst others). Her first novel Little Bones was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year. Vanessa conceived and developed the National Emerging Writer Programme and the Great Writing, Great Places series for Dublin City of Literature, programs the Waterford Writers festival and is co-programmer of the literary strand of the Bram Stoker Festival. She is the founder and director of Murder One, Ireland’s International Crime Writing Festival.
SARAH DAVIS-GOFF'S writing
has been published in The Irish Times, The Guardian and LitHub. Last
Ones Left Alive, "a fiercely feminist, highly imaginative" (Guardian),
"beautiful and brutal" (Kirkus) "zombie novel with a Celtic
twist"(BookPage) is her debut; it;s considered one of the scariest
modern Irish novels. “A debut novel of jaw-dropping skill and immense
power, a shimmering dystopian vision but also a lucid meditation on
tenderness, intimacy and courage. From the get-go, it gripped me, and
since the last page I've been haunted." - Joseph O'Connor, Star of the
Sea. Sarah is co-founder and co-publisher of the acclaimed literary
house, Tramp Press.
SOPHIE WHITE is the author of seven books and has previously held the position of writer-in-residence at both Dublin City University and the Museum of Literature Ireland. Her bestselling memoir, Corpsing, was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction. She co-hosts the chart-topping comedy podcast, The Creep Dive, and writes the Substack, Death Is Coming. Her new book, the modern gothic horror novel and Shirley Jackson Award winner, Where I End, has been called "exquisite and disturbing" (Irish Times), "tremendous... brilliantly done" (Guardian), and "macabrely beautiful" (Irish Independent). Aoileann is cursed. She has no friends, never gone to school. She has never left this windswept craggy isle off the coast of Ireland. Her mother is cursed: a silent wreck Aoileann calls the “bed-thing.” Alongside her grandmother, Aoileann’s days are an endless monotony of feeding, changing, and caring for the bed-thing. Their island seems cursed, whispering secrets only Aoileann hears. Described by New York Times–bestselling author John Connolly as “perhaps the finest Irish horror novel of the 21st century,” Where I End is a "beautifully voiced, horrific novel... and one of the best novels of the year.” (Ellen Datlow, editor of The Best Horror of the Year).
DONAL RYAN, an Irish novelist/short story writer known for his lyrical prose and exploration of Irish life. He often incorporates elements of magic and folklore, particularly those associated with Irish and Traveller traditions, a nomadic community known for their unique cultural practices, including divination and fortune-telling. He lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. His debut novel, The Spinning Heart, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He has won several national and international awards, including the EU Prize for Literature and the Guardian First Book Award. Read this article on Donal Ryan HERE.
Recently named the Children's Laureate of Ireland, PATRICIA FORDE lives in Galway, where she writes for all ages in Irish and in English. She has published more than 20 titles, including her award-winning first novel, The Wordsmith, which Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) called "the fantasy book of the year." In another life, she was the artistic director of Galway’s famous International Arts Festival.
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READ:
Roddy Doyle's short story, The Buggy, in The New Yorker HERE.
Read The Host, a ghost story from Deirdre Sullivan's debut collection I Want to Know That I Will Be Okay HERE.
Read an extract from Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin's (writing as Sam Blake) Little Bones HERE.
Read an the first chapter to Goff's Last Ones Left Alive HERE.
Read about Donal Ryan's brush with Traveller's magic HERE.
Read an excerpt from Sophie White's Shirley Jackson Award winning Where I End HERE.
Read this New York Magazine article on Doolin HERE.
Read Irish Fairy Tales by W. B. Yeats HERE.
WATCH:
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| The cast of The Commitments by Roddy Doyle; Dir Alan Parker. |
Other suggestions: Ondine, Ffolkes, Black Narcissus, The Field.