Some lovely words about my debut novel, FOR THY GREAT PAIN HAVE MERCY ON MY LITTLE PAIN. It's so amazing to me that people are reading my words still! (Though I suppose Julian and Margery would be even more amazed, given they wrote theirs 600 years ago!) Thank you @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social 🙏😍

The ole monthly Substack newsletter is now live, for those of you with nothing better to do but read about my husband's fish poems and how my St Francis novel is turning me into a muttering idiot... open.substack.com/pub/victoria...

In this weeks post: I am Sick of Being Enraged open.substack.com/pub/wendypra...

Preorders make the world go round, although truthfully by “world” one means “tiny press” and by “go round” one means “not go defunct,” which is considerably less catchy. Below are some books that are available or preorder, all signed by their respective authors.

Paperbacks!

I'd like to buy her a pint... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Fly the angel sleeves of your hostess dress at half mast, dim the standard lamps of all suburbia and please be seated at the telephone table to make the gossipiest call you can from a landline in memoriam💙

I have a story in Radio 4's new Once Upon a Time series - a week of reimagined fairytales in the Book at Bedtime slot Lineup includes Katherine Rundell, Ben Okri, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, and David Almond (I KNOW!!!) My story "Kakapos" is on 30 June and then on catchup www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Recent adventures, some news, a little music ... it's my new Substack piece. smallfinds.substack.com/p/canterbury...

Happy to see THE OTHERNAUTS in the Guardian roundup 🏛️🌊🐉🏝️🏺💀⚡️🔮 www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

"Don’t miss it for the world... this is the sort of show the BBC used to be famous for. Even a decade ago, something like [this] would have found a very comfortable home on BBC Four, and yet it is telling that it has ended up on YouTube." www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

An extraordinary essay from @susannacrossman.bsky.social about the fire tamers of northern France. aeon.co/essays/who-a...

Here's the piece again for those who'd like to read it... www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

OOH! 👀

Took me 3 or 4 goes to win one of these but I'm glad I persevered - it was life changing! ✒️ It was more than 10 years ago now, and the @scottishbooktrust.bsky.social has been brilliant every step of my writing career. Do enter if you're an emerging writer based in Scotland!

Rather tickled to see Steeple Chasing in the “Mustn’t Grumble” section of Waterstones in Canterbury, especially next to the brilliant All The Devils Are Here.

For a while, when he was Labour leader, Miliband threatened to smash up Murdoch's media empire, just in case you are wondering why the Murdoch's papers are worried about him.

THE SWEET DOVE DIED by Barbara Pym is up next for #NYRBWomen26! Starting July 1. 💫

A balm for the next time you feel the irrelevance of writing a novel

Everyone shut up I finally got a video of Jyn doing her cartoon snoring thing

I’m going to be running this four week memoir course in August. Come take up space with me. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/finding-yo...

Nightmare for a friend of mine in London. Please share.

"They belonged to another generation: to the bewildered disenchanted young people who had grown up since the Great War, whose energies were more spasmodic and less definitely directed, and who, above all, wanted a more personal outlet for them."

Good morning Bluesky! 👋 A reminder about my Rebecca West Blue Plaque campaign. Can you help? I will be sending the formal application to English Heritage this July and welcome any and all support. Grateful for any reposts. All details below. open.substack.com/pub/autumnin...

'We are clamping down on the harm caused by social media. 'Read all about it on the Nazi pogrom deepfake abuse website'

New Drystone Diary: Whose History Is Worth Knowing? From Great Zimbabwe to Sacsayhuamán to the famine walls of the Scottish Highlands. Who gets recognised and who gets erased is still a story told by the same people about the same people. kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/drystone-d... #DrystoneDiary

Quiet! My favorite show is on.

‘If you’re not playful you’re not alive’ — David Hockney

New author phishing scam just dropped: an email expressing interest in my future work for publication from [real editor] at [real publishing house]. Only on checking what that real editor publishes--nothing like anything I produce--and a dodgy AOL email account shows that it's a scam.

In the final reckoning the omitted apostrophes will perfectly balance the extraneous apostrophes.

Gift link has run out but we've intervened at god level and made it free to read as it's a year old. www.ft.com/content/3862...

David Hockney has died and we are all poorer for it.

My husband Garry's second poetry collection, FIRTH, is out this summer and I tell you without bias that he is a genius. But don't take my word for it: "I know no poet currently practising more gifted, or original, and accomplished than Garry MacKenzie.” Andrew McNeillie, poet and editor.

Now for something a little different... A novel about the making and unmaking (and remaking?) of an American Catholic priest. I know what I like.

Strange, the compulsion to read someone as soon as their death is announced. Almost as if they can be kept alive by being read, their words (and pictures) still living. Anyway, this is a masterpiece. RIP #MarjaneSatrapi

Nice ❤️‍🩹

A reminder that Brazil banned Twitter for failing to stop the spreading of disinformation. There is nothing stopping the British government from doing the same.

Happy birthday, Susan Howe! 89, today! bigother.com/2026/06/10/s...

Condemning riots isn't enough. We need policy action, including an immediate appraisal of X as a vehicle for coordinating far-right disorder. And we need political leadership, to challenge white nationalism as an idea, not to validate it daily and then complain when it turns violent.

Link here: chuffed.org/project/1854...

This is the thing I must hate about arguments in favour of AI. It treats thinking as a burden to be avoided at all costs, rather than one of the few pleasures of modern life. I like thinking, I don't like weeding or taking the bins out - why not work on that first...

From the archive for E. M. Delafield, #BornOnThisDay in 1890, my thoughts on THE DIARY OF A PROVINCIAL LADY. An utterly delightful fictional diary published in 1930, full of witty asides about the day-to-day minutiae of English country life. #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019/10/15/t...

Here's a lovely review of The Tattooed Hills by @public-history.bsky.social in British Archaeology, with @peteralanross.bsky.social and @stonelands.bsky.social for excellent company. What would call us? (Polite answers only). The New Antiquarians?

AI isn't only destroying culture and emitting bazillion tonnes of carbon, it also has the potential to destroy our landscapes. Thanks @benjaminmyers76.bsky.social for sending this petition against a huge data centre in the Lammermuirs. Please do sign if of interest: c.org/P9KmWfwdCJ1

Are you free next Tuesday 9th June, 7-9? Join me online here and become madly, desperately obsessed with line-breaks www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

My memoir, A Mind Of My Own is now available in paperback which means it’s cheaper. Hurrah! If you’d like a dedicated copy repost this and I’ll do a random pick of five winners in the next couple of days. If you’ve already bought/read or listened to the audible version thank you! ♥️📚

It’s raining heavily, the pot-holes in the road are filling up like little seas and the man whose Christmas tree is still up is having a Solero ice cream for breakfast. Quite jealous tbh

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! In our 2nd ep about Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, David talks to critic & memoirist Catherine Taylor about the novel’s place in the history of feminism. Why are the things that shocked its original readers not what shock its readers today? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com