This event was originally programmed to take place on Saturday 5th June at 5pm, but had to be rescheduled.

Join self-professed Slasher film aficionados Grady Hendrix (The Final Girl Support Group) and Stephen Graham Jones (My Heart Is a Chainsaw) as they discuss their favourite horror tropes on screen and in print, and how they inspire their writing.

About the event:

Chaired by G.G. Graham

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

About the authors:

Grady Hendrix writes fiction, also called "lies," and he writes non-fiction, which people sometimes accidentally pay him for. He is the author of Horrorstör, the only novel about a haunted Scandinavian furniture store you'll ever need. It has been translated into 14 languages and is being turned into a movie from the people who made quality films like 1917 and Black Swan. Foolishly, they are paying Grady to write it. He is busy inserting a whole lot of tutus into it right now. His latest book, Final Girl Support Group, is published by Titan.

Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of twenty-five or thirty books, his most recent one being My Heart Is A Chainsaw. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favourite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in. He's married with a couple of kids, and probably one too many trucks

What makes a place a home? And how far would you go to protect yours?

In Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker, Norah and Arthur are learning how to co-exist in their new little world. Though they hardly know each other, everything seems to be going perfectly - from the home they're building together to the ring on Norah's finger. But survival in this world is a tricky thing, and the earth is becoming increasingly hostile to live in. Fortunately, Easton Grove is here for that in the form of a perfect little bundle to take home and harvest. You can live for as long as you keep it - or her – close.

Set within the high walls of the Western Protectorate, Aliya Whiteley's Skyward Inn, is a place of safety, where people come together peacefully to tell stories of the time before the war with Qita. But when a visitor comes to the Inn asking for help, they bring reminders of an unnerving past, questioning the true outcome of the war, and Earth's future.

About the event:

Chaired by Cat Hellisen

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

About the authors:

Aliya Whiteley writes across many different genres and lengths. Her first published full-length novels, Three Things About Me and Light Reading, were comic crime adventures. Her 2014 SF-horror novella The Beauty was shortlisted for the James Tiptree and Shirley Jackson awards. The following historical-SF novella, The Arrival of Missives, was a finalist for the Campbell Memorial Award, and her noir novel The Loosening Skin was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award. Her latest publication is Skyward Inn.

Aliyah is on Twitter.

Caroline Hardaker lives in the north east of England and writes quite a lot of things. She earned her BA (English Literature) and MA (Cultural and Heritage Studies) from Newcastle University, and her main problem is limiting herself to one idea at once, or maybe two ideas, or three…. Caroline’s debut novel, Composite Creatures, will be published by Angry Robot in April 2021.

Caroline is on Twitter.

My home is my castle, right? The houses in Such Pretty Things by Lisa Heathfield and The Last House On Needless Street by Catriona Ward are not what they seem to be:

As Clara and Stephen explore their Auntie’s remote home, they uncover ghosts buried long ago. And every day they spend there, bewildered Clara can feel unknown forces changing her brother.  And something else entirely lies buried inside the last house on Needless Street, lived in by Ted, his daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia. 

Goosebumps guaranteed!

About the event:

Chaired by Heather Parry

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

About the authors:

Catriona Ward was born in Washington, DC and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. She’s the author of The Last House on Needless Street.

Catriona is on Twitter.

Lisa Heathfield is an award-winning author and a former high school English teacher. She lives with her family in Brighton, England. Her latest publication is Such Pretty Things.

Lisa is on Twitter.

Distracted by mind games, murder and mayhem, can you tell friends from foes?

Arriving in London during a series of attacks at young, brunette women, sixteen-year-old Irish-born Niamh needs to trust her new friends and stay ahead of the attacker in Cynthia Murphy’s Last One To Die. And Kathryn Foxfield’s Good Girls Die First, blackmail has sixteen-year-old Ava facing up to her secrets and deciding how far she is willing to go to survive the night against her peers.

About the event:

Chaired by Tony Jones

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

About the authors:

Cynthia Murphy is a YA writer from the North-West of England, though her ‘real job’ is in education. She has a long-standing love affair with all things scary, reading Point Horrors at primary school before graduating to Stephen King in her misguided teens. Classic 90s and 00s horror movies are definitely her pub quiz strong point and her first love may well have been Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Studying for a degree in Art History and Archaeology meant that she developed a thirst for anything old, beautiful and very often dead. She tries to combine this with contemporary settings in her writing to make unique and chilling modern stories. Cynthia is married to her best friend and they share (are ruled by) a Romanian rescue dog called Loli, who loves to steal socks. Her YA thriller Last One To Die is published by Scholastic in the UK.

Cynthia is on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Kathryn Foxfield writes dark books about strange things. She blames her love of the creepy and weird on a childhood diet of Point Horror, Agatha Christie and Dr Who. She writes about characters who aren’t afraid to fight back, but wouldn’t last 5 minutes in one of her own stories. Kathryn is a reformed microbiologist, one-time popular science author, cat-servant and parent. She lives in rural Oxfordshire but her heart belongs to London. ​ Her YA thriller Good Girls Die First is published by Scholastic in the UK.

Kathryn is on Twitter and Instagram.

