It is commonly understood that along with a birth, a death, and a divorce, moving house is one of life’s most stressful events. I had no close, personal experience of the first three but I was ready to risk the last, as the time had come to move on. Feeling the familiar impulse to start looking over my shoulder once again, I sold my place of solitary refuge and was about to flee to the other end of the country. A writer, always hoping to add one more chapter to my own tale, it was entirely fitting that I was here, almost ready to leave, boxing up my treasured books.
As I picked up the last dust-covered book and placed it carefully into the box, I found myself considering that night so long ago. I sat surrounded by cardboard vessels filled with printed tales to delight and horrify, but of all the stories I have written and read, none made such an indelible mark on my life as the story I became a part of some 40 years ago. It seemed like only days back that the terrible events unfolded around me, although a lifetime had withered and died in those same hours and minutes.
No, I was not the same person who had embarked on my journey all those years previously. The mirror that once reflected a face full of hope and promise, now framed a weary, ageing visage with eyes clouded by fear and defeat. I checked the book I had just placed into the box, almost as if it would reveal a secret to me or point me to a destiny I had yet to reach. It was a collection of poetry by Philip Larkin. I knew the poems it contained. One of them, Mr Bleaney, beginning ‘This was Mr Bleaney’s room’, reminded me of the landlady’s words to me when I’d had arrived in Paradise Street on that fateful day, 40 years ago.
It had been an uneventful journey to reach my destination that day. I had taken the train in the morning and then found myself, by means of a newly purchased map, rounding the corner into Paradise Street, the location housing the address I sought. The street was ordinary enough; perhaps it was a little narrow but otherwise a quiet and orderly area. I strode with a spring in my step. Newly qualified as a schoolteacher and having commenced writing my first novel with an advance from a publisher, I felt that life offered me a wealth of treasures to uncover and even the wintry wind at my collar did not unduly irk me. The map flapped in the wind as I tried to check my location was correct and, as I did so, I skidded on a patch of hidden ice.
“Bugger!” I exclaimed, hurriedly looking around to check that no one had spotted my ignominious slide. I regained my composure, glad I had not fallen to the wet ground, and stopped walking. I looked up and down the long street. I smiled at the irony of the street name, ‘Paradise.’ This was a far from accurate description. It was simply an ordinary street, containing the usual rows of houses and shops, some cheerful and some dreary, all hunched up together as if comforting each other against the cold. One building, however, stood out from the rest. It looked as if it belonged to another time and seemed to assert its own individual character on the street. It was a shopfront with a classical-style protruding glass window, divided into small panes. The mullions, sill, cornices, and fascia were all painted in maroon and the display inside showcased rows and rows of books, of eclectic style and genre, almost beckoning the customer inside. Despite the wintry sun, the interior looked old and dark, yet the books gave the shop colour and vibrancy and I was intrigued. I checked the map for my location as I knew the address I sought was in this street. I checked the address again. It seemed that the address of the flat I planned to view that day was right here in this bookshop.
There was no one in sight to ask and as the weather was so cold, I decided that my best chance was to go inside the bookshop and see if there was anyone who could shed some light on the situation. I peered at the sign above the door. In large gold-leaf letters it read, ‘Eden Books’. Underneath, in smaller lettering, it read, ‘Proprietor, Mr Carstairs Nile, Esq.’. I tried the door and it swung open easily, caught by the wind, and precipitating the jingle of the bell above the door to alert the assistant to customers.
“Excuse me,” I said, timidly, “is there anyone around who can help me? I’m supposed to look at a flat here but the address seems to match this bookshop.”
A flustered-looking woman, middle-aged and shabbily dressed, came hurrying into the shop. “Are you Mr Fairfax?” she inquired. “Because you have got the right place, it’s just that there is a side door leading into the flats and it’s hidden from the street if you don’t know the area. I must have forgotten to mention it. Do come through. I’m Janet Underworth, the landlady, technically. I live in the flat at the back and the one you’re after is upstairs.” She made fast beckoning motion and had already started to walk away. “Come through, I’ve got the keys and full approval to show you around.”
I paused. “Who is Mr Nile then? Does he own the bookshop?”
