Deadline 23rd January...

Come and talk to us about the pragmatics of producing text, including creative writing, at #MLA26

Very much enjoyed Lidl's 'about 2000-piece' jigsaw. Five missing and two duplicates. 👌

My fellow speakers are @tonywilliams.bsky.social from Northumbria and Anne Fulrong from the University of Prince Edward Island

Come and talk to us about the pragmatics of producing text, including creative writing, at #MLA26

Really looking forward to the latest Hollywood remake: One Angry Man

The reason dogs became domesticated

The new bumper issue of Long Poem Magazine is really tremendous. I'm very grateful that it includes my 'Return to Matlock', a piggybacking of Aemilia Lanyer's 'Description of Cooke-ham' or, as you might say, a Lanyerism.

Come and do a funded PhD in Creative Writing at Northumbria. Happy to field queries on [email protected] www.findaphd.com/phds/program...

New word just dropped. I do feel affectional about the Grauniad's legendary proofreading.

I'd like my drag name to be 'Airy Thinness

She's found something she loves more than her ball

The future of UK Independent presses hang by a thread. Supporting the sector is vital: this is where ALL the bravery lies. The big houses are risk averse, but copycat small press successes to revitalise their lists. Small presses are the motor! www.thebookseller.com/comment/open...

Please consider supporting indie publishing by contributing to this fundraiser for @saltpublishing.com You can of course also support Salt by buying a book or two - I particularly recommend Cole the Magnificent, Hawthorn City, Nutcase, etc... gofund.me/0fe44ad35

Lydia Davis, from the Collected Stories

I'm very much enjoying Andrew Neilson's pamphlet Summers Are Other from Rack Press, particularly the lovely lyric 'The Viaduct' @badlilies.bsky.social

Ind Coope's Story of Testicles

Cherry plums

I call it an OranGINa

That's like a cross between turning in his grave and rolling in the aisles - he's fuming, but he's also amused, because he knows how inflation works.

A classic of the genre* *the genre = M John Harrison novels

Lecturer in Creative Writing (poetry) at Bath Spa, 0.6 FTE www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOB269/l...

Lecturer in Creative Writing (fiction) at Bristol, 0.5 FTE www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOF238/l...

You seem to have mistyped 'Life: A User's Manual, by Georges Perec'

Can't quite express how grateful I am to have a poem included in 'Ten Poems from the Peak District' from @candlestickpress.bsky.social - not only because it's a beautiful object, nor that I find myself among poets I deeply admire, but also because... 1/3

Also feat SHITLOADS of others inc @heidijames.bsky.social @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social @jamesscudamore.bsky.social David Peace,Tony Harrison, Elfriede Jelinek, Tim O'Brien, @jonsavage.bsky.social, @markabowles.bsky.social Kathy Acker, Naomi Booth, @stephenking.bsky.social, Sarah Kane, Pat Barker &c.

This is a fucking phenomenal piece of writing in soooooo many ways. Can't recommend highly enough.

"Sleaford Mods out of their minds on spice." Banging recommendation of Nutcase from @stuhennigan.bsky.social whose novel KESHED is out from Ortac Press next year uk.bookshop.org/lists/how-to...

Brilliant and brutal sounds right... KESHED by @stuhennigan.bsky.social will be ace

Lecturer in Creative Writing at Exeter post, closes 15 July 💙https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNS852/lecturer-in-creative-writing-education-and-scholarship

I've just heard about this book about a long journey, with a live story at its heart, which is apparently completely made up and written by a total crook 1/

RIP Phil Lynott

Maigret's subordinates are so endearing

I know it's, in one sense, not a laughing matter, but, on the other hand, this paragraph 🤩🤩

This fish doorbell is very moreish visdeurbel.nl/en/

"Ideas are simple and the world is complicated" - I thought that was William Empson in Some Versions of Pastoral, but I can't find it there. (He does say pastoral is "putting the complex into the simple".) Can anyone tell me where it's from - another Empson text, or someone else entirely?

Gavin Higgins reflects on his new song cycle celebrating the North of England, which premiers at Aldeburgh on Tuesday. I'm honoured that it includes my poem 'How Good It Sounded', after Heine. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

Colleagues attending my 20-minute talk on Monday will be pleased to hear my ppt is 122 slides long and 27MB

How the Willow Pattern led @tonywilliams.bsky.social’s poem to echo the pattern of a poem on an imagined urn: Who are those people under the catkins And what, in the temple, do the worshippers sing? Blue’s the low fence that was built to climb over A bundle of secrets you were told to bring

Poem about the place I was when I was looking at the place in the willow pattern plate

The footage from the Sycamore Gap case looks like it was taken by Nicéphore Niépce

🔍 Who are the UK indie publishers redefining books in 2025? Discover 10 bold presses + their must-read new titles — from Salt to Dead Ink, Bluemoose to Fitzcarraldo. 📖 Read the roundup: #indiebooks #ukbooks #boooksky

Yesterday I found myself at Porto airport during the power cut. I'd toyed with the idea of walking to the city centre (one night stopover before my flight today) and the transport issues and general chaos decided me

This. An emergency recall of parliament on a weekend for British Steel. Nothing at all for UK HE which employs far more people, has already shed 10,000 academic jobs, with several institutions on the brink of collapse. A reminder: we train all the doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses, lawyers &c &c

I'm going in. I may be some time.

Recycling at its best

Drinking whisky and listening to birdsong in the dusk because there's a dog asleep on me

Lovely recent review of Nutcase, which you can obtain from any good bookshop or indeed from LibGen if you're a techbro crook

A poem about cows for #worldpoetryday from my @ninearchespress collection The Midlands. MOOOOO!

New Cormac McCarthy just dropped www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...