Morning. 🖼️ Rook and Jackdaw, Tunnicliffe.

Chuffed to have my work listed alongside Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor and Richard Powers in this article by @clairemabey.bsky.social on recommended climate fiction (cli-fi) from NZ and the world!! thespinoff.co.nz/books/15-11-... #ClimateFiction #clifi #books #nzbooks #Aotearoa

We have MA scholarships available for theses on 18th-century/Romantic poetry and/or settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty in poetry and other literary forms ... details here! www.wgtn.ac.nz/scholarships...

‘Send in the gryphons’: a conversational review of The Rose Field by Philip Pullman

Hello, the firefighters managed to raise $240,000!!! That’s enough to fund 3 new research projects for the Breast Cancer Cure. Well done you thirsty bastards!

Didn’t quite make the deadline to apply for the MA in Creative Writing? Good news: we’ve extended it until Friday. It’s not too late to come and write your poetry/fiction/creative nonfiction/script with us next year!

Fantastic ep and does indeed include right minded discussion of the trailer for the forthcoming film adaptation

Bonus Book Cover of the Day:

‘You’re pulling my leg’: Forty years ago today, Keri Hulme won the Booker Prize

Ready to read a book by @iammilliam.bsky.social on the subject of the ungovernable novel.

Sherryl Jordan’s posthumous memoir is a testament to the power of perseverance

Really in need of that time of year where all I do is read books for pleasure between catching up on Locklisted and @backlisted.bsky.social episodes and not feel like I am flying by the skin of my teeth. October is a beast!

Read the winner of the 2025 Landfall essay prize

Straight up plagiarism can ALSO help you beat writer’s block!

The Friday Poem: ‘omens’ by Margo Montes de Oca

An ode to the jacket potato

😭

Becky Manawatu’s week of winning

If you read only one thing on The Spinoff books section this year make it this one (of course even better if you read it allllll but this - by Nick - is funny and sad and profound and silly and wonderful)

New book deals on the way from @kathyerskine.bsky.social @storybreathing.bsky.social @clairemabey.bsky.social + more buff.ly/cHFLuDT

Marina Hyde nails the AI bosses' brazen theft of work that legally belongs to its creators. The tech bros say their industry will collapse without stealing our stuff - it's that valuable. But also so unimportant & worthless they won't pay for it or ask consent. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

When art is life: the exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) Chris Knox biography, reviewed

Goodnight. 🖼️ Maggie Vandewalle #31DaysofHalloween #Gothtober

‘You’ll laugh, you’ll cry…’: Wendy Parkins on the book everyone should read thespinoff.co.nz/books/08-10-...

Les Chauves-Souris, Antonio de la Gandara, c. 1895. 🦇 #Gothtober #31daysofhalloween

Goodnight. Three Women and Three Wolves, Grasset, 1892. #Gothtober

‘Crying out for advocacy’: impressions from NZ’s big library meet-up

‘I consider myself a bastard clown’: Jo Randerson’s secret art power

An art history lesson in five artworks – selected by five experts

I saw this video about Ireland’s artist basic income and did some of my own calculation. Not that I think art should have to return a profit in order to be valued, but if this is the language the powers that be understand, then it still stands up. www.instagram.com/reel/DPDkX8f...

‘Perfect, fully formed little morsels’: No Good by Sophie van Waardenberg, reviewed

Who can write a novel today?

‘Poverty in Aotearoa is not accidental’: How our systems deliberately keep people poor

Meanwhile www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Geoffrey Palmer: ‘Democracy doesn’t get lost in a moment, it gets lost gradually’

‘An obvious god of nature writing’: Naomi Arnold on the authors that inspire her

We should all hope to live like Joy Cowley

What is ‘dark academia’ – and why is it having a moment?

An ode to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Unity Books children’s book review roundup for spring

So where can art history take you?

Review: Elizabeth Knox’s Kings of This World is both dangerous and dreamy

Elizabeth Knox introducing her new book Kings of This World to an appreciative crowd in Wellington this evening

Love this from @clairemabey.bsky.social

I can't believe I need to have an AI policy! I made it pretty short though: Using AI is cheating, yourself mostly. In addition to the environmental blight created by AI, it makes no sense to use it in your intellectual and creative work. Why would you outsource your innate intelligence?

Everyone hates the new Wuthering Heights trailer, and here’s why

after this doomer rant I listened to this amazing episode of Criminal about an AI bot called Daisy, a nice English granny designed to confound phone scammers, and went yessssssss now here's a use I can get behind thisiscriminal.com/episode-331-...

Why was I so riled by Don’t Worry About the Robots?

Kelly Ana Morey, remembered by Catherine Chidgey