Despite hardly ever using them when in other countries, when I lived in Japan in the early 2000s vending machines were such an integral part of my life. I read this @japantimes.co.jp article with a mix of interest, nostalgia & some sadness.

'Most intriguing of all were Mary’s salons held just for women, where topics of discussion ranged from science and literature to solving social ills of the day.' Fascinating overview of the life & work of scientist Mary Somerville by @oliviacampbell.bsky.social.

'I often say that a book getting published in translation is like capturing lightning in a bottle.' Japanese-to-English translator Allison Markin Powell on literary translation & bringing the work of Kanako Nishi to English-reading audiences. @literaryhub.bsky.social tinyurl.com/43jtw79e

'My mouth was open, trembling a little. Words were coming out, I knew. But not the words I had prepared, the ones I’d wanted to say. These words were conveying information I wasn’t supposed to know.' From haunting short story ' The Key' by Kaori Fujino (trans. by Laurel Taylor), pub. in Guernica.

An atmospheric & moving essay about 1970s horror movies (but really so much more) by @judecook.bsky.social. I recommend his Substack.

Many congratulations to @oliviacampbell.bsky.social, author of SISTERS IN SCIENCE, out in paperback yesterday (& also the equally fascinating WOMEN IN WHITE COATS)!

@akennedysmith.bsky.social on author & historian Louise Creighton. This bit alone has me in awe: 'As well as balancing the pastoral work of vicar’s wife and that of home-educating their six children ... Creighton published a series of historical biographies under her own name'. tinyurl.com/mr2ww3pf

A wonderful piece by @akennedysmith.bsky.social about her father Joe Kennedy: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Possible AI use leads to end of senryu competition after 20 years www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/02...

For several years, Kathleen Dixon Donnelly has been writing 'literary news of the day' posts focusing on the 1920s. They can be the perfect antidote to today's often depressing news cycle. Added bonus (maybe): this one contains a recipe for Canary Pudding. suchfriends.wordpress.com/2026/02/24/s...

Thank you so much to @katemayfield.bsky.social, author of THE PARENTATIONS & THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER, for these very generous thoughts on my debut novel, to be published by @manillapress.bsky.social in July #atinyspeckofblackandthennothing

A much needed morning cup of coffee (with a fancy bird on it), and a reminder that until 23.59 today (UK, GMT) you can save 25% on preorders for my debut novel, A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING, @waterstones.bsky.social. Enter 'FEB26' at checkout: tinyurl.com/253mmf2m #WPreorder

'The two women turned what was little more than a collection of old sheds into a purpose-built, stylish studio and shop...' @akennedysmith.bsky.social on the creative & entrepreneurial collaboration between friends & photographers Lettice Ramsey & Helen Muspratt.

From today until Friday (17 Feb), @waterstones.bsky.social is offering 25% off preorders for my debut novel, A TINY SPECK OF BLACK & THEN NOTHING. Set in Osaka in the early 2000s, it's the story of 2 young friends - a nightclub hostess & a schoolteacher - & what happens when one of them disappears.

So happy that my next book - & debut novel - will be published by @manillapress.bsky.social in July 2026. A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING, set in Japan in the early 2000s, is the story of two young friends - a nightclub hostess & a school teacher - & what happens when one of them disappears.

This episode of the @readjapaneseliterature.com provides some really interesting historical & literary context for those only acquainted with the later filmic versions of these kaiju.

'When I was a child, my father recounted tales about our ancestors, and his stories were so fantastical they seemed like fairy tales.' As a fellow author who's worked elements of family stories & research-based history into their books, I was fascinated by this Lit Hub essay by Janie Chang.

Bluebell Magazine is open for submissions again (until 1 March): bluebellmagazine.substack.com/p/february-s...

This brought back some comparable memories of my own past days as a bookseller & library assistant. I'm really enjoying these insights by @ruppin.bsky.social on the new Substack for Little Goat Barn writing retreats & mentoring services: open.substack.com/pub/littlego...

I enjoyed this glimpse of the country life in this piece by @ruppin.bsky.social - one half of the team behind the Little Goat Barn writing retreats in North Wales, which will be opening in the Vale of Clywd later this year: open.substack.com/pub/littlego...

I was very happy to spot a copy of A Secret Sisterhood, my group biography about female literary friendship (cowritten with Emma Claire Sweeney), in @akennedysmith.bsky.social's shelfie accompanying her essay on love, literature & cultural highlights for February: tinyurl.com/4673erpz

Read as part of @readjapaneseliterature.com's #JanuaryinJapan season: I enjoyed the creepy open-endedness of 'The Farside' by Hideo Furukawa & translated by @ginnytkmr.bsky.social.

@akennedysmith.bsky.social is so good at shedding light on often overlooked episodes in the history of female scholars at Cambridge, and placing them within their social & cultural context. This essay from her Substack 'Locked out of the Library' is no exception.

Over the years I've been writing, I've been fascinated by the no of Japanese words, once unfamiliar to English-reading audiences, that have become widely recognisable (no longer requiring clarifications on the page). On this note, I enjoyed @wheatfu.bsky.social's article: tinyurl.com/yzmewfca

Post-winter break, I'm still working through the contents of my inbox and finding some great things to read. I enjoyed this piece by @judecook.bsky.social, which asks if 'politics and fiction make for uneasy bedfellows? Does one, as it were, fatally undermine the other?'

