Ghosts at the Old Library is our annual Christmas ghost stories project.
Each year we commission a number of writers to create brand new ghost stories which are then performed in full in the Old Library building. Writers we’ve commissioned have included Nicholas Royle, Adam Farrer and Gaynor Jones, among others.
This first started in the winter of 2022 when Levenshulme Old Library commissioned a series of brand new ghost stories from four writers, each of which took its inspiration from our building.
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 films broadcast on the BBC which continue to this day.
As a community arts and culture organisation, Levenshulme Old Library has three key aims which this project meets: engaging local residents with our historic former library building and other local heritage; creating high quality engaging artistic activities in the area; and creating meaningful professional opportunities for creatives in Levenshulme and beyond.
Ghosts at the Old Library is used to support emerging writers in the local area. Each year we recruit for two Emerging Writer positions, offering early-stage authors from the local area a one-on-one eight-week mentoring programme which focuses on their ghost story but also provides broader insight and guidance into a career in the arts. They also receive a fully paid commission – including publication, performance and professional recording of their work – as well as networking opportunities and the experience of their work sharing a platform as an equal with some more established peers.
The Writers
We have worked with the following writers. There’s a link to a recording of them reading each of their stories.
2024 – Ghosts at the Old Library: Households
In the winter of 2024, we commissioned six new ghost stories, each inspired by local households in Levenshulme. Each author met a local resident in their home and discussed their experiences of their homes, neighbourhoods and communities.
Abi Hynes is a 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.
David Gaffney is the author of the novels Never Never, All The Places I’ve Ever Lived and Out Of The Dark, and the flash fiction and short story collections Sawn-Off Tales Aromabingo. The Half-Life of Songs and More Sawn-Off Tales. He has published two graphic novels with Dan Berry – The Three Rooms In Valerie’s Head and Rivers – and is working on a third. His chapbook, The Country Pub, was published on Nightjar Press in 2022, his short story collection Concrete Fields was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and his latest collection, Whale, is published by Osmosis.
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’. Her debut collection of poetry, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties, won the 2019 Debut Word Masala Award and her novel Still Lives won the 2023 Readers Choice Award.
Lucy Edmiston is a writer and poet based in Manchester. Her short story ‘Mothers and Daughters’ was longlisted for the 2024 Motherhood Uncensored Writing Competition and is due for publication in the accompanying collection this winter. She is currently working on a haiku project.
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.
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.
2023 – Ghosts at the Old Library: Landmarks
In the 2023, we commissioned six new ghost stories, each inspired by a different local landmark in Levenshulme: Levenshulme Antiques Village, Station South, The Nico Ditch, Alma Park Primary School, The Fallowfield Loop and Levenshulme Old Library.
Jo Howard is a writer of children’s and young adult fiction and a poet, singer and scriptwriter. A regular on the Northern spoken word scene, Jo runs Book Jive Live, a Zoom open mic for kidlit and YA. Her work has been published in Confingo, The Writer’s Cafe and Funny Pearls magazines and in the 100 Voices anthology to celebrate 100 years of women’s suffrage.
Gaynor Jones is the author of Among These Animals. She has won the Northern Writer’s Award, the Bath Flash Fiction Prize and the Mairtín Crawford Short Story Award, among others.
Nicholas Royle is the author of five collections of short fiction, two works of nonfiction and seven novels, most recently First Novel. He edits an annual series of anthologies called Best British Short Stories and runs Nightjar Press which publishes original short stories.
Lauren O’Donoghue is a writer from South Yorkshire. Her fiction has been published in ergot, and Mslexia among others. Her interactive fiction Ataraxia can be found here.
Marie Crook is a writer based in Levenshulme. Her work has been published in The Real Story and The Caterpillar among others and she has performed at venues including Manchester Central Library.
2022 – Ghosts at the Old Library: The Old Library
In 2022 we commissioned four authors to create a new ghost story inspired Levenshulme Old Library, Manchester’s oldest Carnegie library, built in 1904.
Adam Farrer‘s first book, Cold Fish Soup, a memoir in essays about the Yorkshire coast, won the NorthBound Book Award at the 2021 Northern Writers’ Awards. He’s also the Editor of the creative nonfiction journal The Real Story and the Writer in Residence for Peel Park, Salford.
Marie Crook is a writer based in Levenshulme. Her work has been published in The Real Story and The Caterpillar among others and she has performed at venues including Manchester Central Library.
Richard V. Hirst is a writer and editor based in Levenshulme. His awards include the Manchester Fiction Prize and two British Fantasy Awards. His books include Writing the Uncanny and We Were Strangers.
Melissa Wan is the author of This Must Be Earth, published by Nightjar Press. Her other short fiction has been published by a number of independent presses, including by Bluemoose Books, Dead Ink Books and Cōnfingō Publishing.
The Stories
The stories are each individually published as Christmas card chapbooks with bespoke designs commissioned specially for the project.
In 2023 we commissioned Zoe McLean to create ink drawings in response to each story which was then used as the cover design.
In 2023 we commissioned collage artist Janie Lucchese to create a design for each story.
In 2022 these were individually designed by Laura Deane using photo collages.
The Performances
A key aspect of Ghosts at the Old Library project is performance, with us staging a number of immersive reading events each Christmas. All of the performances we’ve staged as part of this project been sell-out events.
On three evenings each December, the building is dimly lit by lantern light and four separate spaces in the building are each allocated to one of the writers. The audience arrives, is split into four groups and led by our volunteers from one room to the next, hearing each story read in full before moving on to the next room. This means each of the stories being performed simultaneously four times by each author.
We offer discounted tickets for local residents on low incomes.
The Recordings
We work with our resident community radio station ALL FM to create recordings of each of the stories. The authors were invited into the studios to record their stories, which were then professionally produced. Each year we have commissioned a score and sound design from musician and sound artist Oscilloscope.
In 2022 the soundtrack on all the tracks was comprised of audio recorded in the Old Library building which was then manipulated and then transformed into music and effects. In 2023 each author had a bespoke piece of music composed to accompany their performance, with elements from their stories being incorporated into the composition. In 2024 we once again commissioned Oscilloscope to produce the recordings and create a piece of theme music which was used as entrance music for the live events.
All of the stories are broadcast on ALL FM during the Christmas period and also made available as podcasts on our Spotify channel.
School Outreach – Mini Spirits
In 2024, we expanded the project, by running Mini Spirits, a series of creative writing workshops in local schools. With the theme of Christmas ghost stories, these workshops were about supporting local schools in delivering the curriculum, but also sparking imaginations in a fun, festive way.
Creative writing is a cornerstone of literacy education, helping children develop essential skills in descriptive writing and critical thinking as well as storytelling, which is what Ghosts at the Old Library is really all about. For local schools which serve our vibrant and diverse communities, projects like this offer additional opportunities for pupils to connect with cultural and local heritage.
Building on the success of the workshops, we expanded Mini Spirits with an exhibition of the children’s stories and a series of half term creative writing workshops. The exhibition itself continues to evolve, with new stories added as more young participants contribute their imaginative and unsettling tales.
Impact
You can find out more about the impact of Ghosts at the Old Library via our annual reports.