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...

This will be a lot of fun👇

Unable to reconcile my need to read with the insatiable demands of chess, I've retired from the latter. Currently in Ireland with the rather wonderful Flann O'Brien (my first).

blue

firsts

Israel is deliberately killing Palestinian children. Not by accident. Not recklessly. On purpose. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming 👇 www.owenjones.news/p/israel-is-...

those hills, July 1st 9pm

horse n’ hill , 8.59pm

There are many illuminating and inventive books from CB Editions. Explore them here and read the opening few pages of each one: www.cbeditions.com CB actually enjoys posting books & the postage is fast & free.

outside in

Reznikoff: the CBe July newsletter, as archived on the Sonofabook blog: sonofabook.blogspot.com/2026/07/news...

those hills, 30th June 7.24pm.

meadow end to the day

there she is

👇

Exciting book news! @blackheraldpress.bsky.social make such beautiful books, I'm so delighted mine will be one of them. Please consider pre-ordering, it's a great help especially for small presses. 🙏

ICYMI I wrote about this novel about a most unconventional priest, inspired by an important Colombian cultural figure and friend of the author. @archipelagobooks.bsky.social To live is to love life: Aside from My Heart, All is Well by Héctor Abad roughghosts.com/2026/06/26/t...

I'm thrilled to share my new essay in @aeon.co Who are The Fire Tamers? For the past year, I travelled through salt marshes, visited remote farmhouses & oncology clinics to uncover the secret world of French healers working in parallel with conventional medicine. aeon.co/essays/who-a...

In July - for one month only - Headless Poet will open for proposals for what people are already describing as “Series 2”. Which is exciting. And another opportunity to tell (and refine) the story of what Headless Poet is all about. Watch this space? www.headlesspoet.com

Mahmoud Darwish recites ’A small sunset over an abandoned village’. m.youtube.com/watch?v=v699...

on-going

Cooler horses

wild thyme

flower moon

looking again

it’s been a whole year, it’s only fair we look

hollyhock, longest day

Second time this week: heavenly lime blossom

lime time

Clarice’s rose

day 2

Caroline Clark’s @cclarklewes.bsky.social very short piece of prose, “Salo,” appeared on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. www.3ammagazine.com/3am/salo/

first of many

Such a fun evening yesterday and lovely to meet @saggingmeniscus.bsky.social's Jacob and Guillermo. Very much looking forward to starting The Coast of Everything.

the lark rises

that blue

Our newsletter is out! Find out what's going on this summer.....

Current reading - NYRB Classic - Down Below - Leonora Carrington's nonfiction account of her breakdown and incarceration in an asylum in Spain. 30-page intro by Marina Walker is useful for someone new to Carrington's work. The 68-page account itself is pretty harrowing and (for me) essential reading

Thank you Michael Caines for giving us a mention in @thetls.bsky.social! "A notable revival is the Barbellion prize-named for W.N.P. Barbellion, the diarist, who suffered from multiple sclerosis - which "celebrates & promotes writing that represents the experience of chronic illness & disability"…

Not dead, but dreaming. Of? Books, mainly. For example, the first and only novel published by legendary nouvelle vague director Éric Rohmer, in its first English translation by @memoiressecrets.bsky.social, and here deemed "a poignant tale of summer languor at its last gasp."

Just been sitting on the front step reading what I realise is my favourite poem: Mandelstam’s Nadshedshii podkovy (The Horseshoe Finder). And there I see a horseshoe my daughter found at the weekend. Here with the wonderful translation by Anthony Barnett from: abar.net/mandelstam.pdf

field view, Wednesday

Friends, I'm doing a new thing (with some help) If you'd like to join me in celebrating, supporting, and otherwise platforming the UK's absolutely wonderful independent literature, please follow, subscribe, share, etc. Let's make some noise for books⚡ #booksky

between the rain

field view, Monday

Dew pond

"Hats off to Alexander Booth for this fine translation." www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/202...