“To be honest, not many people ever get to meet Mr Carstairs in person. Oh, sorry, I mean Mr Nile. I always call him Mr Carstairs, on account of mistaking his Christian name for his surname when I first met him. It sort of stuck.” She paused, as if aware of talking too much, but continuing anyway. “So, he owns the bookshop, yes, and also the flats really but because he is always travelling so much, picking up new stock and so forth, I keep the place for him and act as Landlady. I work in the shop, look after the tenant upstairs and make sure all his affairs here are in order. He’s not a marrying type, so, as you can imagine, the place needs a woman to keep things ticking over. Come on then!” She beckoned for me to cross the threshold properly and go after her.
I followed her through the bookshop, weaving my way between the dusty shelves and dangling oriental lampshades. I was an avid reader, naturally, given my dual professions, and I had literally hundreds of books of all types and subjects. But this bookshop seemed stocked to the brim with tomes I would be happy to spend hours poring over. There was hardly room to pass between the shelving and as I negotiated them, somehow one or two of them fell despite my care, and I stooped to replace them. The dusty and leathery aroma filled my nostrils and I reflected that like the name of the street, this to me was paradise, of a sort.
Ever since I was a child, it was almost a foregone conclusion that I would be destined to become either a writer or a keeper of books. I had been obsessed with them, devouring their contents as soon as I could read, being transported to other worlds and far off lands in my head. I qualified as a teacher to ensure that I had a sensible career with which to provide myself and a future family an income but I had chosen English because I felt I could also imbue other young minds with the same love of literature. I found my first job in this small and insignificant town and had come to find a place to live before the start of term, as the summer shifted into autumn, and the days brought with them an unexpected, premature cold snap.
“This was Mr Hogarth’s room,” said the landlady, “he stayed here the whole time he worked in the town until they took him away.”
“Was that a long time then?” I enquired.
“Ooh, he came here when the flat was done up new. When I took over as a landlady here and had my flat downstairs, this one wasn’t in any fit state to let really. But Mr Hogarth, he was happy to take it and do it up a bit.”
I glanced around the flat. I felt as if the room’s own mood was overwhelming me. A dour, melancholy spirit, a pulsating, lacklustre sigh seemed to heave from every corner. I breathed in the damp, musty aroma. I noted the faded, frayed curtains, and the lack of care apparent in the rest of the upholstery; a torn sofa, faded nets, moth-eaten bedding piled up. It was in its own way, a relic, exuding a testament to an age of monochrome. The landlady, like the accommodation she had to offer, reeked of the past and seemed to carry with her the room’s same taint of neglect. Small clues left around the flat, many such cheap trophies from the same seaside town, a couple of photographs, a few scattered newspaper articles in drawers, revealed that he was not a man who had ever ventured far. However, she seemed entranced by her erstwhile tenant.
“Oh, he stayed here for such a long time,” she chattered on, “even” – and here she leaned towards me conspiratorially – “even afterhe passed. It was more than a week he lay,” she spoke in a whisper, reverentially.
I looked again at the frayed curtains, the holes, and the stairs. Even the furniture was decades behind its time; cheap and never chic. Behind the door was a single coat hook. The landlady continued to chatter, her words fading in and out of my consciousness as I surveyed the box-like surroundings.
“Oh, he was such a lovely, helpful man. He took such great care of this place you know. He did wonders for my little patch of land. Course, it really all belongs to Mr Carstairs but he never comes and it’s as good as mine.”
She drew back the decrepit netting, even as I marvelled at her obliviousness. Daylight broke into the murky gloom in watery shards of sunlight, infiltrating areas that appeared not to have seen the light of day, possibly for decades. Insects retreated like vampires to their coffins, woodlice and stray spiders scurried to the corners and under the floorboards as the day invaded.
I peered at the aforementioned patch of land out the window. The sight that greeted me was not altogether unexpected, given the nature of the room and its caretaker. The ‘patio’, if it could be called that, was a concrete crazy paving riddled with weeds slyly springing up between the cracks. The ‘land’ backing onto this overgrown area had long since defied any description connected with the word ‘lawn’. Reeds of grass shot skyward as high as a seven-year-old and scattered about were yellowing weeds and straw and unknown plants. A rusty watering can squatted dryly in one corner and a brown-handled rake in another. I looked from room to land and back again, and the two scenes became almost interchangeable in my mind. Despite this, I turned to the landlady and spoke.
“Well,” I said, “your previous guest did stay here a long time, he obviously felt at home, so…I’ll take it.”
I was soon settled in, having moved as many of my things as I could up in suitcases hauled on and off the train and trundled through the streets. The rest I arranged to be delivered by road transport. Now, a fortnight later, I was still unpacking but the neglected room that wore such a melancholy air began to come to life. It still bore the terrible décor and murky appearance that it inherited from its predecessor but I stamped some of my own personal taste on the room and crucially, I now had my books about me.
