Out soon! @presshenshaw.bsky.social #anthology #writingcommunity UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FMC3MPJQ US: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FMC3MPJQ Hobeck: www.hobeck.net/product-page...

Good old Andrew!

I’ll try and bring you other bits and pieces soon as I have both a commercial and a literary fiction out and about plus a novella under consideration. We’ve also moved a publication date for something to look after me. X

So begins a sabbatical - more tomorrow! (Still teaching)

Turning off your transponders, just something everyone always does when they're confident everything's on the up-and-up.

A new report from the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Lab shows Russia is holding kidnapped Ukrainian children at more than 200 sites where they are being forced into“re-education programs” and even subjected to military training. We need to find these kids and bring them home.

So scary!

IKEA: also good for an epic game of Hide and Seek. globalnews.ca/news/5859462...

My website and a (new) newsletter and more are moving to Ghost. More soon as I’m just getting set up as I grow a new platform and start to pull together something exciting and cohesive using publications, academic work and many years of teaching. Surprises to come! And a lot of empowerment for me!

Just a thing to big and small publishers who roll over very low royalties and thus a writer may not receive a penny - it’s contractual but is it ethical ultimately? I just noted a writer-carer - only £30 so not payable. £30? I wouldn’t bother querying for that you say? I’d like to show you something

I graduate from @yorkstjohn.bsky.social this November with a DPhil. Because of a complex caring role Mr Bookworm cannot attend & I was pretty sure I would be too overwhelmed. I’m very grateful to the university that they make provision for a separate quiet ceremony in the college chapel. It’s great

You can pick up a copy of A MIND TURNED IN ON ITSELF: Writings on J. S. Le Fanu here: swanriverpress.ie/srp-title/a-...

Book news. My 2023 memoir, These Envoys of Beauty, will be reissued with a new introduction by the Haywood Press arm of @renardpress.com in 2026. It went out of print when its original publisher failed earlier this year. Among other things, it’s core in my PhD so important it’s available. HOORAY 💙📚

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon being deported twice in 24 hours - first from Colombia, then from Panama - because he’s deemed a national security threat, just a week after he led a march calling for migrants to be deported, is the kind of schadenfreude we can all savour.

The chaos from the first day of a meeting of the federal vaccine committee appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continued into a second day on Friday, as the panel reversed one decision and indefinitely postponed a vote on a hepatitis B vaccine.

Hey all. Is anyone here using ghostpro and is it worth it? I need to get properly back on track and I don't want to go back to Substack. I know obviously I can do it free, but I am trying to outsource what I can and support what I can as I go forward. This is for writing, teaching and publishing.

Book news. My 2023 memoir, These Envoys of Beauty, will be reissued with a new introduction by the Haywood Press arm of @renardpress.com in 2026. It went out of print when its original publisher failed earlier this year. Among other things, it’s core in my PhD so important it’s available. HOORAY 💙📚

I graduate from @yorkstjohn.bsky.social this November with a DPhil. Because of a complex caring role Mr Bookworm cannot attend & I was pretty sure I would be too overwhelmed. I’m very grateful to the university that they make provision for a separate quiet ceremony in the college chapel. It’s great

Just a thing to big and small publishers who roll over very low royalties and thus a writer may not receive a penny - it’s contractual but is it ethical ultimately? I just noted a writer-carer - only £30 so not payable. £30? I wouldn’t bother querying for that you say? I’d like to show you something

I’m sure folks much more visible than old Mother Bookworm here have covered this, but on reasonable adjustment under the law via the 2010 disability act for those who are self-employed. I’m thinking of publishing & related education. Some updating to be done so do please read this?

At the withered end of the year, where summer is reduced to a dried memory, grass whispers on behalf of the ghost soil. The land's nameless spirits roam old paths across the heath. This is the season of dead alchemy. – #DAKilroy

Do you not follow Hookland? You must

Lipstick post as lipstick book news forthcoming I gather! It’s an emotional and cultural history. Bookended by memoir. I thought you all needed something on lipstick by a poorly middle aged badass.

On profile. I wanted to say this because it's kind of a question of what you value and you must cherish what there is. I am not a high profile author - never say never - so there are things I have not been able to get off the ground. But I might post on Insta and have 15k people see it and then...

Catching up with queries about the next #Curae writing prize for unpaid carers. When will it be? Alas, this is the last one. Curae and its associated project for young carers never attracted funding. Everyone is a volunteer & the 3x £500 bursaries were from donations from you lovely lot.

