There will be two special guests at the January Cellar Bards live literature night in Cardigan this week.

Novelist and poet Katherine Stansfield will bring her Cornish ghosts to the stage, while David Towsey will read from his zombie cowboy fiction at The Cellar Bar on Friday, January 31, from 8pm. There will also be open mic sessions open to all.

Both the guest readers are lecturers at Aberystwyth University. Katherine’s debut novel The Visitor was published by Parthian in 2013, and her first collection of poems, Playing House, was published by Seren in October. Brought up on Bodmin Moor, Katherine is currently working on a novel about a real life murder that took place in Cornwall in 1844.

‘The Visitor’ is described as ‘a cliff top romance in the style of Daphne Du Maurier and set in a fictional village based on St Ives’.

David Towsey’s first novel, ‘Your Brother's Blood’, was published in September last year by Quercus' imprint Jo Fletcher Books. It is the first part of a trilogy - the second and third novels in the series will follow later this year and next.

Towsey describes ‘Your Brother’s Blood’ as ‘a novel that sits somewhere between a road-movie and a zombie-western’. It focuses on family relationships that come under strain – sometimes through normal situations and sometimes because of more extreme circumstances.

As always, the open mic sessions on Friday are open to writers of poetry, short stories, micro-fiction and novels. Just put your name down at the door.

If you don’t want to read, just go along and listen to a great variety of spoken word literature – from funny to sad to angry and fiercely political – by talented local writers.

Entry is £3. The event starts at 8pm. Doors (and the bar) open at 7.30pm.

See The Cellar Bards Facebook page for more information.