Horror in the Howgills Book Festival

Nine acclaimed authors, experts in the art of making flesh creep and spines tingle, are gathering here at Midsummer.

• Johnny Mains – Master of Ceremonies
• Andrew Michael Hurley
• Lucie McKnight Hardy
• Mark Morris
• Jonny Davidson
• Jeremy Dyson
• Priya Sharma
• Samantha Lee Howe
• Ray Russell

Andrew Michael Hurley

Beginning with his acclaimed 2018 debut novel The Loney, the English writer Andrew Michael has spooked readers with his tales of strange rural communities! (Hopefully Andrew is not researching in Sedbergh). His publisher bills him as ‘the master of menace’, Stephen King is a big fan, and the film version of his third novel, Starve Acre, starring Morfydd Clark from The Rings of Power and ex-Doctor Who Matt Smith, has been shocking audiences across the US and the UK this year.

 Lucie McKnight Hardy

Following on from her impressive debut novel Water Shall Refuse Them  (2019), The Dead Relatives short-story collection confirms the author’s reputation in the field of literary horror. The title story is a miniature gothic novel with a sensibility reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor, yet set in rural Wales in the early 1960s. Most of the shorter stories might be described as domestic horror, painful, sometimes searingly memorable, they make for uncomfortable reading.

Mark Morris

‘Mark Morris is one of the finest horror writers at work today.’ Mark has written and edited almost forty novels, novellas, short story collections and anthologies. His recent work includes three official movie tie-in novelizations and the anthologies New Fears (winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology) and New Fears 2 and many more. That Which Stands Outside is his horror novel inspired by Nordic folklore. After Todd Kingston rescues Yrsa Helgerson from muggers, their resulting friendship quickly develops into a romance. Todd accompanies her back to her childhood home, where an isolated Todd finds himself caught up in a terrifying battle, one which possibly threatens the future of the world itself.

Jonny Davidson

Production editor for the British Library and horror aficionado.

Jeremy Dyson

Jeremy is best known as the co-creator and co-writer of the multi-award-winning comedy show The League of Gentlemen. Aside from The League he was co-creator/writer of the BAFTA-nominated comedy drama Funland and the Rose-d’or winning all female sketch show Psychobitches. His play Ghost Stories, co-written with Andy Nyman was nominated for an Olivier award, and has enjoyed three separate West End runs since debuting in 2010, together with international productions. The film version of Ghost Stories, written and directed by Andy and Jeremy won the Fangoria Chainsaw Award for best debut feature in 2019.

In addition, Jeremy has worked as script editor on many award-winning TV comedies including The Armstrong and Miller Show, Grandma’s House, The Wrong Mans, Bad Education, Tracey Ullman’s Show, The Curse and We are Ladyparts. He has also written for Killing Eve and (with Andy Nyman) Good Omens 2.

Jeremy has published a number of books of short stories, including Never Trust a Rabbit, The Cranes that Build the Cranes (which won the Edge Hill award for short fiction), and The Haunted Book, together with a novel, What Happens Now. A new novel, The Warlock Effect co-written with Andy Nyman was published by Hodder and Stoughton in April 2023

Priya Sharma

“Priya Sharma, a doctor from the UK, has been writing and publishing short stories for over a decade. She’s extremely skillful in creating characters with whom we can empathize – no matter their deeds – leading her readers down roads of beauty and horror. I especially love her award-winning novelette ‘Fabulous Beasts,’ a perfect piece of storytelling.” – Ellen Datlow, Best Horror of the Year series

“Priya Sharma is a consummate storyteller. She writes from the heart, with passion, warmth and authority. Her stories, focusing largely on familial relationships and traditions, brim not only with ideas but with humanity, and her characters are so vividly and exquisitely wrought that they seem to live and breathe beyond the confines of the page. Like Stephen King and Alice Munro, she has the ability to convey so much in prose that is concise, elegant and unfussy, and as a result her stories offer you the best of both worlds: they are both instantly accessible and exhilaratingly profound.” – Mark Morris, Author of The Obsidian Heart Trilogy and Editor of New Fears

Samantha Lee Howe – USA today best selling author

Samantha Lee Howe began her professional writing career in 2007 and has been working as a freelance writer for small, medium and large publishers ever since. She is a multi-award winning screenwriter and a USA Today Bestselling author. In June 2020, Samantha signed a three-book deal with One More Chapter for her explosive spy thriller trilogy, The House of Killers (Book 1 The House of Killers), Kill Or Die (Book 2) and Kill A Spy (Book 3) were all released in 2021. Pitched as Killing Eve meets Jason Bourne this is a nerve shredding, enemies to lovers tale that is simmering with obsession and espionage.

Samantha lives in South Yorkshire with her husband, Historian, Writer and publisher, David J Howe and their cat Skye. She is the proud mother of a lovely daughter called Linzi.

Samantha is currently working on a new book which will be out in 2024.

Ray Russell

Russell runs the award-winning Tartarus Press with Rosalie Parker and is an editor, author, illustrator, songwriter, and film maker besides!

About Ray  Russell’s new novel, The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ :
“The biographer of Robert Aickman and founding member of the Friends of Arthur Machen society has produced a modern, wonderfully strange story that admirers of both those earlier authors should love.”   Lisa Tuttle, The Guardian

“Deftly blends mystery with contemporary bibliophilia, snarky online discussion groups, hallucinatory time-slips and a pervasive sense of the uncanny.” Washington Post

Johnny Mains

Johnny Mains is an award-winning editor, best known for the anthologies he edits for The British Library. His first book was the award-winning ‘Back from the Dead‘: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories (2010). He created ‘Dead Funny‘: Horror Stories by Comedians with Robin Ince (2014).

2017 saw the first of two books on ‘lost’ short stories by Victorian female authors. This in turn led the British Library to contact Mains, and so far he has edited four anthologies for them, all to critical acclaim.

His latest anthology The Dead of Summer features reprints of ‘lost’ stories about May Day and Midsummer, the perfect book for this festival!

Folk Horror Story Competition

The local winner gets their story read in front of an audience!

Further details of the individual events and the competition will be posted here later

Come along and join the fun, panels, author talks, public Q&A sessions, a film, loads of food and drink and most importantly your favourite authors will be around all weekend so you will have a chance for that selfie or burning question. See you there?

Save £10 with a ticket for all the sessions on both Saturday and Sunday for £50 – book here

Tickets will be available ‘on the door’ and can also be purchased online from www.trybooking.com/uk/eventlist/booktownfestival  or by following the links on our events list. Tickets purchased through TryBooking involve an additional 15p per ticket booking fee.

Ticket prices

• Ticket for all the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions 10 am to 4 pm: £20 – book here
• Ticket for Saturday’s Horribly Entertaining Soiree including a Pizza Picnic Supper 7 pm to 11 pm: £25  – book here
• Ticket for all the Sunday morning and afternoon sessions 10:30 am to 3 pm: £15 – book here
• Season ticket for all sessions on Saturday and Sunday £50 – book here

The festival events take place in the People’s Hall, Howgill Lane, LA10 5DQ .

The People’s Hall has a small free car park but if full there is nearby street parking, and a short walk away are the pay and display car parks in Joss Lane near the Sedbergh Information Centre and on Loftus Hill to the south of the town.