The Architecture of a Haunted House: A Horror Craft Intensive with Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Date: Thursday, October 23, 2025

Time: 12:00-2:00pm AKT

Format: Virtual (Zoom)

Price: $40 for Members | $50 for Non-Members

Description:

This fiction and literary horror intensive will look at the enduring literary legacy of the haunted house. Through thematic readings, discussions, and generative writing exercises, writers will harness the narrative power of the haunted house and sharpen craft tools like character development, tension in dialogue, place writing, emotional stakes building, and allegory — all tools with practical narrative uses beyond the haunted house. We will look at work by Carmen Maria Machado, Shirley Jackson, Rivers Solomon, and more. There will be several multi-step writing exercises throughout the class with opportunities to share work, but there will not be formal feedback. Even if you are newer to horror or don’t think the genre is for you, any fiction writer can learn a lot from the haunted house.

This course is open to members and non-members.

About the Instructor: 

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. Her queer horror novelette Helen House was named one of the Best LGBTQ Books of 2022 by NBC News. She is the managing editor of Autostraddle, an assistant fiction editor at Foglifter, and the former managing editor of TriQuarterly. Her short stories appear in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Catapult, The Offing, Joyland, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and others. Some of her culture writing can be found in The Cut, The A.V. Club, Vulture, Refinery29, and Vice, and she previously worked as a restaurant reporter for Eater NY. She has held fellowships with Tin House and Lambda Literary.