Christmas is traditionally a time for ghost stories, and I had great fun taking part in the digital New York Ghost Story Festival last night; if you missed it you can find a recording of the whole event here.
It was really nice to meet—albeit virtually—the host Daniel Braum, whose fiction I admire a lot, as well as the other guests C.C. Adams, Liliana Carstea, John Langan, and Farah Rose Smith. There was lots of really interesting points made about the ghost story and hauntings real and imaginary in fiction, so do give the whole thing a listen. (And I must thank CC for his kind words about Trying To Be So Quiet.)
Each of us also did a reading from a ghost story we admired: my pick was 'Lilies' by Iain Rowan. Not a traditional, Jamesian ghost story perhaps, but for me it's a beautifully written story about one of the key themes of the ghost story: the unknowability of the dead.
And on that note: happy Christmas to all readers of this blog...
