Staff Profile
Sam Pheby-McGarvey
Casual Academic, Converge Tutor
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I am a practice based Creative Writing PhD student, writer, Converge Tutor, and Casual Academic. My PhD research examines nonhuman-animal narratives, and posthuman theory exploring how literary representations of nonhuman-animals ca break down species an ontological boundaries between human-animals and the world.
I currently hold a Masters with Distinction from the University of Sheffield, and have had several short stories, poems, and essays published in print and online collections.
- School – School of Humanities
- Email – s.pheby-mcgarvey@yorksj.ac.uk
- Research - View my work in RaY
Further information
Teaching
I've taught on the undergraduate module Forms of Narrative, and run the Converge writing course Writing the Uncanny.
Research
Alongside my PhD research I am a member of the Hauntology and Spectrality Research Group, and Ecological Justice Research Group at York St John University. My research interests include:
- Posthumanism
- Folk Horror
- The Uncanny
- The Weird
- Nonhuman Narratives
- Folk and Fairytales
- Myths
Publications and conferences
Conference papers
Haunted Soundscapes 22nd October 2025, York Hauntology and Spectrality Research Group
Haunted Modernities 16-18 July, Falmouth University
Music "out of" Time
Disparate Narrative Worlds: Crisis, Conflict, and the Possibility of Hope, 13th-16th of May 2025, The American University of Paris and Université Paris Cité.
“Changing Bodies, Changing Minds”: Non-human Narratives and the Language Binary.
Narrating the Nonhuman – 30th and 31st of May 2024, Institute for Human Animal Studies, Edgehill University.
“Changing Bodies, Changing Minds”: Non-human Narratives and the Language Binary.
Pint of Science – 15th of May 2024, Fulford Arms York.
“Always Greener”: Deconstructing the Nature Culture Divide.
Making Waves Symposium – 13th of June 2023, Institute for Social Justice, York St john University
“Knowledge from the Non-Human”: Zoosemiotics, transferring and recording non-human animal knowledge.
Horrifying Children Horrifying Book – 21st May 2022, Hauntology and Spectrality Research Group, York St John University.
“Grimm Side of Folk” The Nazi Party’s Transformation of Folktales to Indoctrinate German Youth into their Ideology
Twisting My Memory Man – 13th and 14th July 2019, York St John University.
“Trump’s World: The Aftermath”
Publications
Creative publications
“Chimp” Forge Zine Spring Edition. Forge Press, 2025. Available here.
“Octopodia: An Encounter with the Octo-Self” Beyond the Walls Anthology. Valley Press, 2025.
“Moo Point” Beyond the Walls Anthology. Valley Press, 2023.
“The First One” Folk Horror Stories from Horrified. Horrified Books 2021.
“Dreadnought” Route 57. 2021.
“Would the Stones Like Fries with That” Horrified Magazine.
“Music out of Orbit” Terra Two.
“Leaving” Terra Two.
“On a Wing and a Prayer” Terra Two.
“On a Wing and a Prayer” Science Fiction for Survival: An Archive for Mars. Valley Press 2019. Available here.
Professional activities
I have co-organized the Haunted Soundscapes Symposium.
