A Black man and a homeless man were found hanging from trees in Mississippi yesterday, for those who haven’t seen yet because it’s barely made it out of local news.

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them. This is getting very dark, very quick.

Foreign billionaires don’t get to incite violence against Britain. We cannot stay silent. 1/5 www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

This Monday.

London peeps, it is a great great book. Go along and embarrass Luke by telling him how great it is, repeatedly.

Thank you @abrackenbury.bsky.social, how kind!

Come and hear me read from Boater (free) in the place where I actually wrote it! See you in Macc on Monday morning?

Mark loves my book. Be like Mark! Thanks so much @marklawrence79.bsky.social

On Saturday 4th October, I'm running a guided walk around Ted Hughes's formative National Service Landscape at Patrington - It's a leisurely amble around the area, and an insight into a crucially formative but neglected part of Hughes's life. www.eventbrite.com/e/ted-hughes...

Afraid so!

OK, this is wild. In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them. It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*. What the HELL? 1/

OPPORTUNITY!! @royalholloway.bsky.social is recruiting a poet to join our Creative Writing team - the role is part-time (0.5), permanent, and encompasses teaching and research! More than happy to chat about department culture and all things RHUL poetry🧡 jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

You too could feel hugged! BOATER - available here uk.bookshop.org/p/books/boat... or come and hear me read from it *tonight* (Thurs) at Manchester's brilliant secret library - @porticolibrary.bsky.social

"...Over the past dozen or so years, about half the concentration of wealth in the U.S. has benefited just 19 families. Indeed, the data on America’s wealth concentration.... point us clearly in only one direction: oligarchy." www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Sometimes the historical dictionary offers solace through the existence of an obsolete word that is sorely needed now. One of them is ‘respair’, recorded just once, in the 15th century. It means fresh hope, and a recovery from despair.

By a fellow human being working incredibly hard to support themselves and secure a better life?

Amazing opportunity to win £75,000 for your idea for a book. You get help to write it with a writing course and you only need 1500 words of your idea. Details in link. Please share :)

Jesus. Read the room Keir, not the Mail.

Bridport Prize Memoir Award closes on 30th September. Cash prize, a year’s mentoring, advice from an editor at Hachette and the University of Exeter’s Creative Writing Department. Great runner up prizes too. Details in link Please share:-

Well. Best political appeal I've seen in a long time. Clear, strong and not dog-whistling.

Delighted with this glowing review and accurate interview in Waterways World. Though I giggled at 'Apart from some poetry volumes, this is Jo's first book.' It's book no.6 and poetry counts too!

I'll be there if I can!

Poets! Is a weekend of hiding from the heat in a garret looming? Are you looking for something more meaningful to do with your time? Help is at hand! The Morecambe Poetry Festival poetry comp is open for entries. Closes July 28th, so don't hang about! pandemonialists.co.uk/morecambe-po...

Delighted with this glowing review and accurate interview in Waterways World. Though I giggled at 'Apart from some poetry volumes, this is Jo's first book.' It's book no.6 and poetry counts too!

What is reverse outlining? A detailed summary of your manuscript as it currently stands. It: • Details what happens in every scene in your story • Is typically organized chapter by chapter or scene by scene • Should reflect the same structure and chronology of your book itself

Roll up, roll up, roll up! Are you interested in writing about your own life? Or someone else’s? Maybe a family member? My week-long, in-person Writing Lives course at Faber Academy is fast approaching. Noreen Masud is our guest. Click here for more details: faberacademy.com/product/writ...

This Saturday, 5th July! Brunch @urmstonbooks.bsky.social - come and join us!

It’s taken me too long to read this book, Towards a general theory of love by Clare Shaw (Bloodaxe Books). Just read this poem before I try to sleep tonight, lord there is something in my eye.

If you need a reminder of what we're fighting for, here are a bunch of authors reading short excerpts of letters sent to them by grateful readers. Recommend having tissues handy.

Note that he has removed his numbers so can’t be identified. Hundreds of police officers who were there that day perjured themselves under oath and not a single one was prosecuted when the case against the miners collapsed. There is a pressing need for a full public inquiry.

In Leeds this Sunday? Please join me on the famous floating bookshop, Holdfast Books at 5pm to hear from my book BOATER and share a midsummer hour on the water www.facebook.com/share/r/1Aq7...

It's me, plus pancakes and coffee and good conversation. Come and say hello, have brunch and share your questions in a bookish haven at @urmstonbooks.bsky.social - July 5th. Tickets here -

Leaving Barnstaple

Poets, artists, and musicians need to keep speaking up about Gaza. Silence really isn't an option, folks. Not if you want to retain your humanity. On that note, here's a new piece by poet Elvis McGonagall www.elvismcgonagall.co.uk/poems.html#r...

I say, I say! What’s better than publication day for one book? Publication day for TWO books! Delighted to share launch day for This Is How I Fight 🌹🌹🌹 @ninearchespress.bsky.social with Boater by the fabulous @jobellwriter.bsky.social 💜

Also more seriously: I had to read a book in Italian to learn that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any comparable-size city in the world. Multiculturalism works. (Deleted and reposted to correct stupid late night mistake.)

Thank you for the tablecloth. We shall have to buy ourselves a table now.

Pushing Exeter Phoenix gig next week as it is a bit sluggish on sales exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/robin...

I need these algorithms to be able to tell the difference between sincere interest and morbid curiosity, because like just because I kinda wanna see what THIS idiot has to say doesn’t mean I need to see everything EVERY idiot has to say

Thinking of entering PRIMERS 8? What is our selecting editor and mentor Laurie Bolger looking for? Read her blog post for encouragement, top tips and motivation: ninearchespress.blogspot.com/2025/06/prim... Full PRIMERS 8 submission criteria: ninearchespress.com/primers

Outside London? Jo Bell will be at Scarthin Books in Cromford, in the beautiful Derbyshire Dales, on June 26th. Tickets £8 to include a free glass of wine or soft drink. You can book via 01629 823272 or by dropping by the shop.

Persons of London! I'll be in town soon to launch my memoir Boater - first at the Poetry Pharmacy inside LUSH on Oxford Street (Weds 20 June) and then in Word on the Water near King's X (Weds 2 July, 3-7pm) Both free - and for the Poetry Pharmacy you need to book via the link below. Please come!

Join us for our first ever book brunch with award-winning poet and author @jobellwriter.bsky.social. Jo will be introducing us to her new book, Boater: A Life on England's Waterways, a lyrical memoir journeying through the past and present of our historic canals.

Me - with added pancakes! Urmston Books, Manchester on Saturday 5th July.

One of the first events for my new book is at the utterly splendid @scarthinbooks.bsky.social in Cromford, Derbyshire on 26th June. Book soon! Facefolk can see it here - www.facebook.com/share/1Bk9oA... and Scarthin's website is here www.scarthinbooks.com

My new memoir BOATER - full of funny anecdotes, serious history and insight into boating life - launches at the Poetry Pharmacy on Oxford Street, London on 20th June. Tickets are free but you need to book! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launch-of-...

Here we go then! A week's worth of submission window! atriumpoetry.com/submission-g...

Dear @theresthistory.bsky.social, PLEASE try to imagine a world in which not everyone has read Lord of the Rings or watched Game of Thrones. Every single episode, some reference to the Iron Throne/ Aragorn/ the left-handed Grey Wizard of Hopelessness or whatever. Every time!

This week our Meet the Author video is by David Morley, writer of Passion, which is published this month! 🐦‍⬛ Click below to hear David talk about mist nets, capturing life in poetry and some of the poems' origins. youtu.be/5Y2BRnwNiXA