Dr Alice Vernon

Alice's research primarily involves the intersection between storytelling and the history of medicine, with a particular interest in sleep disorders, hallucinations and parapsychology. Her debut narrative non-fiction book, Night Terrors: Troubled Sleep and the Stories We Tell About It, was published by Icon Books in 2022 and was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week. She has given talks at Hay Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival and Wellcome Collection, has appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio Wales and Times Radio, and she has written articles for The Wall Street Journal, The Conversation, The Author, The i Newspaper and Canada's Globe and Mail. Her latest book, Ghosted: A History of Ghost-Hunting and Why We Keep Looking, was published by Bloomsbury Sigma in September 2025. Alice is represented by Donald Winchester at Watson, Little literary agency.

Watch Alice's TEDxAberystwyth talk here: https://youtu.be/ZuPvkoDiSr0?si=T_TgpMeU6zeXIHbQ

She welcomes PhD applications exploring aspects of horror in fiction.