Oldham based writer Gaynor Jones has been chosen for an exciting (and spooky) new programme run by the Melbourne City of Literature Office.

Ghost Stories is an online writers room in which writers from UNESCO Cities of Literature share locations and landscapes haunted by history, myth, and memory — inspiring the cohort to create new work.

Over ten weeks, the writers will gather in a Zoom room, each running a session to introduce a place they believe has the potential for a ghost story. It could be a building, a landscape, a street, a ruin, or any location carrying an atmosphere of the uncanny, the historical, or the unexplained.

At the end of the programme, the writers will present their developed ideas and inspirations for feedback from the group. Crucially, Ghost Stories is designed to inspire play and creativity – it is not about producing polished work.

About Gaynor Jones

Gaynor Jones (she/her) is a writer, carer, and horror fan based in Oldham, UK. She has won a Northern Writer’s Debut Award for her short fiction and an Arts Council England DYCP grant for her novel writing. She has won first prize in several writing competitions, including Bath Flash Fiction and the Mairtín Crawford Short Story Award. She has performed her work at many spoken word nights in the North West, and as a guest of For Books’ Sake at the Edinburgh Fringe. She has taught for Comma Press, Burnley Literature Festival and Didsbury Arts Festival among others. In 2024 she was a virtual writer-in-residence for Melbourne UNESCO City Of Literature, and is currently the recipient of an Explore grant from Immersive Arts.

You can find out more about the writers joining Gaynor on the programme below…

Amanda Block is a writer based in Edinburgh, where she completed a master’s degree in creative writing. Drawing on myths and fairy tales as starting points, she has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Mslexia Short Story competition. Her debut novel, The Lost Storyteller (2021), was a Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month, and her second, The Haunting of Hero’s Bay, followed in 2025.

Anna Kate Blair is a writer based in Melbourne. Her debut novel, The Modern, was published by Scribner in 2023, and her essays, short stories and poems have appeared in publications including Meanjin, Landfall, Cordite Poetry Review and Good Weekend.

Awder Osman is an artist and writer based in Slemani, holding master’s degrees in the arts of war and genocide, and in graphic techniques, from Tehran University. His work, exploring war memory and mythology, has been shown in more than ninety exhibitions across nine countries. He is the author of several books, including Sewnma (2012) and Graphic Art (2026).

Dmetri Kakmi is a writer based in Melbourne and the author of The Woman in the Well, The Door and Other Uncanny Tales and Mother Land, the latter shortlisted for the 2008 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. With over 30 years in publishing, including 15 as a senior editor at Penguin Books, his short fiction has appeared widely in anthologies.

Liene Millere is a writer based in Tukums and a member of the Tukums Writers’ Association. In 2025 she placed in several short prose competitions, including Tukums Prose Fermentation and the Kurzeme Prose Recital. Her debut novel, Veļu laika mistērija (The Ghost Time Mystique), was published in October 2025, alongside short stories in various anthologies and literary journals.

Margaret Meyer is a writer based in Norwich. Her 2023 debut novel, The Witching Tide, inspired by the East Anglian witch hunt of 1645–7, became an international bestseller. It was shortlisted for the 2023 East Anglian Book Award and named a best historical novel of the year by Waterstones, the Sunday Times, NPR and the New York Times.

Sofie Morin is a writer based near Heidelberg, working at the German Cancer Research Centre alongside her writing. She won the Heidelberg Author Prize in 2023 and the erostepost Salzburg Prize in 2024, and has published several recent books, including Liebeleien mit Wuchsformen (2024) and Nachtschatten im Frauenhaarmoos (2025).

Taya Naydenko is a poet, writer and journalist based in Odesa. She turned to journalism and literary writing in 2015, later joining the newspaper Odesskaya Zhizn. Her poetry collection Everything Is Given appeared in 2019, and her wartime writing addresses gender, identity and life under conflict, including the ongoing work A Ukrainian Women’s Novel.