Happy Little Christmas! While Nollaig na mBan is a relatively new* thing, the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, was known as Notlaic Becc ‘Little Christmas’ or Notlaic Stéille, ‘Christmas of the star’, in early Irish texts. It seems to have marked the end of the season, & 'back to work' time! 1/

Needed it yesterday & today

The Bolivarian Revolution by Simon Bolívar, featuring an introduction by Hugo Chávez, is free to download. "Bolívar foresaw the threat of the US and described it with surprising clarity: 'the United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with miseries in the name of Freedom.'"

Hey, if you're looking for a new hobby -- especially one that's analog -- my brilliant friend @badasscrossstitch.bsky.social is hosting a learn to embroider on Zoom this weekend www.eventbrite.com/e/1977418083...

(I'm certain others have said this better, but it's pretty fascist to demand perfection according to any definition; the beauty of transformative justice approaches is knowing humans fail & planning repair+good based on that. We can do the same in tiny scale w/what we make & how we learn 💜)

London writers please boost: our workshop is always open to new members and anyone who would like help getting their novel over the line please get in touch

palestinians protested for george floyd while being genocided. koreans protested for gaza under the threat of martial law. i promise you we can go harder.

We were dreaming on an occupied island at the farthest edge of a trembling nation when it went down. / We had been watching since the eve of the missionaries in their long and solemn clothes, to see what would happen. Joy Harjo www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49619/...

#TodaysPoem is scant solace, but I’ll take the crumbs

Halfway through and loooooving it. Kevin Barry is a fucking demented romantic. #BookSky #CurrentRead

THREAD: I'll fact-check all the viral misinformation about the US military operation in Venezuela in this thread This image, purporting to show the US military arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is AI-generated. According to Google's SynthID detector, it was created using Google AI.

Quaint Caturday (or should I say Chaturday) in the medieval hilltop village of Biot, France. This little tabby was super lovey but got spooked by an old lady pushing her rolly shopping cart over the cobbles and made a quick getaway!

By the way, being an expert in international law doesn't = *believing* in international law. It just means knowing a lot about it and, unfortunately, its (non)application.

Some people may be considering writing a novel this year. Good idea! I thought I'd share some practicalities that have worked for me as a very busy person who also writes. This is me sharing what I have tested and used. This is not advice. Reread the previous two sentences.

Solidarity rally with the Venezuelan people, 3PM today on the Ha’penny Bridge #SpéirGhorm 🇮🇪

I lent someone a book 25 years ago and sometimes catch myself vaguely expecting to get it back one day

It’s been twenty-two years and I no longer live in the country where I lost it, but there’s an earring I still yearn to find, and I will take any hope I can get 👇🏻

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” - Howard Zinn

Today I can't walk or sit but it was great.

Happy 2026! To start the year, here's a tree ring chiton, a 5cm ocean mollusk that sticks to rocks. Instead of having obvious eyes on a head, it's got 100s of tiny eyes embedded in the hard plates on its back, each with a rock crystal to focus light. Its top is one big eye spying on the world above

Around 2017 I sank into a long depression and all but stopped reading for about three years. I’m still amazed and so relieved to be on the other side of that particular tunnel. Grateful for the artists, writers & visionaries who expand, enrich & shape my world. Thank you thank you. Míle buíochas ✨

Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise Daoibh! 🎉

I’ve mostly given up making New Year’s resolutions for myself, but damn it if my cat isn’t going to accomplish his goals in 2026!

There’s a metaphor in this box but you have to build it yourself ❄️

Another Heaney poem, “Midnight Anvil”, written to mark the year of the new millennium in rural Derry agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/linke...

This haiku by Seamus Heaney, written on his first new year without his father who died in 1986: I.I.87 Dangerous pavements. But I face the ice this year With my father’s stick.

Burning the Old Year, Naomi Shihab Nye only the things I didn’t do crackle after the blazing dies

Good morning from mr Fox

After years of muddling through the worlds of journalism and creative writing, it felt like things finally began to come together in 2025. I'm so grateful to have found many wonderful homes for my words and opportunities to collaborate with a growing literary community! See links below 🧵

My 2026 commissions for cat portrait teabag bookmarks are open! 🫖 Contact me via email at [email protected] if you're interested!

“When I was a kid, it was understood that poor people had to make everything themselves while rich people got to buy things. My mother bought whole cakes at the grocery store and said we were lucky, not to have to make them ourselves. Now everything is reversed.”

[Fake Christmas trees] may not be real but when you look at them you can’t tell the difference. That always makes people happy—not being able to tell the difference. And happiness, to want to be happy, is the most natural thing of all. 🎄

Recollections of My Christmas Tree is everything strange, slant, sweet and sad that you’d expect from Mary Ruefle 🎄 poets.org/poem/recolle...

Or Twi-torr as my dad pronounces it in his thick Dublin accent. Maybe that’s the key to a different experience…

Twitter is muck, left it long ago, but fwiw my 70 yr old dad is part of a motley crew on there who now get together irl a few times a year. He’s been to his annual Christmas lunch, a night out in Dublin & is doing Secret Santa with 20 other folks around Ireland. It’s wholesome AF, love it for him 🎅🏻

I would prefer if passion and dedication were my entryway into #5amWritersClub but perimenopausal insomnia it is and I’ll take it!

"You MUST write every day" and here's why that's trash advice: danieljosolder.substack.com/p/writing-be...

Writers should be more willing to say "this is how EYE write" rather than "this is how one should write." There is a surplus of writing advice. All writers must grandstand as givers of maxims on writing. It's a cultural thing right now. Not that I'm beyond giving a maxim or two.

Lecanora sp., possibly L. megalocheila. Staring at you with hundred eyes. Sakura-saku Lane, Saku, Nagano #Lichen #FungiFriends ナミチャシブゴケかな。長野県佐久市さくラさく小径 #地衣類

A bumper thread of words of the year from different dictionaries, organizations, and languages – everyone from Merriam-Webster to Potato News Today #WOTY2025

Cool to see longtime publishing pal and supporter Tara Bursey interviewed about zines, and there's an awful lot of stuff I made or worked on in this photo. So many articles on zines lately! Thanks to @prisonculture.bsky.social for the heads up about this. www.cbc.ca/arts/print-i...

Love this! 💌📬

Last few days now... Today's #LentoAdvent, day 22, theme is 🦡 wildlife 🐿️ Did you have a wild encounter with an animal or bird this year? Maybe something you'd never seen before? Or a new cat or dog friend or butterfly or caterpillar visitor to your garden? Please share your wildlife with alt text

Here they are as promised! A new batch of prompts for 2025 from me to you with love & gratitude. 🎁 Give 15 minutes a day to your writing during this busy season and start 2026 with 15 fresh drafts or at least some glimmers. Use January to polish and send off. ❤ open.substack.com/pub/artoffla...

I was so enamored of the delicate clinking of the rigging that I just now noticed the cutest little squeaks from these birds foraging on the shore of Lake Annecy. Meep!

Stork nest! (Full of pigeons asserting squatter’s rights, fair play to them.)

If you want to know more about CECOT, this story — featuring some excellent reporting from "60 Minutes" in the Before Times — can fill you in.

Hi.

Listening to a Father Brown mystery and enjoying the explanation for the inexplicable behaviour of the main suspect is rationally explained as "he's a poet."

CBS didn't run the 60 Minutes segment on CECOT, but over here at @propublica.org we've been working on the story since March, including finding out who each and every man sent to that maximum security prison was. You can see our reporting here: www.propublica.org/series/depor...