I started the term, met my classes with the well-prepared eagerness of a new member of staff and found it to be rewarding, if exhausting, work. I was sometimes disappointed that others did not think in the same way and that my young charges in the days of my training seemed more interested in trivia, sport, and dating than the works of Dickens and Shakespeare. But there were one or two who had been genuinely interested and had shown promise. I felt I could make a difference. I even had time to continue with my own writing a little, in the happy state that I had plenty of time to fulfil my requirements for that contract as they had already liked the first ten thousand words of the manuscript I had sent.
That Friday evening, I took up my position on the sofa with a glass of whiskey and a book to read, purely for my own leisure. The weekend beckoned and I joyfully remembered that I had made plans to visit the cinema the next night, along with a very pretty and earnest young colleague named Mary Martin. In my mind, I was making the most of what life had to offer me.
As I read, I grew steadily sleepier by the glowing firelight. I was beginning to find it difficult to distinguish between what I was reading on the page and what I knew to be a reality, and I must have dozed off with vivid images of Poe’s ghostly tale haunting my dreams. I woke to find the flat in darkness and I could hear a strange, intermittent thudding sound coming from downstairs. I wondered what on earth Miss Underworth could be doing but then I remembered that she was away for the weekend. I jumped up and tried to switch the lamp on but it seemed that the light bulb had blown and I remained disorientated and in blackness. I felt around for my lighter on the old coffee table and knocked an old ashtray, which had evidently belonged to Mr Hogarth, onto the floor. Eventually grasping hold of my lighter, I flicked it with shaking hands. The flame flickered, sputtered, and died. I tried again and this time the eerie orange glow illuminated the area with a tiny light. Shapes wavered and distorted and as I tried to move across the room, I almost dropped the lighter with a start. What I thought was a phantom was only a glimpse of my own face in the looking glass above the fireplace.
Eventually, I made it to the main light switch but when I flicked it that did not yield any light. I began to feel the first prickles of panic creeping across my skin. I stood still in the darkness, aware of my own breathing becoming faster and shallower, and I had difficulty controlling my racing thoughts while I considered what to do. My eyes were growing accustomed to the blackness, so with the aid of my ailing lighter flame, I slowly began to side-step towards the door to make my way to the top of the stairs in the hall.
The long, narrow corridor beckoned, and I groped my way along it, using the wall as support and guidance. All the time I edged closer to the stairs, the dull thudding sound continued, growing more insistent with every tentative step I took. It seemed to mimic the sound of the footsteps of a slow and heavy beast, first a slide, and then a thud, repeating itself again and again, over and over, never changing pace but growing louder and more menacing as I moved towards it.
Finally, I reached the staircase, felt the bulbous wooden post of the banister and despite the failing flame and the looming shadows cast along the wall and ceiling, I stepped gingerly out. One step, two steps, holding on tightly, all the time the rhythmic thudding growing ever more insistent. At the last step, I missed my footing and dropped my lighter into the blackness with an echoing metallic clang. I breathed in. Time seemed suspended. I dared not move. The thud had stopped.
Breathing heavily and with a pounding heart, I sprinted to where I approximated the hall light to be and flicked it. It was a dim lantern but after the pitch blackness, it seemed to flood the hallway with brilliance. The light showed nothing out of place and I stood for a moment to gather my wits, then made my way through into the bookshop itself, flicking on the dull lanterns as I went, fearing an encounter with I knew not what. My imagination was in riotous overdrive, yet I tried to rationalise my thoughts.
Finally, I came to the last of the shelves in the claustrophobic little area. Before me laid an enormous pile of books, scattered about my feet on the floor, as if they had been pushed from the shelves one by one by the fingers of an invisible force. Now the hackles on my neck began to rise, and a slow chill began to spread up my spine like tiny icy footsteps along my back.
For a moment, I felt frozen to the spot but for some unfathomable reason, my first reaction was to bend and pick the books up to place them back on the shelves. As I did so, another fell or, and I had little doubt of this, was pushed, and struck me a blow in the neck. I straightened up and turned sharply; one after another of the books began to fly from their housing, lobbed at my face and head with some force. I no longer wanted to stay and tidy up. I dashed for the back of the shop and rushed up the stairs again, tripping and stumbling over my own feet in my panic and did not pause until I had re-entered my dark flat and slammed the door. Catching my breath, I fumbled for the light switch, forgetting that it had not worked before. I snapped it on and oddly this time, it lit up the room.
