In partnership with The Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies and showcasing the Creative Excellence of the Manchester Metropolitan University English Department, the Festival of Research invites you to join us for a Q&A and chat with award-winning author Andrew Michael Hurley, followed by a screening of his novel Starve Acre (2019), now a major film.

Andrew Michael Hurley is a novelist and short-story writer of disturbing Folk horror set in and around Lancashire and Yorkshire. His first book, The Loney, won the 2015 Costa First Novel Award and the 2016 British Book Industry awards for Debut Novel and Book of the Year. His second book, Devil’s Day, was published in 2017 and went on to jointly win the 2018 Royal Society of Literature Encore Award for best second novel.

This event showcases the 2023 feature film adapted from Andrew’s novel Starve Acre, and directed by Daniel Kokotaljo (Apostasy, Myra) and starring Matt Smith (House of the Dragon, Last Night in Soho, Doctor Who) and Morfydd Clarke (Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings).

Andrew’s latest novel, Barrowbeck, is released in October 2024.

Join Andrew and Dr Eleanor Beal (Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies) for an afternoon of rural isolation, turmoil and unearthed horror!

Praise for Andrew Michael Hurley and StarveAcre:

*** Hurley’s feel for landscape as a defining characteristic of horror must count as a large part of what made his 2014 debut The Loney so successful. If anything, Starve Acre demonstrates an evolution and concentration of his ability to summon a world divided and defined by the uncanny. *** (The Guardian)

*** A physiological fantasia … vividly alive *** (The Sunday Times)

*** Hurley has a fine talent for evoking the menace of his northern landscapes; places where weather, rock and trees embody an active hostility to human endeavour and comfort. *** (The Guardian)

*** Andrew Michael Hurley is writing the very best folk horror fiction out there. In that, he has no rival. *** (Revenant Journal)

*** this slow-burning chiller, unnervingly scored by Matthew Herbert, exhumes something primeval and toxic *** (BFI)

Audience: Staff and doctoral students and the public. Please note, Starve Acre has been certified as a 15 as it contains strong horror. Running time 96 minutes.