The delight of fright: Writing scary books for young people

Sam Fern is in conversation with children's author Justin Davies at the National Library of Scotland on Saturday 5 December, from 2 pm to 3 pm. The talk is called The delight of fright: Writing scary books for young people, and it's organised by the library. The two will spend the hour talking about the art of writing scary things for children and young adults, with a Q&A for the audience to follow.

Fern is an Edinburgh-based author who works across both fiction and non-fiction, and he'll be drawing on that range to talk through the cultural influences, creative motivations and social considerations that go into making scary books fun. He's written Escape Castle Dracula, an immersive Young Adult gothic puzzle adventure, and Where the Dead Live, a non-fiction journey through cultural imaginations around death and the afterlife, which was shortlisted for Children's Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2026. Between the two, he covers everything from literary monsters to ancient afterlife mythologies, so there's a good bit of ground to get through.

It's a free event, and the whole thing runs for an hour, with the conversation between Fern and Davies leading into the Q&A. You'll find it at the National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EW, on Saturday 5 December from 2 pm to 3 pm.