Glad to be back in the light, I relaxed a little, although I was still shaken. But my respite was short-lived. As my eyes met with the mirror above the fireplace, it appeared to be steamed up, and in the centre one word stood out, ‘LEAVE’.
In the few days that followed, I kept the incident to myself, trying to rationalise what had happened. But I cannot pretend that I wasn’t unsettled. The next morning, I returned to the scene of the night’s disturbance, thinking about how I might explain the scattered books to Mrs Underworth when she returned. However, the books had been placed back on the shelves. This was even more unnerving and I searched for footprints, signs of a break-in or even the remnants of some ghostly ectoplasm dripping from the shelves. But there were no signs and I began to wonder if I had imagined it all.
No more disturbances occurred for a while and I continued with life, working and developing a nice little relationship with Mary Martin. It was fun at school; snatching odd moments between classes, dodging the curious eyes of the children, making dates to see films and have dinner, ‘courting’, as they still called it in those days.
One evening, standing at my shaving mirror and preparing to meet Mary in the town, I suddenly felt an icy chill. It was not unusual to feel cold, as winter had seemed to have the country in its icy grip since September with no plans to depart but this was not caused by the weather. The shiver making my skin crawl was familiar.
I laid down my cut-throat razor but kept it close. I felt the room grow cold and my breath condensed on exhalation. It fell so silent that I could hear my own blood pumping around my body and I was aware of every organ working overtime. I began to hear creaking on the stairs, like the footsteps of someone approaching slowly whilst trying to remain hushed.
I dared not leave the bathroom but I listened as the steps seemed to move across the floor of my flat, even as the room I was in appeared to become enveloped in shadow. The bathroom began to steam up. I moved to pick up the razor blade again but it was not where I had placed it. Suddenly, I felt a sharp, stinging sensation, and watched in horror as two words appeared to be carved into the flesh of my torso, ‘GET OUT!’ The world began to spin around me and everything went black.
When I awoke, Mary and Mrs Underworth were standing over me with a cup of tea.
“Don’t talk,” said Mary, “it’s all right.”
“Just like poor Mr Hogarth,” said Mrs Underworth.
“Ssh!” said Mary and turned to me. “Doctor is on his way.”
Later, I found myself in a hospital bed, trying to piece together what had happened.
“So, you can’t remember anything?” asked the doctor.
“Not really but I didn’t do this.” I cringed, indicating my bandaged chest. “I know it sounds ridiculous but it seemed to happen by itself like someone was doing it to me.”
The man in the white coat raised his eyebrows. “Someone will be along to speak to you tomorrow,” he said, “when you feel better.”
“Overworked,” was the verdict. “Stressed and too much to do with the new school and the book.” Discussions about my ‘fragile mental health’ and ‘repressed grief from childhood leading to depressive tendencies’ had taken place, and I was cautiously released with medication. Mary promised to keep an eye on me but I noticed that her affections had cooled a little.
“Mary,” I said when she was visiting one evening, “do you believe in ghosts?” I saw her face written all over with scepticism and surprise but I proceeded to explain my experiences. “Also,” I went on, “other things have happened now that I think about it. Things I can’t explain. Just little things, like things going missing and turning up in the wrong place. And my constant lack of energy. What do you think Mrs Underworth meant by ‘just like Mr Hogarth’?”
“I don’t know, Jacob but all of those things sound like the stress the doctors talked about. I hope you’re not going mad.”
“Mary, will you stay with me tonight?” I asked tentatively. “Not like that, I’ll sleep in here but I just don’t feel entirely safe anymore, and it always seems to happen when Mrs Underworth is away.”
“All right,” she replied.
It must have been the noise that woke me around two in the morning. This time, I was able to snap the lamp on. I could hear it again, thud…thud…thud. I started to rise to wake Mary but she was already by my side.
“What is that, Jacob?” she whispered in alarm.
“That’s the noise I heard before! If we go down with a torch, I bet we will find the books being thrown about again!”
We crept down the passage and descended the stairs. My hand shook as I held the heavy torch, lighting our way into the shop. Sure enough, the books were scattered about. Mary gasped when she saw them. Slowly, I shone the torch along the empty shelves.
Suddenly, I jumped back in fear as a grim face loomed up opposite me. It was a pale, narrow face, with sharp cheekbones, aquiline features, and a high forehead. I cried out in terror!
