Lovely quiet long weekend ahead for us atheist freelancers with no family in the country to get plenty done.

Remember, don’t buy a cow, or a car, and expect your city to give you someplace to park it. #UrbanTruth

I love it when Germans say “supi” instead of “super”. Not just because it sounds a bit like “soupy”, though that’s a big factor. I think it’s also because it’s unabashedly cute and wholesome. I like to say it too, in the knowledge that it annoys some people.

tired: "you're embarrassingly wrong and should check your facts before piping up again" wired: "I'm pleased to have this opportunity to update you on our longstanding position"

Here it is, My First Fiction Publication. Big 🩷 to the Auflauf gang. You should subscribe!

Met up with old uni friends. It’s always good to see them but I still struggle with the fact that their lives are (with one exception) so much more financially stable than mine.

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/b...

We went to the old blIke’s playing trad jazz and were blown away by a class of A-Level history students from Dagenham, all utterly charming and excited to be in Berlin.

Please note Michael B Jordan’s excellent #WalletOnAChain at the Oscars.

Germany’s shortsighted culture cut of the day, episode 3

Cultural cut of the day: German foreign ministry axes international volunteering programme for young people kulturweit. But don’t worry kids, the army will take you abroad! www.kulturweit.de/foerderstopp

Someone didn’t want their vulva cake yesterday, I guess.

I dreamed I won the International Booker Prize and they gave me a big gold and onyx necklace and then I immediately went on a no-email writing retreat in Birmingham.

Sarcastic or not sarcastic, either way this is good.

The abrupt closure of the Goethe-Institut in Exile is what Germany’s CDU culture guy Weimer might like to do with the Berlinale. Sadly, artists in exile don’t have the global support that the film festival garners. Daniel Bax draws the parallel and attended the relocated event on Palestinian writing

Tenure-track professorship in Anglophone Lit / New Media Studies in Göttingen, actively looking for people who can teach Comparative and World Lit 👀 uni-goettingen.de/en/695692.html

I’m putting the abrupt Goethe-Institut in Exile closure in a big toxic pot with the cdu’s Berlinale nonsense and the Berlin cdu’s Oyoun defunding and antisemitism funding scandal. Culture? They only want to pay for it if the form and content are suitably conservative, and…

Shameful of the GI to end its Goethe Institut in Exile project like this, apparently from one day to the next.

Good morning! www.thepinknews.com/2026/02/18/e...

Ok I read one of my brand new short stories at an event and didn’t die.

Come along to our Christa Wolf event in Berlin tomorrow to hear @katyderbyshire.bsky.social read from her translations—and more—while we explore Wolf's post-Wall legacy in discussion & texts submitted from all across town >> psst also it's free >> www.lettretage.de/Termine/chri...

Looking forward to this!

I love Arundhati Roy's courage, integrity, intelligence, and her artistry as a writer of fiction & nonfiction. Wim Wenders, the jury chair, on being questioned about Gaza, said filmmakers have to stay out of politics. Roy said a genocide demands a response from everyone, artists included. I agree.

Art has political influence, don’t pretend otherwise. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

Back in Berlin from London, spreading the joy of friendliness to strangers on the U-Bahn!

A magazine editor likes one of my (three and a half existing) stories. I am rereading the email obsessively. I feel like a bit of a cheat but if you count my translations then I’ve actually been writing for about 20 years, so I need to stop feeling that way.

Sundays seem to be short-story writing days now.

Yikes! Christa Wolf met her Stasi handlers in an “unofficial room” in the building where I go for physio. I don’t know whether they used du or Sie.

I’ve written a teeny story for this event, a low-stakes experiment. I’ll be on stage anyway talking about translating Christa Wolf. sites.google.com/view/mayroec...

The physio guy forgot we switched to Du last time, until he was in the middle of applying these Hammer horror electric suction cups to my arm.

Don't know why I'm so irrationally annoyed by all the "January is too long, boo hoo" tweets. Our enemy is not January; our enemy is THE RELENTLESS PASSAGE OF TIME. Do you want to hasten our trajectory towards death? Is that what you want?

WE WANT YOUR PROSE—submit now to read at our Feb 21 Lettrétage event about Christa Wolf (and her post-Wall writing e.g. One Day A Year). Send us some short prose in any language about the day, the daily, the recurring date, everyday politics. We will print a zine! sites.google.com/view/mayroec...

Top tip: don’t put kumpir inside your coat to get it home warm in freezing Berlin weather. It doesn’t work AND it leaks.

Unlocked duzing the physiotherapist ✅

I wrote another short story. So much fun, concentrating on one thing for hours and enjoying where it takes me. I was so happy and excited about it I couldn’t sleep for ages.

Aber wie kommen wir an die Kartoffeln?

Bandcamp has banned AI music. The company has released a statement which includes the following: "Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp." stereogum.com/2485199/band...

Open AI loses copyright case in Germany. Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."

The thing that depresses me in the whole AI revolution in my industry (I’m a literary translator and publisher) is that the question is not whether machines can replace human translators, but how will we deal with the fallout after machines are forcibly introduced regardless.

Danced to this top tune for the first time, asked the DJ what it was, came home and realized I have it on an album. #Maytals 1974 version. youtu.be/npcnm9yOQZU?...

You’ve all read this, yes? www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

I have a FIRST DRAFT! Of my short story. I’m completely besotted with it. Everybody must love every single word of it, surely. Now I have to leave it to rest so I can fall out of love and look at it critically.

I have started my attempt to write a short story. It’s so different to translating and writing screenplays — so few constraints. But it’s its own kind of fun. Describing things! Structure! Plot! Not overdoing the adjectives! Finding good verbs (that’s part of translating too though).

In 2026 I’m going to see if I can write a short story.

By a process of trial and error, I have established that you’re supposed to use the *formal* you with your physiotherapist. Even though they’re touching you the whole time and introduced themself by their first name.

Ich möchte in einer Gesellschaft leben, in der Menschen auf der Flucht geholfen wird und ihnen ermöglicht wird, sich an sicheren Orten niederzulassen. Keine Lager, keine Pushbacks. Sichere Fluchtwege und das Recht zu bleiben.

Maybe I’ll try to use social media more like someone who has no wish or need to get a US visa.

I’m doing very well at buying myself things and pretty poorly at buying gifts for other people.

Germany’s association of family-owned companies says it will now hold talks with far-right AfD.