Horror Short Fiction Online Course

About the event

Chill the bones of your readers this Autumn with Andy Murray's short story craft course.
Learn how to build suspense, how to deftly handle ambiguities, how and when to scare your reader, and how to play around with story form and structure to achieve tension.
We'll journey from that most terrifying of concepts; a blank page, and arrive at a complete and polished story, which we'll publish in a Comma Press ebook. Along the way, Andy will offer expert editorial advice and ply you with gallons of imaginative prompts whenever you might get stuck.

We will look at classic and contemporary Horror texts to identify HOW we terrify our readers.
The workshops will consist of fun and simple writing exercises, in-class discussions, readings of some awesome stories as homework, and the chance to share bits of our writing as it develops.

WHEN & WHERE?

Online Via Zoom. 6.30-8.30pm on Thursdays:

September 19

October 3, 17, 31

November 14, 28

ABOUT THE COURSE

Over the course of 6 sessions we'll explore not what a short story "should" be but everything it could be, giving you permission to find out what "short story" means to you. Together we'll read and discuss a dazzling, surprising and varied reading list of short and very short stories of all shapes, styles, genres and forms, using these as inspiration for writing exercises that encourage you to be playful and warm up your writing muscle, so you can write the short and very short stories you want to write in the way only you can write them!

At the end of the course everyone will produce a final short story which will be published in a comma press ebook.

TICKETS

£175 per ticket + Booking Fees (email George below to avoid booking fees) which covers 6x sessions including detailed feedback and publication in a Comma Press e-book anthology. £125 bursary tickets are available on a first come first served for writers of protected characteristics – simply email george.forster@commapress.co.uk to apply.

PLEASE BE AWARE: We cannot offer refunds for cancellations made within 30 days of the course start date.

Andy Murray is a writer and journalist based in Manchester. He edited Comma's first modern horror story anthology, Phobic, and has been leading online story courses for Comma since 2020. He's written biographies of British television scriptwriters Nigel Kneale and (with Dr Mark Aldridge) Russell T Davies and was formerly the programmer of the Darkness Over Britain strand celebrating British film and TV horror at Manchester's Cornerhouse arts centre. He now contributes to the webzine Northern Soul, provides editorial content for the Royal Exchange Theatre's production programmes and teaches Film Journalism at the University of Salford.

Our Course Graduates

Past participants on our Short Story Courses have gone on to be published by the likes of Penguin, Canongate Books, The Best of British Fantasy, Granta, and Ambit Magazine, have work reviewed in the The Guardian, The Irish Times, Lit Hub, Sunday Express and Metro and recognised by awards such as the The Brighton Prize