Harrowing Tales
Harrowing Tales: An Iowa Youth Writing Project Fiction Workshop
Age group: Teens
Sundays: 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm
7 sessions: September 11, September 18, September 25, October 2, October 9, October 16, October 23 (final event on October 23rd at 1:00 pm)
Location: The Haunted Bookshop, 203 North Linn Street (map)
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
—H. P. Lovecraft
Ghosts, ghouls, and goblins; conspiracy, jealousy, and insanity; thunderous weather, dark cobwebbed corridors, bloody bladed implements, and unspeakable horrors—all are well known tropes of Gothic fiction. Though scary stories existed long before Horace Walpole created the genre with The Castle of Otranto, Gothic tropes and modes have mutated and permeated every art form, from poetry and literature to paintings and sculptures to film and video games, and have been set everywhere from muggy Madrid to the cragged Carpathians, from fog-shrouded London to the coast of Maine, from ancient Egyptian tombs to the unfathomable reaches of outer space. In this program, you will write your own story of suspense and terror, weaving a dark narrative of madmen, monsters, and murderers to snare your readers’ imaginations, and leave them shivering when the lights go out. These stories will be published in book form and available at a final event on October 23rd, just in time for Halloween.
This program is absolutely free to participants, and enrollment is limited, so sign up now! Got questions? Email theteam@iywp.org or call us at 319-804-9979.
—IYWP thanks its fantastic partner the Haunted Bookshop for making “Harrowing Tales” a reality—