Ferrum, VA, September 30, 2025 — Ferrum College Professors of English Lana Whited and Tina Hanlon will lead a discussion of “Scary Stories” at the Franklin County Public Library in Rocky Mount on Thursday, October 2, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. The presentation grew out of their teaching and research on literature for children and adults, including fiction with elements of mystery, horror, and dystopian themes.
Whited and Hanlon will introduce different types of scary literature for all ages, including mystery and fantasy novels, picture books, short stories, and folktales with supernatural elements, such as some of the Appalachian tales dramatized by the Jack Tale Players of Ferrum College. Teenagers and adult readers often explore their fears in horror or dystopian novels and films.
Hanlon’s remarks will include The House of Dies Drear, a young adult mystery novel by Virginia Hamilton that she discussed at the Children’s Literature Association’s annual conference in June. Whited will share insights from her research and many publications on the Harry Potter books and the dystopian Hunger Games series. Both professors created Ferrum College courses that include study of stories like these: Hanlon’s World Folktales and Literature class, and Harry Potter and the Hero Myth, which Whited is teaching this semester.
The audience will be invited to discuss why some of us enjoy being frightened by fiction and why reading scary stories can have actual benefits. Hanlon and Whited will also include some information about censorship of scary books, in anticipation of Banned Books Week next week (October 5-11), as well as resources for encouraging intergenerational reading shared by adults and children.
In October 2024 Whited and Hanlon gave a similar presentation at the Phoebe Needles Center for Lifelong Learning in Callaway. Music and Theatre student Django Burgess joined them to read “Jack and the Hainted House,” an Appalachian folktale retold by Professor Emeritus Rex Stephenson. This year Burgess and other Jack Tale Players will dramatize that tale and others during Homecoming Weekend at Ferrum College, in mainstage performances of The Jack Tale Players 50th Anniversary Celebration, October 10-12.
For the “Scary Stories” discussion on October 2, go to the second-floor community room of the Franklin County Public Library in Rocky Mount, 355 Franklin St. (franklincountypubliclibrary@gmail.com). Admission is free and registration is not required.
