Writers from Down East to downtown Newport and beyond, including a number of Carteret Writers, submitted a cursed county’s worth of terrifying tales to the recent EPIC Carteret ghost story contest. Let me tell you, these are not children’s stories. There’s no Caspar the Friendly Ghost in this lot. They’ll test the boundaries of your comfort zone as the best ghost stories always have, exploring the dark forces that disrupt our lives. Using language that captivates and challenges, these writers ask us to confront our fears and, in doing so, grow stronger as individuals and as a community. On January 11, 2024, the first new moon of the new year, you’ve got a chance to do just that.
From 6pm until 8pm at the Morehead City Depot, EPIC Carteret will be hosting Winter Hauntings, an evening of ghost stories, to celebrate the top three stories and their writers and to announce the winner of the $100 cash prize. Our selected stories, representing the wide spectrum of Carteret County’s talent, will be dramatically delivered by skilled performers from the Carteret Community Theater, who will breathe life into these eerie tales.
In addition to the original ghost stories, our own Carteret Writers vice-president Emily Carter and her husband John will be performing a murder ballad in the traditional style as Chick ‘N’ Biscuit, and everybody’s favorite Pamlico County poet Malaika King Albrecht will share verses from her evocative collection “Catalog of Ghosts” in her book The Stumble Fields. That’s not all, but that’s all I have time to tell you about right now because I’m planning an event. Cut me some slack, okay?
Ticket sales for the event are going to the Title Wave bookmobile, so in addition to enjoying and supporting the arts, you’ll be cultivating arts in your community. It’s a win, win, win, all the way around, so to the lovers of literature, the seekers of the supernatural, and the connoisseurs of the arts – put Winter Hauntings on your calendar for January 11. Tickets will go on sale the last week of December at epic-carteret.com.
