CALL FOR PITCHES @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I are at work on a new version of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century aimed at a more general audience. We’re looking for new contributions: your model close readings of texts, canonical and not, from literary studies and not. Details below!

Looking forward to taking part in this later (5pm Irish time)

The Pig He destroyed his cage Yes YES The Pig is loose

My book is now available for pre-order!

Utterly disgraceful. We are complicit in the torture of Palestinians.

Giving the 7-yr-old a thorough explanation here of why he needs to wash his hair properly, and he responds by referring to me dismissively as "the detail man"

In 2026, in Scotland alone, we're losing @404ink.bsky.social, @quindriepress.com & @hauntpublishing.bsky.social. I really want to see new nimble presses rise from the ashes but it's difficult to recommend starting a company in this market.

We're over the book to announce that we'll be bringing three works by James Kelman back into print, starting with Kieron Smith, boy in June 2026 ✨

Lecturer/Assistant Prof in Creative and Cultural Industries Permanent UCD School of Art History & Cultural Policy. universityvacancies.com/university-c...

More novels should be as weird as this one

Adobe Acrobat I do not want to know What’s New. I do not want to turn my PDF into a podcast with my team. I want to look at the PDF. Please stop

I found this by @bookpost.bsky.social to be a thoughtful overview of the ever-growing corpus of "literary men" pieces books.substack.com/p/notebook-2...

“In the next few days a pall fell over the country. The quiet was chilling. We all knew that a bloodbath had taken place, though we didn’t know its true magnitude and perhaps never will.” A report from inside Iran by the novelist Salar Abdoh: www.equator.org/articles/the...

After several hours, managed to submit some conference expenses through the institution's new finance system. A hard-fought win

Corporate publishers spend an incredible amount on marketing, and small and midsize publishers have to make up this giant gap with earned publicity (especially awards and book REVIEWS). Every national book review outlet that closes feels like a death knell for independent publishers.

Such an important initiative.

Smash the machines. Throw them in a hole in the ground and fill it with rocks

After the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart was appointed Commissar, reassuring the Dutch people that life would return to "normal" if they cooperated. He then introduced measures to stop resistance, and after a general strike in Amsterdam, summary executions began.

Holy shit that is a haunting image:

"To think of all the times I've lied to a poet!" Mariusz Szczygieł, NOT THERE (trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

These companies want to take everything that is required for people to communicate with one another and exercise our capacity to operate in a democracy and sell it back to us as automated algorithmic decision making that will ultimately penalize us for reasons we’re prevented from seeing.

People from outside Ireland occasionally ask me, "Why is Bono, an international music titan from Ireland, not all that loved in Ireland?". The answer in its entirety is a complex one, but "He sent Dolly Parton a birthday cake and put his own name on it" goes a long way to summing it up.

Today's vibe: submitting a funding report while looking out the window at constant rain, soundtracked by this mix (forlorn instrumentals punctuated by snatches of intense gloomy Hungarian dialogue) www.nts.live/shows/sounds...

Another turn on the Genre Turn (and a review of Jeremy Rosen’s excellent Genre Bending). www.chronicle.com/article/is-l...

We are saddened to learn of the death of Eric Huntley. An inspirational force in partnership with his wife Jessica, they were at the heart of black radical publishing and bookselling in the 70s/80s. We remember their activism with the International Book Fair and the Bookshop Joint Action Committee

There was some disrespect, in fairness, but we're generally pretty relaxed about this and rarely bring it up

One aim for this year: read a few chunky novels. Going to have a go at this one from @sinoistbooks.bsky.social

Please note: This has been Ireland’s immigration policy for over 20 years.

Honoured to be in this issue of @memoiresdulivre.bsky.social on visibility & publishing, eds @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social & @julienlf.bsky.social Me & @michaelakralova.bsky.social wrote about publishing & translation, focusing on the sexy topic of metadata :-) www.erudit.org/en/journals/...

brass solidarity band performing “stand by me” in the streets of whittier next to alex pretti’s memorial. the crowd started chanting “the people united will never be defeated” so they incorporated it into the song. i love minneapolis

"We continue to receive calls where the ruling seems to have changed the culture of acceptance and kindness to rejection and hate of Black and brown LGBTQ+ people"

They are losing. And they have many more losses to come

I refuse to believe that Gerald Murnane is real

This is fun - some nice recommendations from @chadwpost.bsky.social, and some love for @tramppress.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/sk/podcast/a...

𝙔𝙤𝙪’𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩—wax was a bad call. I should’ve flagged heat resistance as a 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 instead of assuming you’d stay within 𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘴. That one’s on me.

"The capture and warehousing of humans is now at the centre of an institutional transformation of federal police power" - among many other insights here www.equator.org/articles/hom...

This administration is cooked. Literally no one is scared of them.

No way we let Sweden get over the line on this ahead of Ireland. Tell your friends. This isn’t just any old petition, this mechanism has EU clout.

It is not an immigration crisis.

I watched a bunch of AI sessions at the WEF so you wouldn’t have to. But you should read this.

This open access article by @groenbot.bsky.social and @michaelakralova.bsky.social about the importance of accurate metadata for translations (ie include the translator!) is well worth a read.

Thrilled to hear that the latest issue of Mémoires du livre on in/visibility and discoverability in the book industry is now available OA! Can’t wait to read all contributions. Many thanks to guest editors @julienlf.bsky.social and @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social. www.erudit.org/en/journals/...

Honoured to be in this issue of @memoiresdulivre.bsky.social on visibility & publishing, eds @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social & @julienlf.bsky.social Me & @michaelakralova.bsky.social wrote about publishing & translation, focusing on the sexy topic of metadata :-) www.erudit.org/en/journals/...

I co-edited this bilingual issue of Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture w/ @julienlf.bsky.social (an excellent collaborator). It's all open access.

This image isn't leaving my mind any time soon

Did we always watch Davos like this

Listening to Enya while the archduke's motorcade trundles slowly through the Sarajevo streets

Public service announcement, nonstop Enya mix on NTS 2 right now www.nts.live