Ghosts at the Old Library is back!
This Christmas, Levenshulme Old Library has commissioned new ghost stories from six writers for a series of very special atmospheric winter events.
Ghost stories at Christmas have long been an oral storytelling tradition, from tales told around the winter fire through to Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. This moved into the TV era with A Ghost Story for Christmas, a series of late night television movies broadcast on the BBC which continue to this day.
This Christmas, we have commissioned six brand new ghost stories from some of the North West’s finest authors.
This is the third year of Ghosts at the Old Library. The first year we ran the project we commissioned ghost stories inspired by our building; the following year we selected a number of local landmarks for writers to respond to. This year, we have taken ‘households’ as our starting point. Each of the authors has been partnered with a resident in the area and has spent time with them in their home, talking about their relationship with where they live and exploring what it means to be a ‘household’, a seemingly innocuous term which covers bricks-and-mortar, family and community.
You can come and hear each of the stories read in full at an atmospheric performance at Levenshulme Old Library, our historic former Carnegie library building in South Manchester.
The building will be dimly lit by lantern light and four separate spaces will each be allocated to one of the writers. The audience will be divided into four groups and led from one room to the next, hearing each story in full before moving onto the next space.
Tickets are now available. Previously, these events have sold out fairly quickly so we’d recommend booking your ticket asap on Friday to avoid disappointment.
Please note: this is event is aimed at an 18+ audience. This is also an event which features works of fiction centred around dark and unsettling themes which some may find upsetting. While our building is wheelchair accessible, attendees should be aware that the event will take place in a dimly lit environment and involves attendees moving through different spaces in our building, and we encourage all visitors to exercise caution and consider their own comfort and accessibility needs when attending. If you have any questions at all please email us as hello@levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk
We’re very excited to announce original ghost stories for Christmas from the following authors:
Lucy Edmiston is a writer from Manchester.
David Gaffney is the author of the novels Never Never (2008), All The Places I’ve Ever Lived (2017) and Out Of The Dark (2021), and the flash fiction and short story collections Sawn-Off Tales (2006), Aromabingo (2007), The Half-Life of Songs (2010) and More Sawn-Off Tales (2013). He has published two graphic novels with Dan Berry – The Three Rooms In Valerie’s Head (2018) and Rivers (2021) – and is working on a third. His chapbook, The Country Pub, was published on Nightjar Press in 2022, his short story collection Concrete Fields (Salt Publishing 2023) was long listed for the Edgehill Short Story Prize and his latest collection, Whale, was published by Osmosis in 2024.
Fia Harrington has had two short stories published by Manchester’s award-winning Comma Press, ‘A Story for the Sea’ in 2020 and ‘The Nursery’ in 2023. They are currently working on a collection of short stories about the uncanny and often horrific nature of life on the cutting edge of technology.
Abi Hynes drama and fiction writer based in Manchester. Her debut short story collection, Monstrous Longing, was published by Dahlia Press in 2023 and has recently been longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She won the Cambridge Short Story Prize in 2020, and her fiction has appeared in many journals, magazines and anthologies. She has also written widely for stage, screen and radio; including a major adaptation of Anne of Green Gables for Audible starring Catherine O’Hara, Victor Garber and Sandra Oh.
Sophie Parkes is a writer of novels, short fiction, and music journalism with a PhD in creative writing and folklore from Sheffield Hallam University. Her historical novel Out of Human Sight (2023) was shortlisted for the NorthBound Book Award, and in 2017 she won the Arvon Award for her short stories inspired by English folk songs. She also authored the official biography of folk musician Eliza Carthy, Wayward Daughter (2012). Sophie teaches creative writing at Sheffield Hallam and Leeds Arts Universities and leads community workshops through initiatives like Mossley Writers.
Reshma Ruia is a poet, novelist and co-founder of The Whole Kahani, a collective of British South Asian Writers. Her first novel, Something Black in the Lentil Soup, was described in The Sunday Times as ‘a gem of straight-faced comedy’ and her debut collection of poetry, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties, won the 2019 Debut Word Masala Award.
We’ll be sharing more info on the stories themselves in the coming weeks.
We will also be creating a print publication of each of the individual stories, and creating professional studio recordings of the authors reading them for podcast release and radio broadcast. Stay tuned for more details on all of this and more!