Happy to get my friend Rebecca Orwin’s debut in the post today, illustrated by @oriolvidal.bsky.social 📖 for M(12)

Oh, & from scratch we built a sales platform where artists sell work, keeping 70% & 30% supporting the charity. www.hyphacurates.com On the Frieze Week edition of The Art Newspaper podcast you can hear me talk about it for 20 minutes or so. www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/10/17/f...

The charity I'm Director of, Hypha Studios, is 4 years old. In a nutshell we open empty commercial space so artists can use it for free. Over 2025 we presented 39 exhibitions, supported 1052 artists in 27 sites across the UK, 25,000 people came to free events & 241 creatives used free studio space.

An Erasmus Exchange in 1997 to Seville helped me learn a language, understand another culture and realise tomatoes 🍅 were actually meant to taste of something

Can't think of a stronger endorsement for Erasmus.

I went to see ‘We are making a film about Mark Fisher’ last night. A mixture of sadness and helpful perspective on 2000s. Made by Close and Remote with 70 contributors shorturl.at/PWPck

🦇 Woodland Symposium 2026 is back! The Woodland Symposium will return on the 25 March and will be held in person at the WWF Living Planet Centre in Woking as well as online via Zoom. Early bat bookings in person tickets on sale now: lnkd.in/e_ireTvU

Wondering whether I can use a professional headshot from 2019 for an online event in 2026.

While on Zoom at home I saw a wild ruckus out the corner of my eye: a big rat chasing a crow in circles with 2 magpies joining in. Like a deranged Wind in the Willows.

🖤

Here’s the cover for LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, out 16 April with @sceptrebooks.bsky.social Preorder here: lnk.to/LikeaCatLove... Please share! The book doing well means I can write another (and fulfil my dream of owning a pizza oven), so it’s pretty serious 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛

M(12 since November) just had her first ever ‘I haven’t revised yet I’m sitting a test’ dream. Welcome to the rest of your life 🫂

Your yearly reminder that it’s almost time to prepare the prune Krampus

This is a BRILLIANT offering for non fic writers! #Creatives4Sudan

Bless LJMU IT for getting me into my new email. I had failed to set up the Two Factor Authentication Riddle.

Good morning, while everyone is waiting for the budget to be announced it’s a good time to say that immigration is a source of prosperity for the UK and painting Britain as a hostile state is sabotaging the country. Thanks!

join us for this water-themed poetry reading in London this evening !

Guest curating solo exhibition by Welsh artist, founder of g39 and award winning debut novelist (#Granta ‘A Room Above a Shop’) @anthonyshapland.bsky.social for Tŷ Pawb summer 2026 is such a treat www.typawb.wales/ty-pawb-anno...

Such an amazing concise review, thanks Dua Lipa 💚💚 - great to be alongside #yaelvanderwouden #alicewinn #chinelookparanta & @angelotijssens.bsky.social tijssens.bsky.social (and thanks Angelo for the heads up!) www.service95.com/best-queer-l...

Me in November 2024: I really think 2025 will be my year. Me in November 2025:

If I ever say “Oh hi! So how’s everything going?” what I’m actually saying is, “Please for the love of god tell me who you are and why I know you”.

Nothing like discussing with a Trump supporter who forgot that I have a master’s in journalism and have been a reporter. “I don’t believe what’s reported. Have YOU ever worked for Reuters? Huh? Huh? You don’t know how they…” “Actually, I have.” Heh, that conversation ended abruptly, lol.

If you are U.K. based and angered by Shabana Mahmood's latest efforts to make migrants lives even more difficult (and I know some of you will be), please do take the time to submit a response to the Home Office consultation. Dan's advice below is excellent as a guide on how to respond.

ICYMI: Writers including David Nicholls, Katherine Rundell, Katherine Webber and Monisha Rajesh are among those donating pledges for the Creatives4Sudan auction, co-organised by Louie Stowell 👇 #BookSky

Because too many trains were trying to get in and out of Manchester tonight they were all delayed. It’s almost like their should be some kind of timetable of trains. Maybe a…train timetable?

