‘Daddy, why is it a cow stops? It gets a bit of the way, but then it doesn’t seem able to get any further, ever.' That led us on to the question of limited intelligence ... It was about ten days after that that we first heard about Chocky. - John Christopher

A properly engrossing book can prevent you from noticing that your train stopped for no reason half an hour ago, and the carriage lights have gone out.

So you're Jeff Wayne? What are the chances.

I'm running a popular romance course at the University of Liverpool... but only if enough people sign up! Come and join us! www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...

Hello #portfolioday! I’m Natalie Foss, a freelance illustrator based in London. I enjoy drawing dreamy and colourful stuff! I also love drawing repeat patterns + more design'y stuff, and I’m currently practicing my animation skills. I’d love to do more book covers this year 💗 www.nataliefoss.co.uk

Bookswap in the rain: Dealing with Vampires? Healing with Vitamins.

This is my Stour, though. Very green.

I can answer this and preserve the enigma of my origins because there are five rivers called Stour in England.

Had an excellent weekend of chamber larps at The Smoke but it does feel strange to have made friends I can never speak to again, because they're fictional characters who only existed for four hours. @omenstar.bsky.social

I'm interested in a current strand in the discussion of creativity and AI: creators discussing the futility of the promised shortcuts, and the necessity of working through sticky patches, of taking circuitous routes and getting lost, of the material constraints of wood and guitar strings.

It's still Epiphany for an hour in the UK, if you'd like to have one.

Shard of pond glass.

Having listened to various conversations about annual awards: preorder my SciFi thriller, Recency Bias, coming out end-of-November 2026.

New year ushered in by startled crows and distant sirens.

Slipping a bit of short fiction in before the year ends. I'm delighted to be in Baffling. This is set in the summer but it's about change and estrangement, so a decent fit for NYE.

Happy Newt Year, everyone.

Favourite thing about daylight foxes is when they pass someone very close by who is totally oblivious. Feels like a massive ginger demonstration of the fallibility of our senses/attention.

Any suggestions for a Goodreads alternative? Mainly to keep a record of what I read, and short thoughts. I've not used anything similar, so not sure what additional features might appeal.

If you want to buy a gift for a writer, this collection is a steal and a trove. You may end up beta-reading their uncanny scifi magical murder mystery in six months' time, but wouldn't that be fun? (From @deadinkbooks.bsky.social - many other 50% off deals.) deadinkbooks.com/product/writ...

A Romancing the Gothic first! I have put the whole schedule for 2026 up in advance! You can already book tickets through March but you can see what's coming (and note it in your diary!) for the whole year! What a talk schedule! romancingthegothic.com/class-schedu...

Message from the 1940s, feel free to use widely in 2026.

SPACE CRONE space crone

Have an old tree for a short day. May be pre-Norman conquest.

Just found out that my childhood home has no foundations. Just stone resting on earth. Clumsy metaphor? (@romgothsam.bsky.social?)

This year I made a tiny booklet of linocuts with @chrissywilliams.bsky.social, Fight the Moon. Chrissy supplied the maxims and requested crude icons that you might carry into battle for that cause.

My online storage is suggesting I delete blurry photos but they're my best photos.

Novellas continue to make great gifts! But go for the first one in the series, if you're gifting. Honestly ideal for your closest wry mathmo.

Take the train from Charing Cross into London Bridge, hear the Doppler effect on church bells from 1734.

Belatedly enjoying Cold Tapes - audio murder mystery - and its parade of characters who should never have been sent to an Antarctic base. Eighteen suspects! Twice as many ruinous traits! Defensive/shirty; much too chirpy; Machiavellian schemer; Fortean believer; profoundly paranoid (but justified).

Novellas make good gifts!

The faintest murmur

"A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle." ~ C.S. Lewis

My thoughts with the bereaved today but also my goodness

Cecil Sharp House also has a queer folk festival in May next year, which looks excellent.

I am going to make it Through this joke about the Mountain Goats If it kills me

This is a recommendation on partial knowledge - if you're enjoying Pluribus, you may like the novel The Seep, by Chana Porter. A grumpy queer woman is dissatisfied with a peaceful utopia, feeling itchy because/while everyone gets along. Could someone who's seen Pluribus tell me if I'm right?

Keep forgetting to say that my novel is *ideal* for cold weather, full of candle-spots of warmth swallowed up by the chill gloom. Victorian London and West Country folklore tied into a seasonal bundle. Also has an artist heroine, unrequited/inadvisable love, and a chap who's back from the dead.

I'm writing a solo game where YOU the player write a sonnet. Shout if you'd be willing to playtest it for me. Can buy you cake as thanks, or equivalent. (Also, this will prompt me to finish it.) (I am a complete novice. I just had to look up whether 'playtest' was the right word.)

Weekend weather looking frightful? Stay cosy indoors, with the warm welcoming world of folk horror. Loads of workshops, in particular. Spark some ideas that will turn into projects to carry you through the darker months.

Gosh I would much rather serve in Heaven than rule in Hell. Just imagine it. Nice little admin job in Heaven, or maybe cafeteria duties. Way better than the alternative.

Thinking of good books for cold weather: Miss Treadway and the Field of Stars, Miranda Emmerson. 1960s London with nuance and complexity, swinging but also crushing people. (But read "A Little London Scandal" first - same characters, sunnier weather.) miranda-emmerson.squarespace.com/miss-treadwa...

Having watched some queer body horror and the first of the Christmas films, I woke with "Deck the Halls" in my head, but the lyrics were "say goodbye to all your fingers" 🎶

And (of course) podcasts, TTRPGs - anything that stirs you.

Please share your best stuff about sex and horror, whether fiction (written, comics, film/TV, music) or nonfiction (articles, blogs, drive-by reckons). Ideally folk horror, but also interested in Gothic, body, cosmic or any other frightening genre). 💀💕

Enjoying a new Shudder subscription. Much good wordplay in the titles (It's a Wonderful Knife, Christmas Presence) but some feel like they should be puns, and I'm turning them in my mind and tapping them, but they don't yield anything (Christmas Evil?).

This free exhibition (central London) on the maps of Ursula Le Guin is small and fascinating. Felt quite tearful seeing the glaciers of Gethen drawn in pencil. www.aaschool.ac.uk/publicprogra...

I'm taking a brief break from asking what other writers were thinking, to instead wonder what I was thinking. Come along, it'll be an amazing day.

Laptop keyboard has forgotten some of its keys. It's surprisingly easy to go a bit Oulipo, vocab sliding sideways to reroute around the troublesome areas.