Unfortunately Ramsey Campbell is no longer able to take part in this event. Fellow collection contributor Matthew Holness is joining us in his stead.

Join us for a behind the scenes look at The New Abject: Tales of Modern Unease, a new horror anthology by award-winning publisher Comma Press. 

Editor Ra Page and contributors Matthew Holness and Sarah Schofield will discuss their take on the horror of the abject. Prepare to be horrified.

About the event:

Chaired by Jim Mcleod of Gingernuts of Horror

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

About the authors

Ra Page is the founder and Editorial Manager of Comma Press. He’s the editor of numerous anthologies, including The City Life Book of Manchester Short Stories (Penguin, 1999), co-editor of The New Uncanny (winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, 2008) and Litmus, voted one of 2011’s books of the year by The Observer. Between 2004 and 2013 he was also the coordinator of Literature Northwest, a support agency for independent publishers in the region (until it formally merged with Comma). He also coordinates Comma Film, an ongoing film adaptation project which regularly commissions filmmakers and animators to adapt short literary texts (poems and short stories). He is a former journalist, having been Deputy Editor for City Life magazine, and a former Director of Manchester Poetry Festival. His critical work has been published in The Journal of the Short Story in English, and he’s been a producer, co-writer and co-director on a number of short film projects. He read Physics and Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford and has an MA in English from the University of Manchester.

Sarah Schofield’s stories have been published in Lemistry, Bio-Punk, Thought X, Beta Life, Spindles, Conradology and The New Abject (all Comma Press), Wall: Nine Stories from Edge Hill Writers, (EHUP) Best of British Short Stories 2020 (Salt), Spilling Ink Flash Fiction Anthology, Back and Beyond Arts Publication, Litfest’s The Language of Footprints, Synaesthesia Magazine, Lakeview International Journal, Woman’s Weekly and others. She has been shortlisted on the Bridport and the Guardian Travel Writing Competition and won the Orange New Voices Prize, Writer’s Inc and The Calderdale Fiction Prize. An excerpt from her story ‘The Bactogarden’ featured on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book. Sarah is an Associate Tutor of Creative Writing at Edge Hill University and runs writing courses and workshops in a variety of community settings. Her debut short story collection is due out in 2021 with Comma Press.

Sarah is on Twitter

Matthew Holness is a writer, director and actor. He created and starred in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace for Channel 4 and his short films include A Gun For George, The Snipist and Smutch. His stories have appeared in Phobic, The New Uncanny, Protest (all Comma), and Dead Funny. In 2018 he directed his first feature film, Possum, based on his contribution to The New Uncanny. As an actor he has appeared in numerous films and TV series, including The Haunting of Bly Manor, We Are Lady Parts, Free Agents, Toast of London and Year of the Rabbit.

Matthew is on Twitter

Fresh from her wins the 2020 British Fantasy Awards, Laura N. Mauro chats about her writing journey and her new book On the Shoulders of Otava.

Laura Mauro was born and raised in London and now lives in Essex under extreme duress. Her short story ‘Looking for Laika’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2018, and ‘Sun Dogs’ was shortlisted for the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award in the Novelette category. Her debut collection, ‘Sing Your Sadness Deep’ won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Collection, and her short story ‘The Pain-Eater’s Daughter’ won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. She likes Japanese wrestling, Finnish folklore and Russian space dogs.

About the event:

Chaired by Callum McSorley

Running time: 30 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube.

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

This event is followed by a live Kaffeeklatsch. More info here

Mythology is the source of inspiration for these two authors: Rachel Burge’s The Crooked Mask is part ghost story, part murder mystery steeped in Norse Myth, and Gabriela Houston’s The Second Bell a provocative spin on Slavic striga mythology.

Prepare to be stunned, terrified and absolutely thrilled!

About the event:

Chaired by Linda Strachan

Running time: 60 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

About the authors

Rachel Burge is an author living in East Sussex, England. She used to work as a freelance copy writer but now writes creepy YA novels surrounded by candles, usually with a horror soundtrack playing. She doesn’t get out much, but can sometimes be found muttering plot ideas to herself whilst walking in the woods with her black Labrador, Biff. Rachel has always been drawn to the macabre. As a child, she would write stories and draw pictures that her mum would take away because they gave her nightmares. She has seen a ghost, and to this day swears she once saw a doll’s hand move by itself when she was a kid. Unfortunately, her first proper writing job was on The Dolls House Magazine, which meant handling dolls and styling them for photoshoots (oh the horror!). crow-cut-out Thankfully, dolls don’t feature in her work – much. Oh, and she also has a thing about crows. Don’t forget the crows.

Rachel is on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Gabriela Houston is a London-based writer. She was born in Poland and raised in a book-loving household on the nourishing diet of mythologies, classics and graphic novels. She had spent much of her early school years holed up in the library, only feeling truly herself in the company of Jack London’s trappers and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s red-headed orphan, among many others. She came to the UK at 19 to follow her passion for literature and she completed her undergraduate and Masters degrees at Royal Holloway, University of London. After her studies, she worked in publishing for a few years. She now lives with her family in Harrow, where she pursues her life-long passion for making stuff up.