“Good evening, Sir, Madam. I am so sorry to startle you. I just arrived from overseas. My name is Carstairs Nile.”
After that first meeting, Mr Nile stayed for a few weeks. He was charming when he conversed with us, although his tall, imposing figure always made me feel uneasy, intimidated perhaps by his not inconsiderable intellect. He seemed to glide between the bookshelves, sometimes speaking to the customers, who were rare indeed, more often reading or cataloguing his wares. Mostly, I avoided him, he seemed to keep odd hours, seldom did he move outside the shop during daylight, and as I was working again and typing up my manuscript at the weekend, I rarely crossed paths with him or Janet Underworth.
Which was why I was so surprised to see him at my door one winter evening. “Good evening,” he said, “I thought I would come introduce myself formally. I am sorry I startled you when I arrived. How are you settling in here? Is Mrs Underworth taking care of you?”
“To be honest, I don’t see her very often. I have been so busy, you see, with my work and my book, which I regret to say I am behind with. But do come in.”
“Ah. Your predecessor was also a writer. Full of energy. He loved being above the bookshop; he was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.” The deep voice lingered over every syllable.
“Was he really? Do tell me more. Mrs Underworth seemed to adore him but from what I can see, from the little trinkets he left around the place, he seems to have been a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud!”
“Ah yes. Well, he never did finish anything properly as time went on. Got somewhat depressed shall we say? Lost all his enthusiasm.”
“A shame, maybe?” I replied, warily. “Anyway, would you like a drink, sir?”
“Carstairs, please. No, I won’t keep you from your business. But if you need anything, Janet is under strict instructions.”
“Thank you, Mr Niles.” Somehow, the first-name terms seemed far too informal for such an imposing character. “There is one thing though. Did Hogarth or anyone else for that matter, ever report any disturbances around the place? In the bookshop?”
“Disturbances? No. But Mr Hogarth himself was very disturbed. Killed himself in the end, I’m sorry to say.”
“I didn’t know that. I am sorry to hear it. Well, thank you for visiting me. Next time, do stay for a drink.”
“Good evening to you,” he said once again.
I was taken with his formal tone. As with much of the building itself, he seemed to belong to a past age, yet he did not suffer the sense of neglect that I had encountered when I first arrived there. However, about Mr Hogarth, I was intrigued. Maybe there was something of his restless spirit still stalking the flat?
The following day, I went to the library. I did not really know what I expected to find but I scoured relentlessly through all the old newspaper reports on record. Eventually, I came to a small headline detailing the suicide of Mr James Hogarth, a horror writer of small fame locally, who had been found dead in his apartment above Eden Books in Paradise Street. He had cut his wrists with a razor blade. Once a promising writer, he had gradually declined into a mental breakdown, believing that characters from his own stories had come to life and were out to kill him. According to the reports, it seemed that he had given up writing and become reclusive, too afraid to leave the flat, and declining into a form of schizophrenia until his death.
It was certainly intriguing but what really leapt out at me was the manner of his death. A razor blade! My thoughts began to stir in my brain and despite trying to suppress such irrational fantasy, I could not help but wonder.
“So, you think Mr Hogarth is haunting this flat and picking on you because he’s jealous of your writing? Oh, come on!” scoffed Mary. “Now I dothink you’re crazy.”
“Mary, think about it. I can’t explain what happened, and I am feeling so tired, I feel like I’m diminishing slowly. I can’t work properly, I’ve been off work for ages, I’ve only just gone back to school and I can’t concentrate. It’s like he’s possessing me or something.”
“But there have been no more ‘hauntings’? No more bumps in the night?” Her voice oozed scepticism. “Surely your landlady or that owner person, Nile, isn’t it? Surely, they would have noticed it by now. I think we can explain it; you got tired, stressed and ill. You were depressed, moving house and all, the stress got to you, and you had a breakdown.”
“But Mary, there was no reason for it, not really.”
“Your mother died when you were young and you never got over it properly. That’s what they all talked about with you. You’re getting better, we just have to keep an eye on you.” Mary’s business-like manner upset me.
“I got over it! I grieved when I was a child!” I protested. “It’s not something within me; it’s something outside of me.”
But Mary remained unconvinced and not that sympathetic. She left earlier than usual that evening and I felt forlorn. I poured myself a whiskey and stared into the fire.
