Hello friends, I am no longer using this platform. You can find me on Instagram @helensedgwickauthor

Argonaut Books needs your help 📣 Waterstones are set to open a store less than 100m from the indie bookshop's front door. Full info on @argonautbooks.bsky.social's Insta: www.instagram.com/p/DRMULI1jCI...

Marvellous Minoan cups made by Bronze Age potters about 3,800 years ago! Which is your favourite? ❤️ Heraklion Archaeological Museum 📷 by me 🏺 #Archaeology

And making theft illegal would “kill” the thieving industry. Good. Make theft illegal again.

Our friends at Literature Alliance Scotland have opened applications to the pilot programme, To Be Continued. Have a look and see if this could help you or send to someone who might also benefit. Applications close Friday 3 October 2025. literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/to-be-contin...

Really looking forward to the online launch of ‘The Man Who Made Up Trees’ by Michael Greavy - the winner of Magma’s 2024 pamphlet competition on Wed 1st Oct 7-8pm. Discounted copies available on the night! Register your free place here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pamphlet-l...

This gets progressively funnier with every use of the term "floppy".

Ingrid Bergman was born on this day in 1915. She also died on August 29th - in 1982. 📷 David Seymour, 1953 "Love would come right through that lens." - Pia Lindstrom

I keep getting asked for my salty thoughts about the Salt Path as my position on nature cure narratives is v clear! A mere fraction of those thoughts published here @literaryhub.bsky.social, with thanks to @bookwormvaught.bsky.social and @nicwilson.bsky.social for their earlier pieces linked below.

"Publishing is attached to the idea of a narrative arc that peaks with healing... Nature writing has long had a problem with the way it presents illness. Nature writing only wants to admit illness into its pages if it is to show nature performing a miraculous cure." Excellent piece

Information on our project researching Gaelic Medium Education and career outcomes can be found here:

As Bookbanks new Ambassador I’d like to spread the word about this brilliant charity giving books with food at food banks. Please share and support if you’re able :) www.bookbanks.co.uk

Among yesterday's arrestees is Deborah Hinton, an 81-year old retired magistrate with an OBE. That's Yvette Cooper's idea of a terrorist. Language has been turned on its head. The law has been turned on its head. Murdering children is righteous. Trying to stop it is terrorism.

Remember all that fulminating in the billionaire press about "free speech" (ie their freedom to abuse Muslims, trans people etc with impunity)? Now that people are being arrested for speaking about an issue of the utmost gravity, the self-appointed guardians of liberty have fallen strangely silent.

Oh hell no. WeTransfer now claims access in their T&Cs, in perpetuity, to your content to “improve the service and our technologies (and develop new ones)”. I used to use them to transfer large manuscripts, but looks like I’m jumping ship. Other large transfer sites are recommended in the comments.

In case you miss it amongst the news, we're delighted that @saraband-books.bsky.social will be continuing the Inklings series and they open for submissions in August! The process is very similar to our own but check out the guidelines and get your pitches ready. saraband.net/2025/07/11/i...

Very sad to hear @404ink.bsky.social are closing, but they deserve a massive congratulations - they’ve been a shining light in the industry and have worked with unending passion. I’m delighted @saraband-books.bsky.social are taking on Inklings. A HUGE well done to Laura & Heather for everything!

Following the announcement of 404 Ink's closure, we're delighted to announce that we'll be taking forward a significant portion of the Inklings series! Read more here: saraband.net/news-events #Booksky 📚💙

Borges’ capsule review of KING KONG in which he mostly complains that Kong should be bigger

- and I have wondered sometimes if I’d reframed it - partly fictionalised it, then - as a tale of triumph in which my body & mind got fixed and everyone said sorry, got therapy and didn’t pass on more inter-generational trauma, that might have been considered more commercial. That really upsets me

It’s Sunday but I’m feeling all the feels so I’ve just pitched The Bookseller a piece centred on overcoming tropes. A few years ago a big 5 rejected a proposal from me; it was about mental health problems alongside physical disability. They didn’t want it on both because it would be too depressing

If you've found yourself taking the narrative of the tragic illness the helpless homelessness and the walking cure encrusted with inspiration porn with a pinch of salt over the years, this is *quite* the read. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

There are no red states, no blue states, only purple, from Idaho fuchsia to Vermont violet. And in every state there are children, non-citizens, and prisoners who can't vote. In every state where one candidate won, a bunch of people voted for the other candidate. And so forth.

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality." - James Baldwin

As a historian, I think of cities as the things that are real & permanent, not countries. Countries are like glaciers that move across & rearrange things, usually crawling slowly but sometimes cataclysmically fast when something triggers avalanche or flood; monument-boulders mark where they’ve been.

No doubt 👽

There were 31 church leaders & christian school employees who were arrested, pled guilty and/or were sentenced to prison for child sex crimes in the month of June.

Did someone say Floof?

The government's plan to proscribe Palestine Action is part of a wider crackdown on protest. Instead of taking steps to prevent genocide, the gov wants to criminalise people demanding justice for Palestinians. Sign the petition to oppose this plan: palestinecampaign.eaction.org.uk/NoProscription

A Labour government is driving disabled people into poverty. This is a scandal, a stain the party will never be able to wash itself of. Every Labour MP who votes for this disgraceful legislation must be voted out and replaced by someone who stands up for the struggling.

“We are concerned at the unjustified labelling of a political protest movement as ‘terrorist.’ According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.” www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

My Aloe Vera is flowering 💚

Write the book you would like to see someone pull from a higgledy piggledy pile in a secondhand shop 63 years after your death and say, "This looks fucking weird. I think I will buy it for Joan."

Calling all writers! LAS are offering 5 writers bursaries of £3000 each to be awarded using a lottery system. It’s an unusual and very interesting approach - and well worth applying for! Please RT and share widely ☺️ literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/writer-bursa...

Lucille Clifton

Lavender Menace: Queer Bookselling in Edinburgh 19 July, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed Explore the history of queer bookselling in Edinburgh, from early bookstalls to the opening of Lavender Menace and West & Wilde to the resurgence of independent bookshops 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/whats-on/lav...

Me- on stage- this Friday! All info below- see you there!

Last night, the House of Lords defeated the Government for a fourth time by passing an amendment establishing meaningful transparency measures for the use of rightsholders’ works in AI systems, many of which are being used without recognition, permission or remuneration. (1/3)

If you missed this event about gender inequality in the Scottish lit sector you can now catch up here, free to all: vimeo.com/1082115463 @societyofauthors.bsky.social

It's surely now clear that anyone who had a contract with Unbound should be actively taking steps to reclaim all rights to their work, in writing, and ideally taking qualified professional advice.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 12: However good your work is, there will be people who hate it. This is an inescapable part of having readers. Live with it. Accept it. And know that for every person who doesn’t like your work, there may be another whose life has been changed by something you wrote.

Huge congrats - I have my copy 😍

"Intriguing, instantly gripping, creepy and nightmarish" – @helensedgwick.bsky.social The book follows Eric as he abandons his fiancé at the Edinburgh Christmas market to follow a mysterious woman back to an even more mysterious hotel in the Highlands... www.hauntpublishing.com/books/p/joan...

This will be so much fun! Organised by my brilliant friend Margaret Callaghan and all for Shelter - do come along! June 19th www.ticketsource.co.uk/cringe-teena...

If you missed this event about gender inequality in the Scottish lit sector you can now catch up here, free to all: vimeo.com/1082115463 @societyofauthors.bsky.social