Our February was dedicated to ‘writing the ghostly’ although the book group selections stuck to that a little more closely than the talks this month! That being said, as always we found threads binding together the talks and our readings for the month in interesting ways, illuminating facets of each that might not have come to the fore otherwise!
Our talks this month included an examination of the ‘Gothic woman’ in Nick Cave’s early lyrics, a session on writing the ghostly with folkorist Icy Sedgwick, and a deep dive into the ‘artifice’ stories of Robert Aickman. Icy’s talk focused on less ‘popular’ traditional forms of the ghostly from ghost carriages to treasure seekers. It felt like this writing workshop (full of both stories and prompts) brought together a lot of the threads of the month. Book groups were full of moments of recognition of the types of stories Icy was mentioning, particularly in our reading of 18th/early 19th century ghost stories in ‘Tales of Terror, or More Ghosts’ (1802). Even Sam and Rish reads (a monthly comfort read book club) had Icy’s fingerprints on it as we read Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vashti through the lens of the treasure-finding ghost. A jewelled haul spells freedom for our sapphic heroines and restoration for the VERY Gothic house they occupy.
Brontë Schiltz’s investigation of what exactly makes Robert Aickman’s tales so creepy had unexpected resonances with our book group reading of the collected stories of various authors in The Haunted House curated by Charles Dickens. The stories don’t really include ghosts but they explore all sorts of other methods of haunting – memory, shame, guilt, lost potential. The ‘hauntings’ for some of the protagonists of their own stories include revelations and re-evaluations, an unsettling of their understanding of the world. This is something that, as we learnt, Aickman takes to another level with (so I’m told!) consummate skill!
The first talk of the month took is into very different territory with its exploration of music and women as both creator and muse. And, as this is the year of women’s Gothic and horror for Romancing the Gothic, this theme of women’s hauntings was central to a number of our reads. In our first and last books of the month, we moved away from a British-centric focus and read The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo and Where the Dead Bridges Gather by Nuno Ozoh. Wildly, I didn’t deliberately pick two books from two very distinct cultures and histories on ghost brides but here we are! I think what is always fascinating about reading books and tales which draw on other understandings of the spiritual world, the afterlife and ghosts is the ways in which they make us rethink our own assumptions (often, for those of us in the UK, informed, whether we realise or not, by a very Christian tradition). What ghosts are, how they act, what their meaning and purpose is… all these things are understood differently in different belief systems and cultures. Both our ‘dead brides’ books drew on existing ideas and added their own world-building in ways which offered fascinating versions of the afterlife as well as great stories! From a woman hovering between life and death navigating the shoals of the underworld to a child drawn into the world of dead brides and forced into the role of supernatural guardian… ghost tales about women are far more than floating blobs with white dresses.
Of course, we ended the month with Goths for Breakfast! What a feast of talks that was! We had everything from writing workshops on lake hauntings to talks on carnivorous plants. You can find out more about the schedule here and if you want access to the talks, all you have to do is send a donation to the charity the event raises money for here, send me a receipt to sam@romancingthegothic.com and I’ll send you the whole playlist of 13 THIRTEEN talks!
If you want to catch up on the talks you missed this month, dive in!
The first talk of the month was ‘From Her To Eternity: Nick Cave’s Gothic Women’ by Sasha Ravitch. The talk drew on Cave’s early career exploring the importance of different women as collaborators, inspirations, and muses. Deep dives into lyrics and great recommendations for listening choices will have you wanting to make a playlist but, worry not, Sasha already did that for us and you can access it here.
The second talk was a writing workshop. If you haven’t been to any of Icy’s writing workshops before, they are fantastic! If you’re not familiar with her work on folklore, she has an amazing podcast and a folklore blog (which can give you some deeper dives into some of the tales she mentions in the video). Come get some inspiration for your own writing while learning more about folkloric ghost beliefs and some of the less well-known types of ghost that haunt the UK.
Last but not least, we have Brontë Schiltz’s talk ‘Robert Aickman and the Art of the Artifice Tale’. Don’t know what an artifice tale is? You will by the end of the talk! Brontë takes us into some fascinating theory of the short story and the horror tale which is well worth a listen as a theoretical basis for writing or thinking about spooky tales more broadly.
I hope you enjoy diving into the talks this month! Do tell me about the threads you followed through the month. We all get something different out of it!
Romancing the Gothic 