NB: To make the most of Writing Dark Romance: From Spice to Sentiment with Charlotte Baker, please ensure that you book your place for both sessions on Thursday 9 and 16 May.

These session will also address the intersection of dark romance with other genres such as crime, horror and cosy romance.

Dark romance is a subgenre of romance novels with darker themes and mature content. These stories often come with content warnings, morally-gray characters and plots riddled with trauma and violence.

The aim of these sessions will be to establish an understanding of the genre and its current place in the market, as well as working through the tropes, character developments, use of atmosphere and spice.

Both sessions will feature writing activities that will help develop your writing skills for new projects and work in progress.

Please note these sessions may include explicit content that participants may find ‘spicy’.

If you have any accessibility requirements, please directly get in touch with us at pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk

Charlotte Baker is an author, associate lecturer, and PhD student with an interest in crime and horror and has over fifty publications. Charlotte spends her time with family, drinking coffee, walking, and conversing with the various monsters that float around her imagination.

Connect with Charlotte via X (formerly Twitter) @CharHorrorFan

• Booking is essential. Pen to Print and our partners reserve the right to remove participants who are found not to have booked a place for a session

• We encourage all participants to keep their cameras on during the session

• Pen to Print and our partners reserve the right to remove participants who are disruptive to a session

• Pen to Print reserves the right to cancel, delay or postpone the event for any reason, including adverse weather conditions, an emergency situation or unforeseen or unavoidable circumstances out of its reasonable control. In such cases, the event organiser will endeavour to inform participants as quickly as is possible