Categories Collaborations, Open

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”  Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

The spirit world permeates every culture. A belief in unnatural things, immaterial beings, a hidden world of ethereal comunication, testaments to an unforgiving past that are less than real, more than just echoes of memory.

Perhaps it’s nostalgia, or fear, or a guilty conscience, or maybe there really is an invisible dead relative hiding  under the bed. Either way, we’re looking for your interpretation, be it modern or classic, of a great GHOST STORY.

 

Details

Word count: 1000-3000

Each author must complete feeesback for two others after each round of drafts.

How To Apply

Send a 150 word brief of your story to needleinthehaywritingcomp (@) gmail.com with GHOST STORIES in the header. Outline plot and characters, including the climax and / or resolution.

Commencement

You can commence as soon as the brief is approved. The first draft is due 11 Feb 2015. See schedule below.

Schedule for 2015

First draft – 11 Feb

First Feedback – 25th Feb

Second Draft – 12 March

Second Feedback – 26 March

Third Draft –  9 April

Final Feedback – 23 April