A proud moment this summer: bagging a stone that isn't already on the @megalithic.bsky.social (very rare occurrence!). On the Beara peninsula east of Adrigole, a little way north of the Drumlave row. It involved crawling under barbed wire but then we saw there was a gate. #StandingStoneSunday

A beautiful tribute to Observer journalist Rachel Cooke, whose writing I loved. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

I hate this. Knowing table manners depends on so many things that are out of your control. I was nagged by my mother (‘does your fork have legs? Are you afraid it will run away?’) but what if you never sat down to eat with people who had good manners? What if you don’t know there’s a right way?

It rained on the dog walk and the dog just… went home. He turned around, looked at me to make sure I was following, and bounced. He is not an all-weather hound. (I didn’t film him because it was raining A LOT but here he is on a normal walk.)

Zero odd encounters and a sunny walk. You just never know!

Oh no

Still gold.

I had three (3) odd encounters with men while walking the dog yesterday and it’s putting me off walking him today. One was distinctly off, one was awkward and slightly odd, one was funny. If my husband walks the dog he has zero odd experiences, as a rule.

⭐Well, she's arrived—the 2026 Irish Writers Handbook⭐ Find yours here ⬇️ ⬇️⬇️ and in all good bookshops imminently! wordwellbooks.com/index.php?ro... @stomaselli.bsky.social @janecasey.bsky.social @niamhgarvey.bsky.social @oliviahopewriter.bsky.social @irishwriterscentre.bsky.social

Oof. She’s not wrong. There’s a big gulf between how culture is seen and experienced in the UK and Ireland, I’ve noticed.

There was a bincident on the dog walk. I didn’t want to touch the rotting carrot so I was reduced to begging him to drop it. Even the foxes turned this one down.

Off to read a book so Joyce Carol Oates doesn’t judge me.

I had a revelation on the dog walk last night that means I need to revise 20,000 words to change something fundamental about it and writing is truly for people who hate themselves, isn’t it.

Beloved husband: you look nice. Me, wary: thanks BH: you look like one of the Manson family.

Anyone there for an oul vote… anyone at all… (seriously a great line-up of Irish writing talent here so you could do worse than use it as a guide for your Christmas gifts. Kenny’s in Galway ships worldwide.) www.irishbookawards.ie/vote/

New author photograph

The dog woke me up in the middle of the night, the cat woke me up an hour before the alarm this morning and this week was excessively high in nope-amine. Also I saw who won the Traitors before I'd watched the last two episodes.

My god…it worked…every ride is coming back to me now…in a flood of memories…overwhelming my senses…some going up, some going down…some smelling like piss, some smelling less like piss…

A very beautiful lamp is stalking me across the internet and it is SO expensive I can't justify it, but I'm glad the algorithm believes in me and my books.

What in the Nicolae Ceaușescu is this?

Donna Tartt would be very underwhelmed by me.

Accessorising with autumn leaves is cool, actually.

I think it’s important to talk about how being a mother can affect your writing time, though. In my case I can say I had a very supportive and self employed husband who did a lot, but I still wrote most of my early books between 11pm and 1am when no one would interrupt me.

Two new Helen Garner books! (Even if one of them isn’t really a HG book but it’s about the mushroom trial). www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

I haven't checked in for a while: has anyone written a think-piece about how Lily Allen's album has more impact than Taylor Swift's because we prefer the artistic expression of misery/anger to happy contentment? (Don't come for me, Swifties, I like both.)

We played shop on the dog walk. I had asked for a flat white but all he had was a ball. Disappointing.

Did you happen to leave your @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk purchases on the Metropolitan line yesterday? Did one of your friends do this and send an anguished message to the group chat? If so, Darren has just done you a very good turn. 👇

Absolutely perfect.

That Andrew thing… there’s got to be more to come, surely.

‘Okay, let me have a look at this book. I’m trained to use a mouse.’

A nice picture of the dog. Except he’s sitting on the cat’s Special Blanket and he knows it.

Look, I just think the President of Ireland should not be a politician but a writer, poet, academic or artist. We got so lucky with Michael D. He was a politician but it was his poetic intellectual side that was presidential.

The house is cold but my teenage boys on half term are wandering around in shorts, ruthlessly opening windows and turning off radiators. The cat is as horrified as I am.

Now, Voyager is on BBC iPlayer, folks. The signature cigarette move is just as thrilling even while you're thinking 'they'd never do that nowadays'.

I will be extremely surprised if this is actually Mary, from the DM I just got. There's a rash of author-impersonators across social media. I know I've been cloned too. I don't follow people out of the blue and I don't DM to 'chat'. Nor do I recommend marketing strategies etc. Be wary out there.

This remains the funniest way to hear about an internet outage, though.

Eat the chocolate flavour coating, plebs.

I had the biggest crush on WB Yeats as a teenager, it will no doubt shock you to hear.

First there was pond water; then there was bath water. Ugh.

If Dana Andrews ever looked at me the way he looks at Dorothy Adams in this scene from Laura, I would swoon. (You have to watch it now to see this insanely hot sidelong smile; I don’t make the rules.)

New book. Not out until next year but hey, treat yourself. (Cannot emphasise enough that is not the cover or overall look…)

Willing to overlook the footwear here on the grounds of heroism.

Surely the market for cosy thrillers by reasonably likeable famous people is saturated by now.

Iago is the first men's rights advocate in literature and the reason Coleridge couldn't discern a motive for him was because he actually liked women, not because there isn't one.

I will never understand why you have 30 days to start watching something you've rented and 48 hours to finish it. So arbitrary and annoying.

The best thing about a lot of loud foxes at the front of the house at 3am was the mad barking it provoked from the very loud spaniel who shares my life. Second-best: the cat was out in the thick of it. My nerves.

Yes, Oliver Bonas, this just screams party dress. I can have a great time listening to LPs with the other sister wives.

As anyone who works in or adjacent to UK publishing knows, it has been A WEEK. I'm exhausted.

Absolutely love this post. Another example why we need to study history from the bottom up, not necessarily top down.