The October #AScareADay reading challenge 2024

It’s almost that time of year again!

Join us for the third annual #AScareADay challenge to read a creepy short story or poem every day through the month of October. Last year, I did a blog every day which almost finished me off so this year I’m going to put up some discussion questions each day so you all can join in! I’d love to hear what people are enjoying and thinking about the stories even if you’re not keeping up with every single one.

I’ve tried to include lots of new authors as well as old favourites. I’ve also included a few well-known classics along side new reads and older stories which are less well-known. Hopefully, there’s at least one new thing for everyone!

If you missed the previous ones and would like to catch up on our spooky reads (or try to do three challenges at once!), here are the 2022 and 2023 challenges.

Without further ado… here is this year’s list!

October 1st – Matthew Lewis – ‘A Night at Baptiste’s’ (an extract from The Monk) – Read it here

October 2nd – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – The Erl King – Read it here

October 3rd – Charlotte Dacre – The Murderer – Read it here

October 4th – Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson – Albert of Werdendorff, or, The Midnight Embrace – Read it here

October 5th – Lord Byron – Oscar of Alva – Read it here

October 6th – Richard Thomson – The Wehr-Wolf: A Legend of the Limousin – Read it here

October 7th – Nicolai Gogol – The Overcoat – Read it here

October 8th – Robert Browning – Porphyria’s Lover – Read it here

October 9th – Rose Terry Cooke – My Visitation – Read it here

October 10th – Charles Dawson Shanly – The Walker of the Snow – Read it here

October 11th –Frances Hodgson Burnett – In the Closed Room – Read it here

October 12th – Lucy Hooper – Carnivorine – Read it here

October 13th – Edith Nesbit – From the Dead – Read it here

October 14th –Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest – Read it here

October 15th – Mary Wilkins Freeman – Luella Miller – Read it here

October 16th – William Hope Hodgson – A Tropical Horror – Read it here

October 17th –Lord Dunsany – Where the Tide Ebbs and Flows – Read it here

October 18th – Mary Roberts Rinehart – Locked Doors – Read it here

October 19th – Eleanor Scott – The Tree – Read it here

October 20th – Daphne Du Maurier – The Doll – Read it here

October 21st –Robert Service – The Cremation of Sam McGee – Read it here

October 22nd – Hugh Walpole – The Snow – Read it here

October 23rd – A M Burrage – Smee – Read it here

October 24th – Satyajit Ray – Vicious Vampire – Read it here

October 25th – Sylvia Plath – The Snowman on the Moor – Read it here

October 26th –Joan Aiken – The Cold Flame – Read it here

October 27th – Qurat Dar – Inheritance – Read it here

October 28th – E M Carroll – Face All Red – Read it here

October 29th –M S Dean – Drowning Songs – Read it here

October 30th – Carmen Maria Machado – Haunt – Read it here. If you are having trouble accessing it, you can read it here.

October 31st – Selfies – Lavie Tidhar – Read it here