The whiskey began to be a regular addition to my evenings. Instead of working on my book or preparing schoolwork, I would pour a drink and then another; just enough to send me into a stupor that enabled me to sleep. But I did not sleep soundly. Every night after Mr Nile left again, the noises would begin. The thudding and now whispering, and a feeling of fingers lightly brushing my cheek. I could not distinguish between work and sleep. I heard voices, and the foggy nights seemed to infiltrate my room. Mary had abandoned me; I was a drunk with no ambition in her view. I was failing at my school job and on probation and I missed the first deadline for my book. I could hardly find the energy to raise my head from my pillow these days. By February, I felt as if I had lost the will to live.
It was in the early hours of a Sunday night that I heard the noises again downstairs and I felt I’d had enough. With a final surge of the energy I had left, I hauled myself out of bed and across the room. I made my way downstairs as quietly as I could, determined in my almost insane state, to find out what it was once and for all.
It all happened so fast, and yet it felt like a warped, slow-motion film. I took a step forward into the back of the shop, and with one swift movement, an horrific, cadaverous face was thrust into mine.
“Get out! Now!” the monster hissed. I realised with horror that this withered, consumptive vision was the face of Mr Hogarth.
I screamed and ran forward. But what confronted me next was far worse. I saw the dark figure of Mr Carstairs Nile hovering above the ground over the prostrate body of an unknown victim, with Mrs Underworth looking on salaciously. Nile appeared to be draining the body, not of blood but in an equally vampiric manner, of energy and life. The body shrank and became empty, almost as if its innards were melting away, leaving only the shell. The predators turned and fixed me with malevolent, red-eyed stares. I had no doubt now that I would be next.
They began to move towards me, and in my sickness and horror, I felt my legs buckle.
“Jacob,” breathed Nile, “do not fear it. If you stay, you need not die. I just need your energy to survive, as I have done all this time. It was clever of Mrs Underwood to find you; she has served me all these years, so faithfully, and in return, she lives. I fed on Hogarth and he was able to live but in the end, I needed someone younger, more vibrant. You can help me, Jacob, you can help me to live again.”
He reached out, and his iron grasp clamped upon my arm. I almost accepted defeat but then from behind us, the books began to fly from the shelves and in the confusion, a strong shove in the back propelled me forward and towards the front door. I grappled with the handle, fumbling at the lock, and as I did so, I saw behind me, reflected in the windowpane, the pale face of Mr Hogarth. “Go!” he mouthed. And I ran.
And so, packing my boxes today, once more on the move, I remembered Hogarth and Eden books, and Paradise Street. Again, the same feeling of dread swept over me. I glanced again at the poetry anthology, and as I did so, a book on the very top of the box caught my eye. It was Hogarth’s own book, the only one he had finished, a copy I had secured from a charity shop. It was titled Dark Entity and was the story of an unknown creature that stalked the centuries, surviving on the life-energy of others. I shuddered, yet I reflected that, unlike Hogarth, I did finish my books, had seen them published. I remembered Mary, though, whom I had never seen again after that night. I do not know what became of Carstairs Nile or Janet Underworth. For all I know, they might still be at Eden books, draining the energy out of more hapless victims, just enough to let them live, and in the process, crushing their hopes, dreams and ambitions. I do not know if James Hogarth will ever rest in peace.
I took one last glance at my lined and drawn face in the mirror, which I then removed from the wall and packed away. Outside, the van had arrived to take my belongings to my new destination. And so, alone, I went along the hallway and opened the front door.
First published in 2022 by Austin Macauley in The Camera Obscure by Virginia Betts.
Bio:
Virginia Betts is a tutor, writer, and actor from Ipswich. She has had three books published, The Camera Obscure (supernatural and gothic-noir stories) Tourist to the Sunand That Little Voice (both poetry collections). She has also had numerous award-winning poems and stories published both in print and online journals and magazines, with her poetry and prose being performed regularly on stage and BBC Radio. Her poetry has been described as “combining the directness of modern poetry with the musicality of traditional verse.”
Her most recent stage roles have included Kate Bush, Mary Boleyn, Elizabeth Barton, Maud Gonne and Patricia Highsmith, and she has also co-directed, produced, and written for the stage.
Burnt Lungs and Bitter Sweets is her debut novel.
Virginia is a member of The Writer’s Guild, Equity, The Poetry Society, The Wolsey Writers, The Dracula Society, and a trustee and Stanza Representative for The Suffolk Poetry Society. She writes a monthly column for the ‘Felixstowe Magazine App’ and ‘Author’s Electric’ and runs the book club at David Lloyd Gym.
Urban Pigs Press 
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