Proud to have been part of YLAF (York Lesbian Arts Festival*) since the start & and extra proud to be part of this doc. Sunday June 14th 4pm, Clapham Picture House. www.picturehouses.com/movie-detail... (*wish it didn't need saying but apparently it does - happily trans inclusive since the start)

Sorry to read of the death of Maureen Duffy. She was an outstanding writer, champion of other writers, champion of lesbian visibility decades before it was (relatively) safe, and a fine person. We writers are indebted to her for ALCS & PLR and so much else. Image KCL: www.kcl.ac.uk/people/maure...

Aue! Sitting here crying in South London at the news of Jools Topp's death. I first saw the Topps in Pōneke/Wgtn in 1981. I was almost 18, screwed up about a sexuality I had no words for yet, and they were out, proud & amazing. Lucky us to have grown alongside them. Moe mai rā.

Now the UK toilet debacle has more clarification, the fair thing is to make all toilets gender neutral. It will stop queues outside women's loos, stop discrimination against trans folk. trans-criticals are obv fine with cis men who commit the vast majority of crime, so let’s make it all unisex.

This is why we join together the letters L, G, B, T, Q, I, A - because an attack on one ALWAYS ends up being an attack on all.

Not Wes though, surely?

Have I won book spam lottery? Today's eager book group is "Cozy Mystery Corner Books Club" & they're v impressed by the quality of "your book", the style & engaging characters of "your book" & the powerful storytelling of "your book". FFS, the lazy shit/bot couldn't even be bothered picking a title!

#LibrariesChangeLives. Please keep these coming and thnx to everyone who's contributed so far. I'm in the studio with the band this weekend but i'll read + reply to everyone i've not got back to yet in and amongst 💪

Great hashtag @stuhennigan.bsky.social - #LibrariesChangeLives is def true for me too. The learning place, the safe space for the scared-other me. (Yes I was an early ‘70s queer kid with no role models, no stories, no way of knowing what my otherness meant.)

#LibrariesChangeLives. Let'e have some more please. @librariesconnected.bsky.social @iainmoore.bsky.social check my TL from last night and toda for more of these, let'e get it trending. #BookSky 📚📚📚📚📚

In shock news a white Oxbridge chap is new DG of the BBC. Meanwhile even the CofE has managed to drag (some of) itself into the 21st century as Archbishop Sarah Mullally takes over. When people fondly say 'never change, BBC' I'm not sure they mean NEVER change ...

Grateful to Anita Chaudhuri for lovely interview & impressed with sub who managed a headline that shouldn't be too rage-baity for those who think the ONLY problem we have is menopause, when really it's menopause + ageism + pronatalism + misogyny + death aversion. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Oh those Mother’s Day marketing emails. And onwards …

Trump mouthing off about "Iran's great future" after this illegal war - um, the Persian Empire would like a word ...

In non absurdly-pointless war news, saw the Tracey Emin exhibition @ Tate Modern today. It was GLORIOUS. Meaningful, deeply feminist, interwoven strands of the effects of racism, classism and sexism, life and death and meaning. Stunning.

From 1998-2008, thousands of queer women went to York for YLAF - the York Lesbian Arts Festival. It was a glorious annual event & trans-inclusive in its DNA. This great film about YLAF is in York this w/e for #IWM2026 & a lovely full circle moment. www.picturehouses.com/movie-detail...

take a shot every time you hear the words "just glad the queen isn't here to see this"

It's definitely a start. If you can't get them for the dire atrocities they're (in)famous for, get them for something else. Very Al Capone. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c7...

Millions of Epstein files suggest the existence of a 'global criminal enterprise' that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, a panel of independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council says.

Can anyone read this in any other way than that Epstein was using cryptocurrency to fund Bannon's antics with Farage, Johnson, Salvini and Le Pen?

This can be the site for breaking news, if journalists choose to break news on it. It is as simple as that. And that is not utopian. It is precisely what has happened the last week or so. If you weren't on BlueSky, you were late to each development.

No-one seems to have noticed, but many of the core developments in the Mandelson/Epstein story these last few days have been broken on this website. @pickardje.bsky.social and @petergeoghegan.bsky.social are both posting each breaking development on BlueSky, not X.

On #WorldCancerDay here's an old blog about the cost of cancer. (recently added osteoporosis to my own price list. Our culture expects deep gratitude at every cancer survival, and while these feelings may come (& go) the cost of survival is real and merits attention. stelladuffy.blog/2023/01/10/t...

