Editor’s Note: This competition has now closed.
As years go, the mere whisper of ‘2020’ will send a shiver down the spine for quite some time and, as we enter the darker months, the ghoulish season creeps upon us; Halloween! Traditionally, thought to be a Celtic holiday, in modern times it has become a night of fun to celebrate all things spooky and chilling, bringing a splash of fun and colour to our lives as the rest of the world turns dull and grey.
While the scary season starts to loom amid the gloom of this most terrible year, the usual delights of trick-or-treating and fancy dress parties have understandably been curtailed by COVID-19 restrictions and necessary social distancing measures, but East Riding Archives are bringing some spooky delight back to the season with a competition to get spines tingling!
At the start of the month, we invited all restless souls with a pen in their hand or keyboard at their fingertips to weave us a tale of terror, or story of spookiness, for the new ‘Haunting The Archives’ competition. All in good fun of course, but within the depths of the archive vaults lurks many a curious and peculiar image, shrouded in mystery, that could leave you with a chill or shudder; from which three mysterious images were chosen as the perfect inspiration for a Halloween ghost story, to get aspiring writers’ hearts racing and creativity flowing.
Those of you who have dared to enter, are now in with a chance of having your story featured as a spooky recording on our ‘Halloween Night Broadcast’ via our competition page this Halloween (Saturday 31st October) from 6pm www.eastridingarchives.blog/competitions/haunting
Be sure to check in here for your dose of fear or visit @ERArchives on Facebook or Twitter for updates and links to the stories as they get published on the night.
We’ve had entries from ages 15 – 85 and must thank everyone for getting into the spirit of things.
For those who don’t make the Soundcloud deadline, never fear because competition entries will still be accepted until 5pm, Monday 2nd November for the chance to snag an Amazon Kindle !
Olivia Northrop is a trainee on secondment to East Riding Archives, as part of a project called ‘Bridging The Digital Gap’ run by The National Archives (TNA). She came up with the idea for the ghost story creative writing competition as part of a digital access project:
“We have a wealth of strange and wonderful images here in our collections. Often I’ll be looking through them and chance upon something strange and out of context. It’s an almost magical feeling. There’s definitely something innately mysterious about archives to me.”
On how the competition came about, Olivia said:
“I’ve been developing a new Soundcloud channel for East Riding Archives and planning what kind of content to release there. I’m personally a big fan of online short horror stories called ‘creepypastas’ and ‘nosleeps’. They’re often inspired by single strange images, so the idea of ‘Haunting the Archives’ as a competition was born, and what better time to do it than Halloween?!”
If you think you can weave a weird or creepy tale for us, there is still time. Find more details here www.eastridingarchives.blog/competitions/haunting
ENTER, if you DARE!!
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