'He thought rock’n’roll was for idiots [...] & he thought it might be better if I turned at least some of my attention to Art Pepper and Johnny Griffin. He was probably right.' James Oldham pays his respects Brian Case www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/caug... Photo: @briandavidstevens.bsky.social

Recently published by TNC Books, @badwool9.bsky.social’s ‘Boomerang Process’ is full of the extraordinariness and unpredictability of human existence, writes @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/boom...

#NowPlaying: ‘Rock Island Line’ by Jake Xerxes Fussell www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/now-... Taken from the album The Old Beloved Path, upcoming on Fat Possum Records.

What does The Animals of Farthing Wood’s displacement tale look like in the age of AI? Abi Andrews considers animal sentience, the data centre deluge, and the new “pay-to-destroy” approach to planning www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/data...

Re-Wilding and Re-Childing Time: Contributing editor Tallulah Brennan talks to @rebeccatamas.bsky.social about wild time, children as animists, what kinds of seasons we deserve, and England as Stonehenge www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/re-w... Author photo: Robin Silas Christian

As environmental crisis looms large — temperature ever increasing, rivers running drier, data centres getting thirstier and billionaires getting richer — help us keep publishing stories of community, resistance and hope, and gathering around them together: www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/seek...

Beowulf “Wulfie” Mayfield's 'A Little Film About Little Libraries' follows reluctantly retired musician Billy Jenkins on a bike trip around the borough of Lewisham, SE London, to enjoy, tidy up and generally support an informal network of micro libraries www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/a-li...

'Queer ecology in a garden is about the untamed and unpruned.' Read an extract from @jennychambles.bsky.social’s ‘Q is for Garden’ (@manchesterup.bsky.social) — our July Book of the Month, which explores how queerness & nature entwine 🌿 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/jenn...

#NowPlaying: ‘Move Your Body (Greater Horseshoe Bat)’ by Hanna Tuulikki & @surfacepressure.bsky.social 🦇 Taken from the collaborative album 'Echo in the Dark' — composed entirely from bat echolocation calls fused with the human voice — forthcoming on KIN-TU www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/hann...

Contributing editor Tallulah Brennan heads to North London’s OmVed Gardens to take in Hannah Fletcher’s ‘Photo.Petro.Chemical.Capital’, exploring the entwined rise of photography and the petrochemical industry www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/omve...

'It was orchid season in the acid grassland of home / and we’d been given departure times too.' High Speed 1: a poem by Will Burns @troubledstriker.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/high...

alive, alive oh: Today on the site, audiovisual artist Claire Todd introduces her new film piece about standing deadwood www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/aliv...

Photographic artist @williamarnold.bsky.social is embarking on a mission to SAVE PUBLIC TELEPHONY by making a 1700-mile round-trip from Cornwall to place 52 calls from a kiosk on the Isle of Lewis — and he’s started a crowdfunder to help him on his way www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/savi...

Safe Harbours: In June’s BOTM author interview, 'Rough Edges' author Natasha Carthew speaks to CBTR’s Tallulah Brennan about the precarity of coastal living, the importance of working-class voices in the nature writing canon, & the ocean as a parental figure www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/nata...

'This is a project to directly combat the hate we see in the media and in politics.' We’re thrilled to be working with artists Rosa Amora & Riley Summer on their project ‘ROOTED’, celebrating migration in the UK through storytelling, printmaking & community www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/root...

#NowPlaying: ‘The 47 Whale Raga’ by Jim Nollman. A welcome escape into the cool, deep waters under British Columbia. Taken from the album 'Orcas’ Greatest Hits', out on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in August 🐋 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/now-... Beautiful stuff.

Field recording & nature sound luminary Chris Watson is auctioning off some of his sound recording accessory equipment — including a Billingham bag previously used to transport Sir David Attenborough’s personal kit — in benefit of The Philip Jeck Foundation www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/chri...

Capturing the physical and psychic states beyond, between and beneath human perception, M. John Harrison’s ‘The End of Everything’ (@serpents-tail.bsky.social) is a kind of ‘anti-state of the nation novel’, writes @troubledstriker.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/the-...

'Out of Whack', an exhibition of Frank Watson's photographs of the Thames Estuary and Kent coast, opens at Joseph Wales Studios, Margate on 3rd July www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/out-...

Natasha Carthew’s ‘Rough Edges’ (@sceptrebooks.bsky.social) is June BOTM. An antidote to dominant, romanticised nature writing narratives, it keeps the genre’s humanity intact, writes CBTR contributing editor Tallulah Brennan www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/roug...

New in the shop: Streatham Common to the Tooting Commons: A South London Landscape History. The fourth in the series of landscape historian John Gray's bestselling 'Commonplace' zines, detailing how the commons provide the key to the South London landscape rivertones.bandcamp.com/merch/streat...

Opening this weekend at Kestle Barton, 'Birded and Eyed' brings together new works by Sarah Gillespie — developed through sustained observation of the woods, meadows and night-life around both Kestle Barton and the artist’s home in Devon www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/bird...

#NowPlaying: ‘Growing Roots’ by Modern Biology & Zekarias Musele Thompson. Taken from the forthcoming 'Plants Can Dance', curated by Brian d’Souza (Auntie Flo), bringing together a global community of artists to explore the possibilities of biosonification www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/now-...

'I'm hoping they might reach the ears of people who are less able to explore the outside world as I am privileged to do.' If a Tree Falls: Rick Blything introduces the field recording project which sees him uploading a wealth of nature sounds to YouTube www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/if-a...

'Your name is nowhere here, / yet the nettles flinch as if brushed. / Sap runs bitter-sweet in the cut ash, / ambering the air.' Persistence of Ache / The Thaw Begins: a poem by Ruby Butler www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/pers...

