The October #AScareADay Challenge

Last year, we had our first Romancing the Gothic October read-a-long #AGhostADay. This year, we’re changing the title to #AScareADay because I can’t always promise ghosts! To be fair, not every story or poem is scary either. Some are creepy, some are haunting, some might simply chill you to the bone…

Each day in October, we’ll be reading a different story. You use the #AScareADay hashtag on twitter and bluesky to join in the discussion and share your thoughts!

Here’s the list for this year with links.

October 1st – ‘The Lay of the Werewolf’ – Marie de France (12th century) – Read it here

(For anyone interested, there is a queer rewriting here)

October 2nd – ‘The Bride of Corinth’ – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Read it here

October 3rd – ‘The Dark Ladie’ – Anne Bannerman – Read it here

October 4th – ‘The Vampyre’ – John Polidori – Read it here

October 5th – ‘Darkness’ – Lord Byron – Read it here

October 6th – ‘The Transformation’ – Mary Shelley – Read it here

October 7th – ‘The Brownie of the Black Haggs – James Hogg – Read it here

October 8th – ‘Young Goodman Brown’ – Nathaniel Hawthorne – Read it here

October 9th – ‘The Queen of Spades’ – Alexander Pushkin – Read it here (more accessible translation but missing part of the ending!) or here (less accessible but a better translation)

October 10th – ‘Good Lady Ducayne’ – Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Read it here

October 11th – ‘The Familiar’ – Sheridan Le Fanu – Read it here

October 12th – ‘Sandy the Tinker’ – Charlotte Riddell – Read it here

October 13th – ‘Manor’ – Karl Heinrich Ulrichs – Read it here

October 14th – ‘Elsie’s Lonely Afternoon’ – Marjorie Bowen – Read it here

October 15th – ‘The Crimson Weaver’ – Robert Murray Gilchrist – Read it here

October 16th – ‘The Voice in the Night’ – William Hope Hodgson – Read it here

October 17th – ‘The Ebony Frame’ – Edith Nesbit – Read it here

October 18th – ‘The Kit Bag’ – Algernon Blackwood – Read it here

October 19th – ‘The Terror of Blue John Gap’ – Arthur Conan Doyle – Read it here

October 20th – ‘Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched’ – May Sinclair – Read it here

October 21st – ‘The Hall Bedroom’ – Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – Read it here

October 22nd – ‘Count Magnus’ – M R James – Read it here

October 23rd – ‘A Child’s Nightmare’ – Robert Graves – Read it here

October 24th – ‘Outside the House’ – Bessie Kyffin-Taylor – Read it here

October 25th – ‘The Lottery’ – Shirley Jackson – Read it here

October 26th – ‘The New Mother’ – Lucy Clifford – Read it here

October 27th – ‘Not a Basking Shark’ – Hesper Leveret – Read it here

October 28th – ‘Bluebeard’s Wife’ – T. Kingfisher – Read it here

October 29th – ‘The Night Cyclist’ – Stephen Graham Jones – Read it here

October 30th – ‘Girlfriend Material’ – M. H. Ayinde – Read it here

October 31st – ‘The Girls that Follow’ – J. Choe – Read it here