Great seasonal historical and cultural roundup from @akennedysmith.bsky.social. I look forward to another year of her excellent Substack essays: open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...

I enjoyed this New Year essay by @samanthaellis.bsky.social with its focus on training & recovery, rereading & rewriting. And I completely agree with Samantha about this: 'I’m a huge advocate of rereading and how books change for you when you go back to them, and what that can give you.'

Congratulations to Better Known on reaching its 400th episode! I've discovered so many new things from this podcast 'about people’s passions which they think should be better known', & being interviewed (with Emma Claire Sweeney) back in 2017 was great. I recommend this series! tinyurl.com/4zaf73bh

In Jane Austen's 250th birthday year, it's great to see so many libraries marking the occasion. Lovely to discover this mention of A Secret Sisterhood (which I cowrote with Emma Claire Sweeney) in the Berlin-Peck Library's list of works associated with the great author: tinyurl.com/yjsvkj7h

@akennedysmith.bsky.social's essay on DNA pioneer Dr Rosalind Franklin reminds us of the continued importance of giving women's historic scientific discoveries their due.

Bluebell magazine is open for submissions again. Deadline 1 December: open.substack.com/pub/bluebell...

OK, I sort of have an interest in this subject already but I really liked this atmospheric @japantimes.co.jp article by @alexktmartin.bsky.social on Tokyo's 'phantom stations': www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/10...

'Motherhood has opened up a new seam of creativity for me. It’s given me access to new feelings and to new ideas. I did not switch off my brain when I became a mother.' Couldn't agree more, @samanthaellis.bsky.social. Loved this honest & inspiring essay: tinyurl.com/y889he4c

Nice to read this review by Sophia Rose of the forthcoming @aurorametro.bsky.social anthology Encounters with Jane Austen. My Secret Sisterhood coauthor, Emma Claire Sweeney, & I were pleased to be contributors - & to see our essay given a particular mention here. www.thequillink.com/post/guest-r...

I wrote the introduction for the 1st issue of Bluebell literary mag (submissions for the 2nd issue are open now). This essay by Eugenia Webster is one of the pieces that has really stayed with me. I look forward to issue 2: open.substack.com/pub/bluebell...

Always happy to share news about the fantastic Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize! Deadline: 7 Jan, 2026. @lucycavcoll.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/lcfictio...

I thought this essay by @ypathak.bsky.social on motherhood, food & love was wonderful. And I personally related to this bit: 'every time I put a spoonful of food into one of my babies’ mouths, my mouth opened unconsciously, as though I was taking a ghost-bite for every bite they ate'.

'But Winnie decided that "no woman (it is not my business to consider a man’s life) has any excuse for living a life that is not worth living".' A sad & ultimately inspiring essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social on 19th-century women's education, female solidarity & the importance of good teachers.

'For most of my students, the benchmark of whether they fall in love with a work of literature is if they can ‘relate’ to it ... I often suggest that they should go to fiction for the opposite reasons: that it opens up new fields of experience, new worlds, new cultures.' Via @judecook.bsky.social.

'It must have appeared to the young Virginia Stephen as if they were worlds apart; while she was stuck at home with her father and her tedious domestic duties, ‘Miss Harrison’ was a brilliant Cambridge scholar who was already famous for her lectures.' Interesting essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social.

Wonderful essay by Susie Boyt on Barbara Pym's beautiful, yet quietly devastating, late-career novel The Sweet Dove Died, which Boyt argues may have remained unpublished for so long 'not because it was too quaint but because it was too uncomfortable'. It's a real favourite of mine.

‘For years, his biography on press releases was just four words long: “Eagle scout, Missoula, Montana.” David Lynch wasn’t just American, but freakishly American, and like any good scout was both pathologically self-assured and incurably naive.’ Ruby Hamilton on Lynch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

'The Victorians had turned death into something of a pageant...The Great War, however, turned death into something sudden, cruel and unknowable.' Having written about Victorian Spiritualism in my last book, Out of the Shadows, I found this idea, & @alicevernon10.bsky.social's essay, so interesting.

Morning reading. I love the way that this essay by @judecook.bsky.social captures the essence of a place, & intertwines the author's personal memories with his literary work. It also made me miss Paris. 'Paris in the Blood': open.substack.com/pub/judecook...

'Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word? "Home. Both places are home."' So much chimed with me in this interview with Emily Itami, author of Kakigori Summer: mixedmessages.substack.com/p/emily-itam...

Entries are open for The Book Edit Writers' Prize 2025 judged by @janiceokoh.bsky.social (deadline 13 October). More details here: www.thebookedit.co.uk/writers-prize

'As a teenager who once ached for stories of young people like me, my oft-stung adult heart fills to think that we can now share Tsujimura’s tales with the people we’ve grown up with, grown up around, and grown apart from.' Wonderful LitHub essay by @yukitejima.bsky.social tinyurl.com/mwv7f6dm

Back at my desk today after a summer break & catching up with reading. And what a joyful & inspiring post to get me back into the swing of things: 'Libraries to fall in love with' by @akennedysmith.bsky.social. open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...

From @oliviacampbell.bsky.social's always interesting Substack - an essay focusing on inventor Leona W. Chalmers and a history of period protection products (a real window into past women's lives) open.substack.com/pub/oliviaca...

Writers! Note that AI translation (under the guise of "global access") is being seen/used as the weak point to get AI into publishing (possible bc Eng lang publishing is weak on translation). Stand with translators & for more human translation, fairly paid!