Ghosts At The Talleyrand – POSTPONED

*Please note this event has been postponed and will not take place on 18 December.

The Talleyrand in Levenshulme presents a one-off festive reading featuring ghost stories for Christmas, all written by some of the North West’s best authors and performed in near-total darkness.

The authors are Andrew Michael Hurley, Nicholas Royle, Sarah Schofield, Melissa Wan and Richard V Hirst, who is curating the evening with The Talleyrand.

Gathering around a fire to share ghost stories is a Christmas tradition with its origins in the Victorian era. The most famous writer of ghost stories, MR James, would gather friends and colleagues in his room at King’s College Cambridge late in the evening each Christmas Eve. There he would light a single candle and read a newly written ghost story. Ghosts at the Talleyrand honours this tradition by replicating that intimacy, with each of the stories being read in full by its author by just a single light in the cosy settings of The Talleyrand, a pub which was once a Victorian sign-writer’s shop.

The authors are Andrew Michael Hurley, Nicholas Royle, Sarah Schofield, Melissa Wan and Richard V Hirst, who is curating the evening with The Talleyrand.

Andrew Michael Hurley is the author of the critically acclaimed Starve Acre, Devil’s Day and The Loney, which went on to sell in 20 languages and won the Costa Best First Novel Award and Book of the Year at the British Book Industry Awards.

Nicholas Royle is the author of seven novels, including Counterparts, Saxophone Dreams, and First Novel, and three short story collections, Mortality, Ornithology and London Gothic, on Manchester’s Confingo. His latest book is White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector.

Sarah Schofield’s stories have been published by Manchester-based Comma Press and have been included in Best of British Short Stories. Her debut short story collection, Safely Gathered In, has just come out.

Melissa Wan’s stories have been published by Bluemoose Books, Dead Ink Books and Confingo Publishing, among others, and have featured in Salt’s Best British Stories series. Her latest publication is This Must Be Earth from Nightjar Press.

Richard V Hirst is an editor and award-winning writer whose books include We Were Strangers, The Night Visitors, Plunge Hill and Writing The Uncanny. Richard is one of the co-founders of Curious Tales, known for atmospheric storytelling events at venues ranging from Lancaster Castle and the Portico Library through to the pubs like the (supposedly haunted) Church Inn in Prestwich and independent bookshops like Ebb & Flo in Chorley. Richard says: “This is a line-up of some of the best writers in the business – it’s exciting to be able to bring them together in Levenshulme for a real literary Christmas treat. Making literature events like this accessible for everyone, regardless of their income, is also something I’m really excited about: this high art at low cost!”

This is a pay-what-you-can literature event with all proceeds going to a charity which supports refugees in Manchester.

Maybe pop to Bopcap Books in Levenshulme Antiques Centre over the road beforehand and pick up some Christmas shopping…