Lancaster’s first LGBTQ+ bookstore opened today on the charter market and look what I got! Brand new books by @louisewelsh00.bsky.social and @inkyrosey.bsky.social

One of the projects you can support on Smelt is a new sitcom by me. It's called The Least Bad Of All Possible Worlds and it's about refugees from parallel universes trying to integrate into society in Morecambe. You can pledge to fund it here: if you fund it, we make it! mirlo.space/leadmojo/rel...

How I’m walking out of 2025

How I’m walking out of 2025

Please someone remake It’s a Wonderful Life but from the POV of Violet narrating her adventures in Pottersville.

As a journal editor this is fucken horrifying. Asbestos in the walls.

People say AI is a magic shortcut to creativity & success. I’ll tell you the real secret and it’s voraciously reading, being interested in everything, being diligent in the pursuit of learning, paying attention to the interior lives of others & keeping a heart open to the world.

Just officially launched this wonderful @sidekickbooks.bsky.social anthology which I contributed to... it's perfectly stocking-sized, just right for the vampire lover in your life! sidekickbooks.com/booklab/book...

Seals singing in a sea cave #Orkney 🦭🎧

When people say that Wuthering Heights doesn't have anything to do with race or that no film has engaged with race, what they mean is that for them Romani people do not count and they also haven't been paying attention. I'm going to share a little material from a recent talk. Content note: racism 1/

Strong editorial in the Independent today www.independent.co.uk/voices/edito...

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

I contributed to this one… guess what I chose?

How to Hibernate. Scanned by us from the 1952 book Animal Fair, by the Provensens. It’s time.

So I've been reading the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper. There's some good things in there. But when it comes to universities there's very little to cheer. The situation is very tough and will get worse. The last chance to preserve what we've got has passed. Let me explain why. (1/?)

My fab colleague Sharon Ruston on the new Guillermo Del Toro Frankenstein: theconversation.com/guillermo-de...

´It’s not about knowing. It’s about being present.´ Devastating essay on the power of gaps, errors, mishearing in the way we teach.

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy: www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Free Gothic event alert! Panel discussion on Gothic Italy, in person at Goldsmiths or hybrid, Tuesday 7 October: bads.gold.ac.uk/gothic-italy

My new novel, The Heist Of Hollow London, is published TODAY. The hardback may not be out in the UK yet - it's listed for the end of October here - but the ebook is certainly available now. Here are some links but please feel free to buy wherever you can find it: amzn.to/3IOGJRw

I am genuinely baffled and distressed as to why the UK government is intent on destroying UK's genuinely world-leading universities, who bring £265 billion into the economy and support more than 250,000 jobs. This tax will kill us. www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

ANIMAL GHOSTS (1980): Spooky short story anthology centred around, well... animal ghosts. The cover is particularly striking - those animals are freaking out, man!

🦇🎶It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

Warwick English came 5th in The Guardian today, which is great for us. But also notice that Lancaster came 3rd for Creative Writing & 7th for English - but the university is decimating programmes & firing 1/3 of academic staff over the next six months 🤔🤔🤔 @lancasterucu.bsky.social #saveartsandhums

Started the day with a free gig at the Lancaster Jazz Festival - Johanna Burnheart at the Herbarium cafe, in a rammed side room I didn't know was there until today. She was superb. tidal.com/browse/artis...

Early 20C Marxist Gothic. Here for it.

When you’re researching in the British Library and you discover the copy of the 1853 novel you’ve called up is inscribed by the author…

As usual forgot to take photos, but here's a couple from @catherinespooner.bsky.social's and @coffinboffin.bsky.social's wonderful keynotes 🩵

So grateful to @ogomproject.bsky.social for bringing us together for the dream mermaid conference. A brilliant three days thinking about submarine fantasies 💦🧜‍♀️🩵

This frontispiece in my book just made me laugh a lot. Is this Buddhist reincarnation, or some other form of afterlife?

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

Worrying long term hidden fiscal drag The family income threshold at which English students maintenance loans start to get reduced is just £25,000/yr. It has been this level since the 2008/2009 academic year. We have had 64% (CPI) inflation since then. So it's been slashed hugely in real terms

Gender began in 2015 (Later than it might have been) Between the end of Ed Miliband And Minions on the big screen

Introducing our brand new podcast for the 'Ann Radcliffe, Then and Now' project! You can find our first episode, 'Editing The Italian', an interview with Professor Michael Gamer, by clicking the link below 👇 player.sheffield.ac.uk/events/editi... And be look out for episode two, coming soon..

Superb article on why and how we need to take a more proactive stance towards social class in higher education by @bethjohnsontv.bsky.social: www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/soci...

"People do not want the messy, uncomfortable truth that disability is not a choice but a natural variation of existence. That disability is part of the natural world. Publishing has a responsibility to think about the consequences of the messages it supports & perpetuates." @pollyrowena.bsky.social

It me! I'll be doing a panel about the @blpublishing.bsky.social Tales of the Weird series with Zara-Louise Stubbs, editor of 'The Uncanny Gastronomic', at Nottingham Waterstone's on Halloween 🖤 Especially fun as I used to work at this branch, many moons ago...

My nam is cowe Wen somer comme And sun dos shyn And bes do homm My emale offe! Im outt off reech! Awaye I goe I hitte the beeche

Delighted to receive these beauties in the mail today: the newly paperbacked volumes of The Cambridge History of the Gothic that I co-edited with @dalegothic96.bsky.social and @catherinespooner.bsky.social for @universitypress.cambridge.org

wonder if decades of mocking media studies as a Mickey Mouse subject has anything to do with this at all

A treat in the post today: paperback edition of the award-winning, three-volume The Cambridge History of the Gothic, co-edited with @angelawright1794.bsky.social and @dalegothic96.bsky.social.

Waterstones are running a pre-order promotion this week which covers my next novel, The Heist Of Hollow London, out in September. Order before 31st July and get 25% off: www.waterstones.com/book/the-hei...

‘For the Dead Remember: The Life of M. R. James’ will be published by Oxford University Press on 10 September 2026. Set your watches, mark your calendars, and spread the word!

Our three-volume Cambridge History of the Gothic, a monumental labour of love that we worked on for many years, has just come out in paperback! @angelawright1794.bsky.social @catherinespooner.bsky.social @universitypress.cambridge.org

The UK did have one standout product that was considered globally valuable- universities- and unilaterally decided to stop providing the product because it was more important to be xenophobic than successful

You and me both, wasps, you and me both

Lola is the most literary cat.

Publishers Weekly have given my next novel, The Heist Of Hollow London, a starred review and called it an "impressive thrill ride" that "works on every level." That's exciting. www.publishersweekly.com/9781250372062

A Borges story about a guy who gets AI to summarize all the world’s information for him, and then summarize the summary, until the AI has the whole world summarized into a single word. He sits alone at his desk, staring at the word, repeating it endlessly, certain he is experiencing everything