According to the Cambridge Dictionary, writer’s block is ‘the condition of being unable to create a piece of written work because something in your mind prevents you from doing it’. But what’s behind it, really? And how can we overcome it?

When I originally planned this blog, I was simply thinking of women writers who have influenced me and whom I haven’t already written about. However, once I really looked at my list, I realised that all five are best-known for their Gothic work.

World building is most commonly connected to speculative fiction, in which the writer has to create more of the environment their characters are in, as opposed to researching a real time and place.

Why are we so fascinated by haunted houses? They crop up again and again in pop culture and I feel like it’s one of the first spooky things we discover as children. Most episodes of Scooby-Doo have some form of haunted house going on, after all.

Full disclosure: I’ve studied much more poetry (reading and writing) than prose. But I always knew that the story of the Wildes was a story in prose, so I’d just have to spend years learning how to write a good book. In the most poetic way I could.

Did you know that Halloween isn’t an American invention? It actually began in Britain and Ireland as Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival that heralded the beginning of winter and the ‘darker half’ of the year.

Most of my favourite Black writers are predominantly poets and their voices are as diverse, compelling, and fascinating as you’ll find in any canon of poetry. So, here are five Black poets whose work really speaks to me.

The Master and Margarita had been on my radar for a long time as someone who loves stories about witches and the Devil.

This is not exactly an advice post, but more the ‘character rules’ I (mostly) subconsciously abide by, which can give an insight into my process and characters – and if you’re looking for tips, something here might help you too.

Marathon Man perfectly captures the 1970s Jewish experience as my father described it: a generation away from the Holocaust, but Nazis were still being brought to justice. In other words, the trauma was generational and very much had not been forgotten.

When we read the best stories, we don’t notice this delicate dance between dialogue and description. We’re consumed in the characters, the plot, the setting. But we’ve all read a book where we start flicking pages because the balance isn’t right.

There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.

The Ashkenazim have a long and dark history combined with living in Central and Eastern Europe. This has led to a rich folklore full of forests, doppelgangers, and questions over the complexity of a human soul.

Discovering the modernist and postmodernist scene was a game-changer for me: all those evocative images captured in as few words as possible. And often, these poets were just a little bit Queer.

From Charles Dickens to Daphne du Maurier, I love a quick spinechiller. Yes, I know, it’s nearly summer, but here are my six spooky short story suggestions, ideal for a skin-shivering quick read under a parasol…

Brighton Rock is intense to say the least. It may be a classic race against time thriller, but it’s also a strange, heady mix of poverty-sticken provincialism and the potential damnation of one’s eternal soul.

Why is Rebecca one of my favourite books? Well, the big twist holds up every time I read it, the protagonist’s anxieties become mine, and the atmosphere at Manderley is a heady mix of claustrophobia and lushness.