In this 5 week supportive creative writing course, we will be exploring the classic tropes of horror fiction and sometimes overturning them. Using playful and practical exercises, we’ll delve into setting, atmosphere and escalation, as well as some of the genre’s stickier elements (gore, or not, and tricky action scenes). We will also consider the complexities of character, human and otherwise.

Suitable for: all writers, from new to emerging to established, are welcome to step into the dark…

Refreshments provided. Maximum ten participants

Course Dates and Information

• September 3, 10, 17, 24 and Oct 1 2026.
• Students will be expected to attend all sessions if possible.
• Booking fees must be made in full and paid in advance for this course. Refunds are only possible if requested seven days before the first class.

Some of Megan’s Top horror books

• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• NVK by Temple Drake
• Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
• A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers, edited by Joyce Carol Oates
• Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
• Bat Eater by Kylie Lee Baker
• Writing the Uncanny by Dan Coxon and Richard V. Hirst

Bio

Megan Taylor is the author of five dark novels, How We Were Lost (Flame Books, 2007), The Dawning (Weathervane Press, 2012), The Lives of Ghosts (Weathervane Press, 2014), We Wait (Eyrie Press, 2019), and The Therapist’s Daughter (Bloodhound Books, 2024). She had a collection published, The Woman Under the Ground and Other Stories, in 2014 (Weathervane Press). Since its release, many further stories have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Weird Horror Magazine and GONE: An Anthology of Crime Stories (Red Dog Press), and as chapbook singles from TSS Publishing and Nightjar Press. Megan lives in Nottingham, where she’s been running Creative Writing workshops and courses for over a decade.