Writing the Gothic: Free Writers’ Day with Bronte Schiltz

About the event

Comma Press Writers' days are perfect opportunities for writers of all experience levels to experiment with new forms and meet new people!

Join us at Manchester Metropolitain University, in association with the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, for a gothic workshop led by author Bronte Schiltz, followed by a panel discussion, readings and a Q&A where Bronte will be joined by fellow gothic authors Leonie Rowland and Alan Smith.

This is the perfect chance to ask questions about writing or getting published. There will also be time for any book signings!

Tickets are free of charge but please RSVP so we know who's coming! Email george.forster@commapress.co.uk for more info.

Spaces for the morning workshop are capped at 30 to ensure participants get the most out of the session. We have much higher capacity in the afternoon where we move into a larger lecture theatre for the panel, readings and Q&A portion.

You can reserve a spot for either the full day with workshop included, or for the afternoon only.

Date & Location

November 22nd 2024 (10:00am - 14:30pm)

Geoffrey Manton Building - Room 223 (Lecture Theatre 4 after lunch)

Rosamond St West

M15 6EB

Running Order

10.00am - 12.00pm workshop with Bronte Schiltz (Room 223)

12.00pm - 13:00pm - Break for Lunch

13:00pm - 14:30pm Readings, Panel & Q&A w/ Bronte Schiltz, Leonie Rowland & Alan Smith (Lecture Theatre 4)

We will have the space until 15:15pm so there will be time for bookselling/signing and mingling after the event has wrapped up.

About the authors:

Brontë Schiltz is a journalist with The Big Issue and Big Issue North, a freelance contributor to Horrified Magazine, and a PhD candidate with the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she researches the Televisual Gothic (horror on and about TV). She is a writer of short stories, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and theatre, and her work has featured in publications including Lotus Eater Magazine, Olney Magazine, The First Line and Hungry Ghost Magazine. She has also appeared on podcasts including The Ghost Story Book Club, Victorian Legacies, BERGCAST and Chronicles of the Quarter Life.

Leonie Rowland is a therapeutic writing practitioner and meditation teacher with an unexpected background in Gothic literature. She is the author of In Bed with Melon Bread (2021) and This Time of Life is Meant for Savages (2023). Leonie was a postgraduate with the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at MMU and, several lifetimes ago, the Co-Director of Grimmfest and the Editor-in-Chief of The Hungry Ghost Project. She is currently friends with most of her ghosts.

Alan Smith is the creator and writer of Weeping Bank, an acclaimed series of unnerving stories which he tours to theatres, libraries and other venues across the UK. In 2024 Weeping Bank appeared at the UK Ghost Story Festival to great acclaim and they have a packed schedule of readings including appearances in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and London through to December 2025. More information here: www.weepingbank.com. Alan is also an ambassador for the charity Give a Book, his work in prisons has been featured on C4, BBC Radio 4 and in Big Issue. In 2020 he created the Paperchains project to help vulnerable communities find their creative voice during the UK Lockdowns. Paperchains became an anthology published by Story Machine and a touring production featuring Stephen Fry. More information on the project here: https://www.paperchains.org.

About Comma Press:

Founded by Ra Page and Sarah Eyre, and formally incorporated in 2007, Comma's initial purpose was to redress the dearth of short story publishing opportunities in the UK, bringing award-winning writers like David Constantine, Sara Maitland and Adam Marek to new audiences. Our popular, long-running 'Reading the City' series has proven that people's engagement with place can override other barriers to reading fiction in translation, and has now visited over 20 cities worldwide. Our interdisciplinary commissions celebrate the short story's ability to take deep dives into cutting-edge research, and our 'Futures Past' series has delivered ground-breaking anthologies of science fiction from Palestine, Iraq, Kurdistan and elsewhere.

Comma has an international reputation for excellent and ground-breaking commissioning. Our titles and authors have won multiple awards ranging from the World Fantasy Award (Robert Shearman's Tiny Deaths, 2008) and the Shirley Jackson Award (The New Uncanny, 2008) to the BBC National Short Story Award (David Constantine, 2010the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (David Constantine's Tea at the Midland, 2013), the Caine Prize (Bushra Al-Fadil, 2017), and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (Hassan Blasim's The Iraqi Christ 2014) – the first time it had been won by a short story collection or a book translated from the Arabic. Our podcast was shortlisted for the 2019 FutureBook Award, Podcast of the Year, and, as a publisher, we won the 2020 Small Press of the Year (Northern Region) at The Bookseller’s British Book Awards. In 2017 we also won the inaugural Northern Soul Northern Publisher of the Year Award. Comma has published two subsequent Nobel Prize winners; it has sold rights to its titles into over 30 languages, sold 7 titles to Audible, seen over 60 stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and had two stories adapted for the big screen: POSSUM (dir. Matthew Holness) and 45 YEARS (dir. Andrew Haigh), the latter receiving an Oscar nomination for Charlotte Rampling, winning 2 Silver Bears at Berlinale and being voted The Guardian's No. 1 best film of 2015.