All Ghouled Up for LitFest!

Above: The Litfest team pose in costumes from Lancaster's After Dark costume hire. Photo: Jonathan Bean.

There'll be ghouls, monsters and mafiosi at litfest this year - watch out!

Lancaster's literature festival, which runs from October 16-25, features a wide range of novelists, short story writers and poets, and one of the events offers the chance to really get dressed up for your night out - as Paul Magrs, author of the Brenda and Effie series Never the Bride, Something Borrowed, Conjugal Rites and several Doctor Who novels and audio dramas, reads on Saturday October 24th at 9.30pm at the Storey Auditorium.

Magrs books are based in the seaside town of Whitby, where the ageless and mysterious Brenda keeps her bed and breakfast. Her best friend, the elderly Effie, runs a junk shop next door. Whitby's ruined abbey rests on the gateway to Hell - and it's their job to control the ghouls that find their way into town.

The event celebrates the publication of the fourth novel in the series: Hell's Belles.

The books have so many fantastic characters that litfest couldn't resist playing dress-up. The charming Alucard, the sinister Mr Danby, the glamorous waitress Jessie... there's plenty to choose from. Audiences can dress up too if they like - there will be more ideas on the litfest website at www.litfest.org

• Tickets (£7.50 and £6.00 concessions) can bebooked online at the litfest website or bought from the Lancaster Visitor Information Centre by calling 01524 582394.