So far I’ve applied for 30 grants this year (and been awarded 3). I dedicate probably 2-5 hours/week to grant writing, and even if I don’t get the grant, every one is an opportunity to more clearly articulate my vision and my needs, so I still get something out of it !

We’re appointing a writer-in-residence! Join us to respond to our holdings related to the Bloomsbury Group (including the archives of Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press) ahead of a major exhibition in 2027. Applications close 19 May. Best of luck! collections.reading.ac.uk/news-and-vie...

I also had a dream last night that a really cool writer booked me for a book proposal session. Woke up and a book proposal session order was in my inbox. So hello new friend, I can’t wait to work together ❤️✨

One of the dreams I had last night included a moment where someone walked up to me and asked if I liked their Meta glasses even though they were scratched. I said they looked like shit and broke them 😂 Totally separate from the rest of the dream, my hatred for these things is subconscious now

MY NEW BOOK BABY COMES OUT IN LESS THAN A WEEK!

To do this week: -make lots of art. Badly, messily, but double down on creating all those half-baked ideas in your head -take in at *least* one deeply pleasurable thing a day -speak up about things! For you, for others, for the world you want to see -ask for more: the universe isn’t on a budget

@bookishjulia.bsky.social Thank you for the interesting reading today!

I just paid off all my credit cards AND my next book comes out a week from today!!!! I’m celebrating by walking down to the English Market and buying just, so much cheese

Once again, Ray Bradbury nailed it in the 1950s

This is in just a few hours!

Cork friends: join myself and Chlöe Dempsey a week from today for a ferment + forage workshop at the new My Goodness restaurant @ Quay Coop. Make + take sauerkraut! Identify plants! Maybe make some new friends! www.eventbrite.com/e/ferment-fo...

Cork friends: join myself and Chlöe Dempsey a week from today for a ferment + forage workshop at the new My Goodness restaurant @ Quay Coop. Make + take sauerkraut! Identify plants! Maybe make some new friends! www.eventbrite.com/e/ferment-fo...

Sometimes you just run across a deeply relatable statement

Life changed for the better when I put a Szechuan peppercorn grinder next to my salt and pepper grinders

Cork friends: Join Chlöe Dempsey and I May 6th, 6-7:30 pm for a special ferment and forage workshop at My Goodness restaurant! Come make sauerkraut, and learn how to identify edible plants in your environment. Everyone who attends brings home a jar of their very own sauerkraut! Sign up below:

If you’re ready to fall asleep so hard and so fast that you wake up hours later not sure what day it is… May I recommend falling asleep to a combo of train and rain noises? Here’s the one I stumbled upon randomly and it’s a great way to experience The Sounds of Trains music.apple.com/us/album/tra...

full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life

Yes I had a ~36 hour travel day but that didn’t stop me from hauling groceries up the hill to make some needed half sour pickles (also hi Cork friends, I’m baaaack!)

Heading out of town = leaving myself gifts for when I’m back. Fresh sheets, herbal bath salts, a bottle of wine, and a lil’ love note reminding me I left a favorite meal in the freezer. I can woo myself just fine

Such a fun piece and preview of my next book (out in a little less than a month!!) Thank you @twiceastasty.com !

Recipe testing for the next-next book (Little Book of Lemons from Storey, 2027) is complete with these two gems: Classic lemon curd And a tart-yet-sweet lavender and wildflower honey lemon curd

Ah yes, New York, the city famously known for its limited food options

Btw if any media folks are looking to talk to smart people who have Yesteryear skills and are not tradwives, I’m happy to chat! (And excited to read Yesteryear, as a food historian and a person who makes + teaches traditional foods, and is sick of having to tell people I’m not a tradwife 😂)

PS you can preorder this nice book and I’ll give you a free class from the Culinary Curiosity School (more details on that soon). It’s IMHO the perfect summertime book bookshop.org/a/103396/978...

LOOK AT MY NEW BOOK (and my cats obviously too)

We live in a world where you can go to a restaurant and build your own cannoli and I think that’s beautiful

As a woman, I offer my sympathies to the Pope who is now being told hourly by very many random men what he actually means

About a month until Essential Food Preserving is released (May 19 in the US; June 9 in Ireland and the UK)! I’m giving preorders free access to one of my classes as a thank you, and we have another surprise in the works too (more on both soon)! bookshop.org/a/103396/978...

Let’s have a glass of wine and pose with our elderberry and lemon verbena sauerkraut, which it turns out tastes great with black beans + cheesy rice

My nonfiction book proposal support sessions + holistic creativity coaching sessions are all 50% off this month! I’m a PhD, multi-award-winning author with agency representation and I LOVE helping fellow writers. Let me help you bring your dream book to life please! calendly.com/julia-skinne...

New favorite breakfast is cottage cheese with chili crisp + cucumber (featuring Schmoo the cat in the background)

The Muslim Sisters of Éire will not be able to provide their much appreciated soup run to folks in need due to the protest and the blocking of O’Connell Street. "This is especially difficult given that we have been running this service outside the GPO for 11 years."

Me in all the group chats this week

Your occasional reminder that I’m an award-winning nonfiction author who helps nonfiction authors (and aspiring authors!) outline book proposals and make concrete, doable plans for starting and finishing books + other milestone projects. Virtual 1:1 book proposal sessions are 50% off this month!

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), by Hieronymus Bosch, 1480-1505, 📸 by @alexbrandon

I have two newsletters and I published in both today: One on using writing to call in our desires: rootsandbranches.space/2026/04/06/w... The other a meandering memoir/social commentary on purity culture and American diets root-kitchens.com/maybe-its-ti...

Your occasional reminder that I’m an award-winning nonfiction author who helps nonfiction authors (and aspiring authors!) outline book proposals and make concrete, doable plans for starting and finishing books + other milestone projects. Virtual 1:1 book proposal sessions are 50% off this month!

I’ve been really leaning into the food + lettering theme this week (this one also for sale)

Just a lil’ reminder that my book, Essential Food Preserving, comes out in just 6 weeks! It’s a HUGE volume with everything you need to preserve food, with a focus on simple equipment and sustainable practices that fit into your life and budget. bookshop.org/a/103396/978...

‘Be OCD about naming things’ is also really good advice for people into fermenting and food preservation, as it happens.

Made some lil’ arts today (okra is sold, tomato still available!)

Flash back to the illuminated manuscript page of my favorite pickled okra recipe.* Fun fact: this was the second time I made and sent in an illuminated manuscript as part of a job or school application (it worked both times) *Recipe is in the new book, and yes I’m taking art commissions again!

Don’t mind me, just looking at the dedication page of my next book, Essential Food Preserving, and admiring the color on these pickled eggs (Yes the recipe is in the book, it’s out May 19, link below!)

Don't forget the clocks go forward tonight, as they do every night, pitiless and unstoppable, silent witnesses to our inevitable decay.

I’m running this 7 day guided meditation for reconnecting with your creative flow and body of work. Sign up at the link below, or DM me your email address to join me. There are no live calls, just daily emails + the meditation practice that you can do on your schedule.

I recommend spending an afternoon making 5 gallons of sauerkraut to barter and share while listening to Farah Karim-Cooper’s Great White Bard on audiobook.

57 of my fellow students were arrested, academically disciplined, and barred from campus 2 weeks before finals. And then the visas of some of those students were quietly revoked. And then the DEI office was killed. And then we watched our mentors’ grants evaporate over “woke”.

Atlanta: I’m here through April 20 Cork: I’m here April 21-early June Let’s get together!

I have purchased the pickle purse and am now going to be an unstoppable force at every gala I attend.