May the turn into 2026 be sweet for you all

Happy Christmas, Ireland.

The first five days of the #carvedecember2025 Lino stamp cutting challenge. Daily prompts lead to small hand carved stamps!

Trying out a modest lino challenge this December. One small stamp a day. Lets me leave little handmade gifts around the house too.

This week a colleague and I learned about intaglio and dry point. A first effort.

Wonderful to host the launch of "Creative Pedagogies in Practice: Case Studies from Creative Futures Academy at University College Dublin", with essays reflecting on how creative pedagogies foster critical thinking in teaching & learning. @artshumanitiesucd.bsky.social @creativefutures.bsky.social

Enjoyed City Lines walk as a part of #openhousedublin today. We thought about sensing and recording the city, then and now. A quick outdoor sketch of the Liberties, outside Guinness

I really enjoyed running a local printmaking workshop with @sarahcomyn.bsky.social this week in honor of Bloomin’ Crumlin who do so much for their community with cleanups, programming, and plant giveaways. A talented bunch of artists too!

Had a great time visiting with old friends and colleagues in St. Louis to consider the challenges of creative practice as research. We made flag books to work through practices of collaboration.

Had a great time with the team working on creative practice in research culture at UCD. Our workshop used the rotation of paper flexagons to explore our own goals and hopes for, and barriers to creative collaboration. Off to a great start!

The Dublin Small Press Fair (2025) is now open to applications from publishers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, experimental literature, literary journals, artists’ books, zines, chapbooks, broadsides, and more! dublinsmallpressfair.com

At today’s “Permacrisis and Polycrisis” conference at UCD, @sarahcomyn.bsky.social and I spoke on our shared experiences of “Crafting Against Crisis.” Intrepid participants then constellated conference keywords by making flexagon and flag books.

Library Assistant roles in @ucdlibrary.bsky.social Perm & Fixed Term plus panel. Closing date is soon so get the application in if you're interested! 12:00 noon (local Irish time) on 14/05/2025 More info: universityvacancies.com/university-c... #LISjobsIE

Renews MLA membership…

Celebrating the first time bookbinders from the English, Drama, and Gender Studies MA courses, who spent patient, joyful hours learning something new during finals.

Just dismayed to hear from colleagues that these crucial NEH grants and summer fellowships were awarded and are now being yanked. NEH funding shaped my career in essential ways. This is just enraging.

DOGE is reportedly rescinding grants that have already been awarded, thwarting the will of Congress and upending worthwhile projects that improve our lives. It’s yet another authoritarian move to control what people in our country see, say, and think.

This was a really meaningful end to the week. Doubly delighted to share this with so many fantastic colleagues, including my “Crafty Women” teaching partner, @sarahcomyn.bsky.social

Spring has decided to arrive in Ireland

#jobklaxon #academicjobs University College Dublin is seeking to recruit 50 early-career faculty through the Ad Astra Fellows programme - including in Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences & Law www.ucd.ie/adastrafello...

Learning to make wreaths is super satisfying. Highly recommend.

Tremendously proud of Suchismita Dattagupta whose PhD on Black hair in C20 US fiction was conferred today at UCD.

My garden is just about as resistant as I am to winter’s planned arrival. (Picked today)

Alternative Domesticities, which pondered tactics of dwelling, was a real meeting of the minds. Housing equity and migration, “home” as interrupted and unfinished business, hauntings, modernist materials (glass!), and domestic recoveries. Huge thanks to Thresholds of Knowledge and the UCDHI

Librarians are rad. Today Claire Dunne from UCD special collections pulled materials relevant to the literature class on women’s craft I’m teaching with @sarahcomyn.bsky.social Printmaking, bookmaking, lace, botanical collection, scrapbooks… new constellations all around.

Really excited for the Alternative Domesticities Workshop this week! Keynotes by @marygilmartin.bsky.social and Victoria Rosner

New tradition at ours: traipsing through the German forest to collect the makings for some chestnut and acorn forest folk. Highly recommended for all age groups

In today’s seminar we had a lace-making demonstration & my co-coordinator, Kate Fama taught how to make Victorian paper purses & flexagons which the students used to think through hidden meanings and relations in texts. Different perspectives, repetitions, changing alliances etc. it was excellent!

A year of artistic collaboration with @kfama.bsky.social 🤩 Looking forward to our gelli print workshop next year 🩵 You can find out more about our postcard exchange project here: extractivistlegacies.org/gallery/

Enjoyed the book launch for Singular Selves: An Introduction to Singles Studies (Eds Ketaki Chowkhani and Craig Wynne)immensely. A huge thanks to the respondents for their incisive comments. What a way to tie it all together!

The first 🎨postcards from @kfama.bsky.social and my exchange project are available for viewing 🖌️ with more to follow soon: extractivistlegacies.org/gallery/

Delighted to join this platform to update you on new and forthcoming publications, launch and festival events, reviews and other media, and general publishing news. Do follow us!

Enjoying a trip up to Belfast to introduce Philip McGowan talking on Fitzgerald.