In the company of @paulreesauthor.bsky.social's’ ‘Raised on Radio – Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola’, Travis Elborough dips into the history of Adult Orientated Rock — the sound of a confident, car-driving North America www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/rais...

The Lammermuirs are one of Scotland’s most treasured rural landscapes. This morning, @benjaminmyers76.bsky.social wrote to us with news of plans to build an industrial data centre on them. Help 66 locals defeat a $2 billion project by signing the petition: www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/save...

Newly published by Cornwall's Ancient Magic Books, 'Deep Field' presents a large collection of artist Tom Sewell's photographs for the first time www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/deep...

'I was poor in every practical respect of the word, but rich in the colours of sea glass, shells and hedgerow flowers, prosperous in the saline drift of early morning fog...' Read an extract from Natasha Carthew's 'Rough Edges', our June Book of the Month www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/roug...

#NowPlaying: ‘Here Are The Tulips’ by Hollow Hand 🌷 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/now-... Taken from the upcoming album 'Wish Road South', out on Loose Music / Soundy in September.

With their celebration of ordinary people’s lives, Mackenzie Crook’s ‘Small Prophets’ and @littletollerbooks.bsky.social’s recent reissue of L. P. Jacks’ ‘Mad Shepherds’ are a match made in heaven, writes Sue Brooks www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/06/mad-...

The latest in the series of letters with Lochaber crofter Kirsteen Bell for @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social's Coast, Croft & Hill: letters from the NW Highlands. In April & May we talked about nightjars, spinning, cuckoos and wildflowers.  Happy reading 🤗 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/crof...

Reviewed the new one from Michael Smith…

Croft, Coast and Hill: From unfurling green tips to cuckoos and nightjars, Spring reasserts itself on Kirsteen Bell and @annieworsley.bsky.social’s respective crofts www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/crof...

[email protected] reviews Michael Smith's ‘Strangers on the Shore’ (published yesterday @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social), finding 'a steadfast commitment to the beauty of doubt and ambiguity in the face of a vast and unknowable universe': www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/stra...

Great review of Melissa Harrison’s brilliant, beautiful book that is full of such depth, it invites myriad readings & connections. It’s very, very good .. ‘a generous worldview builds, where nothing is just one thing.’ Absolutely…

Peckerwood: Spring surges, squirming and unstoppable, into Mark Mattock‘s “feral’d” NW2 garden www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/peck...

Melissa Harrison’s latest novel ‘The Given World’ is May Book of the Month. Amy Liptrot reviews — finding in the book’s generous worldview, rich language and dreamlike qualities an ‘Under Milk Wood’ for the twenty-first century www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/the-...

Opened yesterday at Southcombe Barn, Dartmoor, 'Cartographies of Care' is a group exhibition that asks — in the current contexts of warfare and rising sea levels crises — ‘how much longer will we have these lands to care for?’ www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/cart... Image: Vivian Ross-Smith

#NowPlaying: ‘Wild Geese Arrive’ by @hannahpeel.bsky.social & Beibei Wang. Taken from the collaborative album 'The Endless Dance', out now on Real World Records www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/now-...

“I’ll tell you where it all went wrong, Pat.” “Where what went wrong?” “Everything.” “Like what?” “It was the smoking ban.” Read ‘Tomorrow Might as Well be Today’, a short story by @badwool9.bsky.social wired from the margins of Liverpool www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/tomo...

It’s been quite the week for alternative rural voices. #RadicalRural gathering @themerl.bsky.social, the wonderful @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social Festival at Elmley, Our Land film & Q&A @righttoroam.bsky.social & finally seeing threeacresandacow.co.uk which is just revolutionary & BRILLIANT!

Thank you, from the bottom of our marshy hearts, to everyone who made last weekend at Elmley Nature Reserve one for the books...https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/post-elmley-photos-and-thank-yous/ Photo: Jess Bootes

Thank you to @crackmagazine.bsky.social for featuring @hannahpeel.bsky.social's 'Underland' soundtrack at number 28 on their list of 'The 50 Greatest Film Scores of the 21st Century (...so far)' - high praise indeed! crackmagazine.net/article/list...

In this month’s BOTM author interview, Melissa Harrison speaks to Tallulah Brennan about imagined rivers, our skewed relationship with the seasons, and the notable omission of farming from the nature writing canon www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/loya... Author photo: Richard Allenby-Pratt

What a weekend @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social & the stunning, wildlife-rich otherworldliness of Elmley National Nature Reserve. Exciting, innovative writers & artists doing great things. Tripping over hares & lapwings & a stay (with Andrew Wasylyk band!) in historic, atmospheric Kingshill Farmhouse.

‘Willetts has created a compelling alternative history of nightlife; positioning it as the maximally inventive wing of the creative industries.’ Emma Warren reviews Imogen Willetts’ ‘Up All Night: A History of Going Out’, newly pub'd by @wnbooks.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/up-a...

In advance of this weekend’s Caught by the River event at Elmley Nature Reserve, CBTR editor Diva and co-host Daisy gave over their latest Token Girl DJs Soho Radio show to 2 hours of music celebrating the event www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/now-...

‘The spring sun draws life from everything it touches, giving rise, among many in the village, to a comforting illusion that all is still right with the world, & that nothing will ever change.’ An extract from Melissa Harrison‘s ‘The Given World’, May BOTM www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/meli...

Once a quarter, we invite a different writer to share their most pleasurable moments of the season with paid subscribers. Read a free excerpt from this month's piece, in which Kerri ní Dochartaigh delights in Spring’s cracking open www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/05/kerr... Illustration: Adam Higton