Sunday, October 23, 2011

Reading Stories


So I spent this evening reading a handful of my own stories aloud, trying to pick one for a public reading on Halloween. On Monday October 31st I'm appearing with Adam Nevill and David Moody at an event in Warwick Arts Centre. We're each doing a reading, which will be followed by a short Q&A.

I didn't want to read a novel extract because I prefer to read something in its entirity at these things; however, I only have a reading slot of around 15 minutes, so this means whatever story I chose had to be short. I hate choosing stories for public readings; I always get lost in my own thought process and worry to much about which tale to do.

Tonight I read out 3 or 4 tales and finally made a decision - the story I plan to read at the event is called "Down", and it's a traditional style spooky story about a group of schoolkids on an expedition to a local underground cave. Rather than read something experimental or psychologically disturbing, I thought I'd go with an old-school slow-burn scare. Hopefully it'll be perfect for Halloween...and hopefully it'll creep out the audience so much that they're terrified to walk home in the dark.

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