Thrills, chills, and big laughs were featured at this year’s announcement of the Varma Prizes in gothic literature. The creative writing competition, held by Dalhousie’s English Department in honour of former faculty member Devendra Varma, sent three students home with a monetary treat on Halloween.
This year’s prize ceremony, hosted in the Grawood and made possible by Dal alum William Blakeney’s generous donation, featured nine readings of student-authored pieces, ranging from the horrifying to the hilarious.
Varma judge Carrie Dawson, associate professor in English and Canadian Studies, describes the gothic tradition as “mysterious, grotesque, and fantastical,” but says that the judging panel also looked for surprising submissions that broke conventions.
Dark and stormy humour
Gothic isn’t the usual genre of choice for English and Creative Writing student and first-place winner Kate Barss. However, after receiving an honourable mention for her Varma submission last year, Ms. Barss took home the top prize for her poem “Raising the Dead” at Monday’s event.
When she thinks of gothic literature, Ms. Barss envisions the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, but she admits that her style is “less creepy and more funny.” She was inspired by the classic Casper cartoons when creating the main character of her poem and decided to offer up a teenage reinvention of everyone’s favourite friendly ghost.
Second prize went to English student Theresa Faulder for her modern horror story called “My Brown Eyed Girl.”
Frighteningly fun
Ironically, English honours student Adrien Robertson admits that he didn’t fare particularly strongly in his gothic fiction course, but his third-place story, “Collections,” featured many of the traditional gothic tropes that he learned in class.
“Halloween is probably my favourite holiday,” says Mr. Robertson, adding that he is drawn to criminal fiction and darker storylines in his creative writing.
“Judging this prize is great fun,” says Dr. Dawson, “because the authors clearly have so much fun writing the pieces.”
Ms. Barss’ first-place piece can be read below and current and past Varma winners can be found on the Department of English website.
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"Raising the Dead"
When my son has been dead sixteen years I start noticing changes in his behaviour. He’s started coming home late, smelling of smoke, the cotton of his formally bleach-white sheet turned a dusty brown and singed with small, suspicious burn holes. Late at night, I hear him howling and rattling chains from his bedroom, but he only sneers at me when I appear in the doorway, bathrobe-clad, and ask him to please, keep it down. After I catch him behind the shed one afternoon with Wendy, the pretty little blonde witch from next door — sunlight shining through his translucent hands and onto her breasts; she rushes to pull her robe down over her skin when she sights me rounding the corner—I ground him. I tell him he needs supervision when his friends come over. He shrieks ghoulishly at me and tells me how I just don’t understand and I’m ruining his afterlife. I yell back that I am doing this for his own darn good and he tells me he wishes I were dead. I stand in silence, shaking my head, wondering where my friendly little ghost has disappeared to, the one who used to playfully sneak up behind me, shouting “Boo!” and laughing as he lightly tugged my hair. Still glaring, he turns from me and even though he could quietly escape, slipping like shadow through the walls, he slams the door roughly behind him—letting the whole house vibrate with the anger of his memory.
--By Kate Barss