An immersive literary event – four new ghost stories performed in Levenshulme Old Library by lantern light this Christmas.

This Christmas, Levenshulme Old Library has commissioned new ghost stories from four writers for a very special atmospheric winter event.

Ghost stories at Christmas have long been an oral storytelling tradition, from tales told around the winter fire through to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This moved into the TV era with A Ghost Story for Christmas, a series of late night television films broadcast on the BBC which continue to this day.

This Christmas come and hear four brand new festive ghost stories written by some of the North West’s finest writers, each read in full at an atmospheric performance at Levenshulme Old Library, our historic former Carnegie library building in South Manchester.

The building will be dimly lit by lantern light and four separate spaces will each be allocated to one of the writers. The audience will be split into four groups and led from one room to the next, hearing each story read in full before moving on to the next room.

18+ only

Marie Crook is a writer based in Levenshulme. Her work has been published in The Real Story and The Caterpillar among others and she has performed at venues including Manchester Central Library.

Adam Farrer’s first book, Cold Fish Soup, a memoir in essays about the Yorkshire coast, won the NorthBound Book Award at the 2021 Northern Writers’ Awards. He’s also the Editor of the creative nonfiction journal The Real Story and the Writer in Residence for Peel Park, Salford.

Richard V. Hirst is a writer and editor based in Levenshulme. He was winner of the 2011 Manchester Fiction Prize and his books include Writing the Uncanny, We Were Strangers and The Night Visitors.

Melissa Wan is the author of This Must Be Earth, published by Nightjar Press. Her other short fiction has been published by a number of independent presses, including by Bluemoose Books, Dead Ink Books and Cōnfingō Publishing.

Ghosts at the Old Library is supported by Arts Council England