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Scary Stories

Scary Stories is a storytelling and reading series held in late October in the Victorian Lounge of Dalhousie University’s Shirreff Hall. Despite Shirreff Hall’s alleged haunting by the ghost of Penelope, series attendance regularly reaches venue capacity. The event is free to attend.

On October 30, 2024, Scary Stories featured horror writers Brittni Brinn, Elliott Gish, and Tiffany Morris in the Victorian Lounge of Shirreff Hall (Dalhousie University, Halifax).

The event was free to attend, open to all, and presented in partnership with Dalhousie Libraries.

On October 30, 2023, Scary Stories returned from a three-year hiatus to feature veteran storytellers Cindy Campbell-Stone, Dan Conlin, and Steve Vernon in the Victorian Lounge of Sherriff Hall (Dalhousie University, Halifax).

The event was free to attend, open to all, and presented in partnership with Dalhousie Libraries.

On October 24, 2019, Scary Stories featured storytellers Cindy Campbell-Stone, Liz Newkirk, and Steve Vernon.

On October 25, 2018, Scary Stories featured storytellers Cindy Campbell-Stone, Dan Conlin, Shirley Godfrey, and Josh MacDonald. They were followed by an open mic for chilling-but-true tales.

Partner

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is grateful to Dalhousie Libraries for their partnership in realizing this event series.

Dalhousie University Libraries

1113 Marginal Road

Halifax, NS B3H 4P7

902 423 8116

contact@writers.ns.ca

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The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is based in Kjipuktuk, in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship,” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties do not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognize Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations.

© Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, 2025. All rights reserved.

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Recommended Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) recommends that participants in any given workshop have similar levels of creative writing and / or publication experience. This ensures that each participant gets value from the workshop⁠ and is presented with information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage. The “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the following definitions used by WFNS.

  • New writers: those with less than two years’ creative writing experience and/or no short-form publications (e.g., short stories, personal essays, or poems in literary magazines, journals, anthologies, or chapbooks).
  • Emerging writers: those with more than two years’ creative writing experience and/or numerous short-form publications.
  • Early-career authors: those with 1 or 2 book-length publications or the equivalent in book-length and short-form publications.
  • Established authors: those with 3 or 4 book-length publications.
  • Professional authors: those with 5 or more book-length publications.

Please keep in mind that each form of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and writing for children and young adults) provides you with a unique set of experiences and skills, so you might consider yourself an ‘established author’ in one form but a ‘new writer’ in another.

For “intensive” and “masterclass” creative writing workshops, which provide more opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback, the recommended experience level should be followed closely.

For all other workshops, the recommended experience level is just that—a recommendation—and we encourage potential participants to follow their own judgment when registering.

If you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca