Tales of the Weird: An Autumnal Festival

Saturday 1 – Sunday 2 November

Tales of the Weird: An Autumnal Festival is back for a full weekend at the British Library. Inspired by the Library’s cult Tales of the Weird series of gothic, supernatural and horror fiction the event features some of our finest writers, directors and fans of the strange, as well as the very latest Tales of the Weird editions.

Monday features special online-only World Wide Weird event on Monday 3 November featuring Mariana Enríquez and Mona Awad.

Ages 16 and over only.

PROGRAMME

Saturday 1 November – The First Day

Hosted by Robin Ince

12:00 – 13:15 session to be unveiled

13:45 – 15:00 WEIRD GATHERINGS
M John Harrison and Leon Craig, with Sam Leith M John Harrison’s writing has always defied genres, and his recently re-published tale of three students and a dark ritual, The Course of the Heart, is one of his most extraordinary. Leon Craig’s brand new The Decadence follows a young group into the most gothic of houses, where their break for freedom turns to chaos.

15:30 – 16:45 AFTER MIDNIGHT: THE CHILLING STORIES OF DAPHNE DU MAURIER Suzi Feay, Kim Newman, Bidisha, Alice Lowe On a sharp December day, the wind changes - and the birds begin to gather. In the twisting alleyways of Venice, a grieving couple catch a glimpse of their lost child. A woman returns home to find no trace of her existence. We dare to revisit the dark, unsettling stories of Daphne du Maurier.

17:15 – 18:30 THE PANEL OF WEIRD Alice Lowe, Jeremy Dyson, Prano Bailey-Bond, with Johnny Mains Some of our most exceptional creators of strange and horrifying screen worlds unearth the books, the television and the films that have shaped and shaken them. Director, screenwriter and actor Alice Lowe’s films range from Sightseers to her latest Timestalker; Jeremy Dyson is the behind-the-scenes member of the League of Gentlemen and the creator and co-writer of the Ghost Stories show and film. The eerie and beautiful short films, and debut feature Censor by director Prano Bailey-Bond have been acclaimed around the world.

19:00 – 20:15 AN EVENING WITH ANDRZEJ SAPKOWSKI In conversation with the author of The Witcher series, which has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, inspired the hit Netflix series and its landmark video games.

Sunday 2 November – The Second Day

12:00 – 13:30 THE WEIRDNESS OF PLACE Andrew Michael Hurley, Iain Sinclair and Sarah Hall, with Travis Elborough Three exceptional writers explore the cities, the towns, the rural and wild places that overwhelm their storytelling. Fifty years ago, writer, poet and filmmaker Ian Sinclair published the cult classic Lud Heat: A Book of the Dead Hamlets, igniting psychogeography in British writing as it created a visionary map of East London’s lost energies. The dilapidated seaside town of Andrew Michael Hurley’s new Saltwash follows the unsettling countrysides and coasts of his The Loney and Starve Acre. Landscape and its effect on people, is at the heart of Sarah Hall’s novels and stories and in her latest novel Helm, a Cumbrian wind is even the central character.

14:00 – 15:00 CHASING THE DARK: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUPERNATURAL Ben Machell, with Suzi Feay Fascination with strange phenomena and paranormal activity has a long history in Britain. In the middle of the 19th century, craze for spiritualism - seances, clairvoyants, telepath and ectoplasm - led to the creation of investigative body the Society for Psychical Research. Ben Machell talks to Suzi Feay about the story of the Society’s Tony Cornell, who from 1952 and 2004 was Britain’s most diligent parapsychologist… and what he uncovered.

15:30 – 16:45 ALL THE FEAR OF THE FAIR Edward Carey, Edward Parnell, Elf Lyons. A new British Library Tales of the Weird collection edited by Ghostland author Edward Parnell has brought back to life sixteen enchanted, nightmarish tales of circus, spectacle and sideshow. Step right up if you dare as he is joined on stage by comedian and clown Elf Lyons and playwright and novelist Edward Carey, author of The Iremonger trilogy and Edith Holler, the tale of brilliant 12-year-old Edith who is cursed to never leave her family's tumbledown theatre.

17:15 – 18:30 A DECENDING CHILL Joe Hill, Keith Rosson and V. Castro with Lisa Tuttle. As the evening closes in around the British Library, our horror writers emerge. On rare visits from the US we have Joe Hill and Keith Rosson, authors of the darkly shocking and fantastical new King Sorrow and Coffin Moon respectively, joined by Mexican American storyteller V.Castro, whose books draw on everything from folk tales and urban legends to sex and science fiction.

19:00 – 20:15 event to be unveiled

Monday 3 November – the Third Day

19:00 – 20:00 WORLD WIDE WEIRD : MARIANA ENRÍQUEZ AND MONA AWAD A special online-only conversation with some of the world’s finest and most unsettling authors. Live from Argentina we welcome the incomparable Mariana Enríquez, whose most recent works include Somebody is Walking on Your Grave, an extraordinary gothic journey through the world’s cemeteries, and the haunting stories of A Sunny Place for Shady People. She is joined from Canada by Mona Awad, author of cult classic novel Bunny which blended sharp satire with fairytale horror, and its brand new, wickedly intoxicating successor, We Love You, Bunny, dubbed ‘Frankenstein by way of Heathers’.