Frank. On writing, publishing and looking for approval: it must start and end with YOU. This is for anyone who needs to hear it - as ever, with my love and my encouragement. TW: bereavement mentioned very briefly. 💙📚

In other news, the literary novel, Beautiful Little Fool (arising from a character in The Great Gatsby) is with a few agents in full and I just sent to two more (my agent left agenting this summer and there wasn’t a stampede 🤣) My blood runs hot so onwards right?

I have been plotting a short little book about someone who gets involved with the far right. I know. It’s not what you’re expecting. The person who does will be a surprise too. But for a while I’ve been wanting to understand how an otherwise apparently kind, community-minded person goes this way -

In other news, the literary novel, Beautiful Little Fool (arising from a character in The Great Gatsby) is with a few agents in full and I just sent to two more (my agent left agenting this summer and there wasn’t a stampede 🤣) My blood runs hot so onwards right?

Well I cannot believe it but I wrote my first commercial book - a cosy paranormal with lots of attention paid to women’s fiction - and planned a further nine books. They’ve just gone to two digital firsts. I have no idea if they’ll like them and publishing has been a wild ride for me, but I’m proud

Absolutely fuck off with this - which he is lapping up

Midweek Treat: Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are #RecipeOfTheDay! www.nigella.com/recipes/flou...

One of my older lads has written a novelette and printed and bound it himself. Lovely little moments. No details because I'll get told off mightily

My awkward romantic scene and my variation on M.R. James's 'The Mezzotint' are, in fact, shit hot. Do I think this will get published? NO IDEA. It's cosy paranormal, can come under women's fiction, but strands of romantic comedy for weirdos and mediums so maybe it's not in genre enough HOWEVER

www.creativefolkestone.org.uk/whats-on/wor... Do come to my workshop! 14th November

Lots more reels but here’s a very personal one. I’m still quite a new writer. I’m eight years in and it’s not my day job. This was the worst and most devastating publishing advice I was given - offered with a hug and encouragements. X

I don't know man, maybe that's worth it in order not to look like what would happen if Lego made a Woody Allen minifig.

All you gorgeous literary agents out there. A brand new departure for me in COMMERCIAL FICTION, under a pen-name and I’m flirting with digital firsts BUT if you fancy a cosy paranormal with a planned series of ten books in all, come say hello. (My lit fiction already out in full elsewhere.)

I have had such a blast writing this new commercial fiction and I do love with my protagonist, not least for her social awkwardness. Like giving the man she has fallen in love with the damp emergency biscuit from her pocket because she was so terrified he might kiss her even though she wanted him to

Sharing from Instagram - massive news. www.instagram.com/reel/DOqG9P5...

Later today I send off my commercial fiction. This is a brand new departure for me, and although I have a very small list of commercial fiction specialist agents to send to, I’m also sending on my own to digital firsts. Completely separate from my lit fiction & other stuff so it’s under a pen name

chuffed.org/project/4aleen Please do donate for Aleen and her family. In addition to this beautiful gang of children she has baby Rita, born in the camp. I’m in touch with her regularly. Bookworm xxx

Today’s mixed teaching portfolio had me going from mentoring on a very spicy adult commercial novel straight to AQA English Language GCSE.

Special shout to all the Benedictines and Dominicans following me. I always ask, please will you remember my kids in your prayers particularly my eldest who has been so poorly for so long and has had to be so brave? I'm married to an oblate BTW. I think I would have gone under otherwise. Anna xxx

I miss A LOT of commentary & blog posts on my books because of hashtags or links not being added. No need to tag authors but always make it visible. There are LOADS of things I just found and I did giggle just now at a 2020 short fiction collection being described as 'neither exceptional nor bad.'

New form - the literally novella 🫣

A thing on literary agents. I’ve been told multiple times that a literary agent will want to represent ALL your work. In my experience and during the fresh start I’m having now, this isn’t necessarily true. To represent YOU, yes. Let me share what I’m doing BUT I’m previously agented & published 💙📚

Thread: racism, fascism, Nazis. WIP book currently out & about, Beautiful Little Fool, is centred in The Great Gatsby, taking you from the eugenicist ideas of Tom Buchanan in 1922 to the second Trump inauguration of 2025. Two more of my books, from @renardpress.com & @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social