Writing the Uncanny. Panel event for Leeds Lit Fest 22

Writing the Uncanny. Panel event with Lucie McKnight Hardy, Claire Dean, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan and Dan Coxon for Leeds Lit Fest 22.

What is the Uncanny? How does it work? And what can a writer do to ensure their fiction continues to haunt the reader long after they’ve closed a book? Drawing on Writing the Uncanny: Essays on Crafting Strange Fiction (Dead Ink, 2021) this panel discussion will see three contemporary authors explain what drew them to the uncanny, share their insights on horror, ghost stories, folklore and beyond, and offer practical guidance on how to craft unsettling fiction which resonates. Dan Coxon, its co-editor chairs the panel.

Cost £5 + booking fee. Attend a Writing the Uncanny workshop and pay £3. Book on this ticket link for reduced ticket. Please show workshop ticket on the night.

Lucie McKnight Hardy’s stories have featured in various publications, including Best British Short Stories 2019, Black Static, The Lonely Crowd, and as a limited edition chapbook from Nightjar Press. Her debut novel, Water Shall Refuse Them, was published in 2019 by Dead Ink Books . Her short story collection, Dead Relatives was published in 2021.

Claire Dean is a writer and maker living in the north of England. Her short stories have been widely published and are included in Best British Short Stories 2011, 2014 & 2017 (Salt). Middleton Sands, Bremen, The Unwish, Marionettes and Into the Penny Arcade are published as chapbooks by Nightjar Press. Her first collection, The Museum of Shadows and Reflections, was published by Unsettling Wonder in 2016.

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is the author of Harmless Like You and Starling Days. She has won The Authors’ Club First Novel Award and a Betty Trask Award and been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. Her work has been a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and an NPR Great Read. She is also the editor of the Go Home! anthology.

Dan Coxon has been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the British Fantasy Awards and the Bath Short Story Award, and has won a Saboteur Award. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Salon, Unthology, The Lonely Crowd, Black Static, Popshot, Open Pen, Unsung Stories, Neon, Gutter, Wales Arts Review and The Portland Review, among others. He compiled and edited This Dreaming Isle, shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards and the British Fantasy Awards, and Being Dad, a collection of short stories about fatherhood that won Best Anthology at the Saboteur Awards. He currently edits and publishes The Shadow Booth, the international journal of weird and eerie fiction. He is co-editor of Writing The Uncanny.