Aargh! BACP’s ‘because you’re worth it’ LIPSTICK SHADES campaign to encourage 50-something women to therapy! Tone deaf, deeply patronising, & treating over-50s women’s’ lives like a Cosmo quiz from 1975. I’m truly astonished they went with this, however genuine the intent. nomorestiffupperlip.co.uk

It's weird how after every good thing/gain (even if we don't call it a victory) people circle up to insist we shouldn't celebrate. Celebrating is not how people give up, in my experience; believing we can't win, never win, and have no power is (with a side of joylessness).

A lot of Dems are going to take Bovino and Noem being fired as the finish line, and it's very important to make it clear to them that it is a starting line

Or if you prefer your existentialists white and European (why?) here too is de Beauvoir on the necessity of action in addition to attention.

I heartily recommend Ortega’s In-Between (2016) for a deeply 21st century existentialism that understands otherness and oppression and how it affects us personally and politically.

This morning I’ve seen a few (thankfully only a few) therapists suggest psychotherapy is not political. But psychotherapy does not happen apart from politics, news, world events … it’s all joined up. EVERYTHING is situated and contextual.

Protester in Minneapolis just before disappearing in gas: "Fuck you! Stop. Damn! I'm 70 years old and I'm fuckin' angry!"

“Feeling the hard makes space for the good. When I came out of the gym to meet my wife I was dancing to Pharrell Williams’ Happy in my ear buds. Not that I had finished with the upset or anything near that…” A sober, joyful and at times excruciating piece. Watch out for her book from Virago in 2027

How quickly things can change in a day (not about the Orange One). #Osteoporosis diagnosis crap, feeling all the feelings good. stelladuffy.blog/2026/01/23/o...

Five-time draft dodger and abject coward says what?

How quickly things can change in a day (not about the Orange One). #Osteoporosis diagnosis crap, feeling all the feelings good. stelladuffy.blog/2026/01/23/o...

oh, I was wondering how were the people standing after his self-aggrandising speech, and then during the Q&A it's clear it's all his own people in the front rows trying to make him look better.

Carney to Trump, hyperion to a satyr.

President Trump has threatened 200% tariffs on French wine and Champagne over France's intentions to decline the invitation to join his Board of Peace You heard that Correctly

Farage said this a couple of days ago in connection with Trump’s Greenland threats. They’ve been talking.

Today I am 26 and I am 12. The costs of surviving cancers have been many. Survival costs. AND I am very grateful to be here and now. And grateful especially for @shelleysilas.bsky.social’s being-with through it all.

Extraordinary video. Apart from anything else, the ICE thugs look like an incompetent rabble. And those residents are very brave.

Um, you're not allowed to go door-to-door hoping to randomly find someone violating the law. You need a warrant. That's is basic Constitutional shit.

WE DON'T NEED A LIVE NATIONAL ADDRESS FROM TRUMP WE NEED HIM REMOVED FROM POWER AND LOCKED UP FOR LIFE

Russia, if you're listening, please abduct Donald and Melania from their bedroom ASAP and charge them with fraud and war crimes

Um, so it’s ok to bomb a country you’ve not declared war upon and ‘capture’ (kidnap) its President & his wife? Asking on behalf of bellicose dictators everywhere. While wondering if this is his dress rehearsal for Iran …

Yoga for writing for m/others around pre/peri/post #menopause - all bodies welcome, no experience of #writing or #yoga needed. An @improbable1.bsky.social & M/Others Who Make event with me. xx Booking here: motherswhomake.org/creating-our...

6.47pm New Year's Eve and I've just finished (editing) work for the year. Delighted that in 6 hours I can call it 'the book that comes out next year'. Also delighted NOT to work tomorrow.

Pre/peri/post-menopause folks, try Professor Susan Davis’ brilliant lecture on #menopause hormones & heart health and the follow-up discussion. Proper research (not the cherry-picked, now buy my product kind) & usefully accessible. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRvh...

For those of us grieving, for those who are lonely, for those with losses that feel impossible, I wish you small moments of light - a sunbeam, a smile from a stranger, a pattern of rain on the window, the possibility of easier times - eventually. With love, xxx

Thinking about UK anti-trans activists & the cognitive dissonance of finding yourself on the same side as Trump’s cronies while arguing that you’re “protecting women”.