Hello!

We’re Marie O’Regan & Paul Kane, the editors of These Dreaming Spires – a sequel to the first ever Dark Academia anthology [In These Hallowed Halls] – and we’ve been asked our thoughts about what DA means to us.

This has changed quite a bit since we signed on to edit the first hardback in 2022, when the majority of stories we received were more typical of the genre – from people like Kate Weinberg, Susie Yang, Phoebe Wynne and ML Rio – although some others incorporated certain elements from the SF, supernatural and even horror genres. As mentioned in our introduction to Spires, this time around we’ve tried to do something different and as the DA genre has grown and developed, so have the tales we’re presenting this time around – which lean even more heavily into those kinds of realms. In effect, we’ve tried to push the boundaries of what DA does and can mean, and when you read the stories you’ll totally understand what we’re getting at.

But, enough from us – what does dark academia actually mean to the authors involved in our new anthology, and why do they write it? Take it away, people…

Kit Mayquist 

Dark academia found me in the late aughts with the emanate work of Donna Tartt. For a teenager who felt robbed of beauty and atmosphere in my day-to-day life, who struggled with sexuality and a disconnect with my peers, dark academia was where those themes were woven together with a community that understood the power of each. I remember when it was a fledgling tag on Tumblr. The photo blogs around 2012, 2013 imbued with Brideshead Revisited and Dead Poet Society, where historic places had to be hunted for and clung to like gold in the wake of neon hipsterdom. But those books, those blogs, followed me throughout my own academic journey and into the manuscript archives of Iceland, and still remains a place of comfort today. I write it because DA has always been a home in the world that inspires me. The themes are lifelong. Pressure to succeed, a hunger for knowledge, struggles with institutions and a longing for community.

There is a sense that things which have been, the stories of ancient hallways and dusty books, can reveal a new side to you, and that search for it, that eagerness at any cost, is a truly endless endeavor. – Kit Mayquist

Erica Waters  

As a first-generation college student, there was never a moment when higher education wasn’t important to me. I fell into it hard and romanticized it to an embarrassing degree—even while working full-time through two graduate programs. The pinnacle was getting to do a semester abroad at Oxford—those gray and foggy skies, those dreaming spires! College was a portal to a life of ideas and beauty and art. But I soon learned that academia is not a meritocracy, and privilege plays an undeniable role both for students and their professors. 

This dual concept of higher education as a romantic ideal and a machine that churns out earnest and exhausted young people led me naturally to dark academia, first as a reader—The Secret History and Catherine House captivated me—and then as a writer.

Dark academia is where the idealism of the scholarly life meets the cold realities of thwarted ambition, institutional exploitation, and academic obsession. – Erica Waters

It’s a perfect playground for the gothic, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both my dark academia novel All That Consumes Us and my contribution to this anthology are ghost stories. 

Elspeth Wilson 

I have always loved coming-of-age stories and books with atmospheres so strong and cloying that they linger with you in an almost embodied way. Dark academia combines these two things wonderfully. One of my strongest literary memories is the first time I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt – the maximalism of the language, the details of what the protagonists were studying and the rich atmosphere of the university campus, which acts as a society in microcosm, all stuck with me. 

I tend to write at the more campus novel end of the dark academia spectrum rather than the fantasy end (though I am partial to tarot and the history of witchcraft!). Both my novel, These Mortal Bodies, and my story in the anthology, Beneath the Loch, explore characters reflecting on obsessions that shape the rest of their lives.

There’s a lot of yearning in my work too and friendships that veer into infatuation – dark academia is a fantastic genre to explore the things I like to write about like gender, class, identity and sexuality because it focuses on such formative experiences. – Elspeth Wilson

Taylor Grothe

Dark academia is a genre I approached as one might a bear with only a stick for protection. For years I grappled with the genre but never felt particularly equipped enough to write it, despite being part of academia myself for so long. There’s so much inside of it: it tangles with internalized elitism, misogyny, ableism, racism, eurocentrism. It’s why I read it with such voracity—to understand perspectives outside of my relatively limited one. Plus, it can often be great, grotesque fun. 

Once I got past my trepidation on writing dark academia, I found myself at home there. Aren’t we all on some level trying to piece together why the world works as it does?

Because dark academia isn’t only about its admittedly gorgeous aesthetics; it’s about how the depths beneath underpin much of our society. – Taylor Grothe

So, I read and write dark academia to understand basic, universal truths about our world. And, importantly, I write it because I want to change the way we all view rife inequities. And—this last point can’t be overstated—I desperately want to undo some of the damage done by a certain dark academia writer. We all deserve finer representation. 

De Elizabeth

One of my favorite things about the dark academia genre is the way it has numerous interpretations and variations.

When I write dark academia, I tend to gravitate toward stories about queer women who, over the course of their character arc, find their voices, sink into their identities, and learn to take up space. Sometimes, that looks like pushing back against the influence of (corrupt) men in power; other times, it’s layered in the supernatural: a haunted girl driven by a hunger to defeat her demons, and in doing so, figures out who she is and where she belongs.

Dark academia has consistently been an impactful framework for my queer characters to take back their own power, grapple with their ambitions, and ultimately find themselves, too. – De Elizabeth

Genevieve Cogman

What exactly is “dark academia”? Is it the higher study of dark things, or the darkness that lies behind deeper study?

It’s easy to imagine a school or university devoted to dark studies – not the bright, cheerful magics of The Worst Witch, or the more complex magics of Roke Island, but outright darkness. Necromancy. Goetia. Assassination, arson, all the way to the zoology of blood-drinking zebras. And that’s fascinating. How could it not be? One wants to know the how, the who, the where, and most especially the why.

But on the other hand, there’s also the dark side of normal academia, which is set in the “real” world and tainted by malice, decay, decadence – or maybe just capitalism. All the aspects of higher learning and study where in order to get ahead, a scholar must be prepared to sacrifice . . . someone else. And it’s all too easy for the reader to imagine. Perhaps it’s the sense of finally discovering the truth which flavours this version of dark academia and draws the readers.

We always thought it was true – and now we can read about exactly what lies beneath the elegant and distinguished surface. – Genevieve Cogman

*All views expressed are the authors’ own.

These Dreaming Spires is due for publication 2nd September 2025 – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org