A man meets Death on the beach and boasts “Soon I will know all of your secrets.” Death’s answer is as chilling as it is banal: “I have no secrets.” The scene, set in the Middle Ages, takes place in Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal, but it could easily appear today, in a New Yorker short story or an HBO dream sequence or a particularly highbrow creepypasta. Comedy is perishable, romance is conventional, mystery is a psychological construct, but horror is forever. In this class, students will read work from contemporary and classic horror writers, including Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft. Class discussions will examine the nature of horror, both as a human experience and as a literary effect. Over the course of the class, students will complete one original horror story of their own.

Instructor: Matthew Buckley Smith

Dates: Begins Tuesday, October 14, 2025 and runs every Tuesday for six weeks

Time: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Level: Beginner and above

8 seats max

Location: Golden Fig Books, 2706 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd, Durham, NC 27707

Cost:

$615: true price

$349: subsidized price

$374, $399, $449: donate an extra $25, $50, or $100 to our scholarship fund

(Returning students receive 10 percent off).

A note on pricing: the “true price” reflects the true cost of the class, which includes paying a fair wage to our staff and instructors, rental fees for the Redbud headquarters and for the community spaces where we host our classes, website and administrative/commerce fees, outreach and advertising to spread the word about our offerings, and the coordination and administration for our community classes, which serve people who could not otherwise access creative writing. We’re not a university or a large corporation and that means we don’t have an operating budget we can rely on; we’re proud to be a small, local, women- and minority-run business that is passionate about bringing the transformative power of the arts to our community. Your tuition helps Redbud with the critical work of keeping the arts accessible to the public. 

We also offer students a chance to donate to our scholarship fund. At check-out, you will be given the option of choosing a donor price. If you choose one of these prices, the extra $25, $50, or $100 will go towards scholarships for students who would not be able to afford our classes otherwise. Thank you in advance for considering making a contribution to inclusivity and access!

Pick the price that feels right for you and if you can’t afford to pay our base price ($349), take a look at our scholarship program. We encourage you to apply if you need assistance!

Read the fine print, including our refund policy, here.