Class Description
In a sense, all stories are ghost stories. Words on the written page will inevitably outlive their writer, as stories often capitalize on moments, things, people, and relationships already lost. Many great authors from Mary Shelley to F. Scott Fitzgerald have tried their hand at ghost stories, while some Edgar Allen Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu, M.R. James, and Stephen King have made this niche their empire. A number of minor lights including E.F. Benson, Rosemary Timperley and Robert Aickman have written classic tales in their own right.
In this workshop, we will trace the tradition of the ghost story: its gothic, psychological, supernatural, technological, and weird genesis. We will read and discuss the eerie short fiction of authors Henry James, Edith Wharton, Muriel Spark, Angela Carter, and Joe Hill, and do exercises to enhance your own ventures into this genre as you compose your own ghost story outside of class. I will furnish suggestions for further reading as well as a list of magazines which welcome ghost story submissions.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.