Bog People: Folk Horror with A.K. Blakemore and Salena Godden

Programmed by National Centre for Writing

Ten authors unleash dark and delirious short stories in Bog People, a new anthology of folk horror that celebrates British working-class culture and history. The collection features original work from some of the UK’s most compelling literary voices: A.K. Blakemore, Daniel Draper, Emma Glass, Mark Colbourne, Mark Stafford, Hollie Starling, Jenn Ashworth, Natasha Carthew, Salena Godden and Tom Benn.

Join contributors A.K. Blakemore and Salena Godden in conversation with host and fellow contributor Tom Benn, for a conversation about the eerie allure of folk tales — how they unsettle, unearth, and endure – and why working-class writers may be best placed to recognise the real monsters haunting our green and pleasant land.

This event is followed by book sales and signing with The Book Hive.

Tickets: £12

Salena Godden

Salena Godden's debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death (2021) won the Indie Book Awards for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. Her new full poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury and literary childhood memoir Springfield Road - A Poets Childhood Revisited were published in May 2024.

A.K. Blakemore

A.K. Blakemore is a poet and novelist based in North Essex.

Her novels include The Manningtree Witches (Granta, 2021) – winner of the Desmond Elliot Prize for Best Debut Novel, and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and Society of Authors Ondaatje Prize – and The Glutton (Granta, 2023), shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Her full-length poetry collections are Fondue (Offord Road Books, 2018) and Humbert Summer (Eyewear, 2015).

Her work has been widely published and anthologised, appearing in Poetry Review, The London Review of Books, The Guardian and The White Review, among others.

Tom Benn is an award-winning author, screenwriter and Associate Professor from Stockport. His first novel, The Doll Princess (Cape), was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Portico Prize, and longlisted for the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger. His other novels include Chamber Music (Cape) and Trouble Man (Cape). He won runner-up prize in the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, and his essays and fiction have appeared in Granta and the Paris Review. He won the BFI’s iWrite scheme for emerging screenwriters. His first horror film, Real Gods Require Blood, premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the BFI London Film Festival. His fourth novel, OXBLOOD (Bloomsbury), was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the CWA Gold Dagger, and won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award.