Hari Kumar, Ultimate Superstar is in The Bookseller’s list of 10 Titles Not to Miss in February 2026! 🎉 The new Editor’s Choices. So happy! Art by Mamta Singh.

Too many trains are apparently trying to get into Manchester at once so we’re just…going nowhere.

Plaudits to whoever put this poster up next to the Park Road Tesco in Toxteth.

Earlier today, I was notified that someone was at my door. This is who it was:

Not much to say about Trans Day of Remembrance anymore besides “try loving and celebrating us while we are alive”

My Dad through the fog of dementia suddenly back in the room “Looks like you’ve lost a bit of weight since I last saw you”.

Confession time: The main reason for my trip wasn't to visit Blackpool. It was a pilgrimage to Preston for a visit to the brutalist bus station. It didn't disappoint. #architecture

Your assignment for today: Go to your local Tesco, try to find the word "Christmas" anywhere in the shop, and report back to Allison Pearson, the... *checks notes*... "award-winning journalist".

To avoid saying the title out loud I pushed my phone across the librarian’s desk when asking if I could reserve this

for international men’s day i think international men should buy my artwork or just kofi me instead of emailing me about their sexual fantasies 🥰

Some happy news. Bromley Council have spent £11 million revitalising their libraries. More of this please! Excited to be part of the celebrations at Mottingham Library’s reopening on Wed 26 Nov.

wrote an article for @thebookseller.com outlining to the industry why small presses are the lifeforce & future of book production. Pls share esp w people who may not know what small press publishers do! www.thebookseller.com/comment/dont...

Just slightly overshared to the question ‘Do these parcels contain anything of value?’ with ‘Just books! Well, exhibition catalogues! You know, art books! And totes! Not valuable!’.

Exactly one woman has won the Booker in the past six years www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It isn’t simply the lack of empathy, they've ensured that is costed in. It’s that they know no one who’s fled. No one who can share stories of jewellery stuffed into socks in bags, in soap containers, carefully kept in tiny bags and taken out carefully, each with a story kept close to the heart

It’s definitely turning to Small Dogs 🐕 in Coats Season here in the UK

A man?? winning the Booker prize????? Is that even possible? It hasn't happened since the far-flung days of 2023. Our legends say that a man also won it in the ancient, prehistoric era of 2021, but surely that is just an old wives tale meant to frighten MFA students before bed.

yesterday Bristol turned to protect asylum-seekers at the Mercure from 'Patriots'. little kids were peering out of windows: these fash scum were giving them the finger +filming them the kids were legends: they covered their faces and gave them the finger right back

I don’t want to formulate words yet, but my friend Alice Wong, @sfdirewolf.bsky.social of the Disability Visibility Project, has passed. Here are the words she left behind: www.instagram.com/p/DREMDNBjnq...

‘Death remains my intimate shadow partner. It has been with me since birth, always hovering close by. I understand one day we will finally waltz together into the ether. I hope when that time comes, I die with the satisfaction of a life well-lived, unapologetic, joyful, & full of love.’ —Alice Wong

I am gutted to learn of @sfdirewolf.bsky.social (Alice Wong’s) passing. She was always a warm friend, a wonderful spirit, and someone who fostered my own growth. She helped me see that, as a #disabled person with chronic illness, I matter—I am whole. I’ll be posting some of Alice’s work. ❤️ forever

I wrote about this street in Liverpool and about memory and myth for the 12th edition of Science & Magic, full of splendid writing as ever. You can read the magazine here: www.violetterecords.com/science-and-... (Photo taken from the window of what used to be O’Halligan’s Parlour)

Join filmmaker Graham Williamson and I, and @themodernist.bsky.social in Manchester, to see Graham's brilliant short film Song of the Suburbs, and to hear us in conversation about suburbia in all of its weirdness www.johngrindrod.co.uk/events/song-...

Online tix to our in-convo abt tandem solo shows, my ‘Kerokan Pol’ + Bella Milroy’s ‘popcorn fur’, together known as Languages of Intimacy: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-convers... In-person tix: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-convers... Hosted by Art Activisms research cluster, Birmingham Schl of Art