My friend Robin is celebrating his 90th birthday water-biking 104 miles up the Thames to raise £150,000 to help build a rainforest research station. Want to help? You can do it here... www.justgiving.com/campaign/wat...

This is a terrific post from @naomialderman.bsky.social - with genuinely helpful advice

Never feel guilty for borrowing books from a library. Authors LOVE libraries. And libraries pay authors a small sum every time one of their books is borrowed (which in many cases comes to more than the percentage earned from the sale of a book in a discount outlet)...

Fuck people who say video games can’t be art. Video games are very much art. The way I see art it’s facet of creation and pouring you emotions into a piece of work. There are many games out there where people poured their soul into it and take the medium to new heights.

Nobody here needs me to tell them not to do this but Jesus Christ in a Cadillac do not do this.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 265: Place in a story needs careful thought. Place determines how we behave; what we wear; what we eat; how we move around our space. How we interact with our location is at least as important as the way in which we interact with each other.

Alien: And how did you run out of water? Earthling: Machines drank it. Alien: Machines. Earthling: We had to feed machines the water. Aliens: So the machines were holding your planet hostage for water. Earthling: No, we made the thirsty machines. They worked for us. Alien: End communication.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: (1941 - 2007): Historian, feminist, academic. After earning her Ph.D. at Harvard, she taught history at Emory University. There, she founded the Institute for Women's Studies and led the first Women's Studies doctoral programme in the US. #CelebratingWomen

A rough recording of an old song based on a lyric by the kid. It's a very melancholy song, but it means a lot to me. You can hear it here for free... joanneharrisandthestorytimeband.bandcamp.com/track/a-rose

And this morning the Shed is two vast and trunkless legs of stone standing in the desert…

Funnye, because *3 Minutes Ago, Thys Hotte Pizza Snacke Was Just a Slyce of Breade* ys also the title of myne Autobiographye

Lovely sold -out event at the Lawrence Batley Theatre with my good friend David Greenwood-Haig: thanks to the Huddersfield Litfest; to Dave for his generosity in providing the chocolate and the cooking spice, and to everyone who was there!

I hate "best" lists when it comes to creativity. I can just about stomach "favourite" lists because they embrace the inherent subjectivity. The whole "100 best novels" thing should die.

26. Some are beloved favorites, but most I would like the author to come back from the dead so that I could lock them in a small room with the teacher who made me read the book & let them lecture each other about symbolism while I performed my own "Schrödinger's Cat" experiment.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 1387: Character names are more believable if they are appropriate to the character's background, generation, culture, region. That doesn't mean you can't have a character with an unusual name: but you still need to know why their parents chose it.

Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons (c. 1853 – March 7, 1942) was an American labour organizer, feminist and radical socialist. She is remembered as a powerful orator. #CelebratingWomen

A rough recording of an old song based on a lyric by the kid. It's a very melancholy song, but it means a lot to me. You can hear it here for free... joanneharrisandthestorytimeband.bandcamp.com/track/a-rose

And this morning the Shed is a watermark trapped in a panel of paper…

Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, Fred and... MR JONES, THE JANITOR???

This is not a "controversy" or a "dispute" about casting. It's a racist position being echoed and amplified by other racists. Journalists need to learn to use the word "racist" much more freely; right now, too many publications treat it as unprovable unless self-reported.

Just laughing at how it’s possible for a black woman to be so beautiful and talented that she sends a racist into a six day public stroke

Sigrid Undset (1882 – 1949) was a Norwegian novelist. When she was only 11 years old, her father died, and the family's economic situation meant that Sigrid had to give up hope of a university education. Instead, at sixteen, she became a secretary, writing and studying in her free time.

SIGNED BOOKS! The very ace Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social has a new novel out in September. "Sleepers in the Snow". A ghost story you'll definitely want to read. If you'd like a SIGNED copy, I have great news. We're getting some! ORDER HERE biggreenbookshop.com/signed-copie...

A rare day at home, and dammit, I seem to be coming down with a cold. REST MODE ACTIVATED.

i’ve been thinking of what could even be said about such a tragedy. someone said it best that trans people are “born so late and die so young”. we uproot our lives and transition and live more life than anyone else ever does and society punishes us for it. we deserve better

And this morning the Shed is peacock-tailed; dancing in the sunlight.

HeART on the Page: Conveying Grief, Love, and Other Big Feelings Through Comics MCM London, Sat 23 May, 12:00, Artist Alley stage I’ll be joined by Ethan Sacks, Rachael Smith, Joe Latham, & Bex Ollerton to discuss how they use their comics to talk about love, loss, hope, grief, struggle, and more.

I wrote about a phenomenon in literary adaptations that I refer to as hot-washing. lithub.com/hollywood-ne...

Recently published, the first volume of Fight Like A Girl is back in print at last! wizardstowerpress.co...

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 63: At the heart of a story lies the relationship of the main character with their world. If in doubt, try describing this relationship very simply: a (adjective) character in a (adjective) world. Keep changing the adjectives till you get it right.

an absolutely monumental achievement! A massive congratulations to her for breaking barriers, challenging stereotypes, and proving that determination knows no bounds. Becoming the world's first practicing lawyer with Down syndrome after 5 years of hard work at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas

Isabella Lucy Bird (1831 – 1904), was a nineteenth-century British explorer, writer, photographer, and naturalist, co-founder of the John Bishop Memorial hospital in Srinagar, and the first woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. #CelebratingWomen

Chaos gremlin.

And this morning the Shed is an unexpected item in the bagging area…

What a lovely evening at Hachette, celebrating the Libraro Prize. All the shortlistees were very strong, unique and original, and deserve congratulations, but special kudos to Donna, for her bold and insightful contribution!

Johanna Sophia Kettner (1724 - 1802), was an Austrian soldier. In 1743, Johanna enlisted in the imperial Austrian army as a man named Johann Kettner. Johann served in the prestigious Hagenbach infantry regiment of the Austrian army for about fourteen years. #CelebratingWomen

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 91644: if your plot is getting too complicated, try asking these questions: Whose story is this? What do they need? What’s stopping them from achieving it? If you’re not sure if the answers, your plot structure may need looking at…

And this morning the Shed is a cave in the hills, high up by the line of trees…

Excavation of the tomb of Akhet-Hetep at Giza revealed a monument to his mother Peseshet, the "Overseer of Women Physicians." She is the world's earliest known woman doctor, and practiced at the time of the building of the great pyramids in Egypt, about 2500 BC. #CelebratingWomen

Just one last stop on my VIANNE tour: this Saturday at the Huddersfield Litfest. The event is already sold out, but if you missed it, don't despair; I'm adding to my schedule all the time... www.huddlitfest.org.uk/event/chocol...

Unsolicited writing advice, 15: If your book is rejected repeatedly, you have two options: 1. Keep submitting it, hoping that somehow things will change. 2. Work out why you were rejected and either fix the problem, or write something different. You can always return to the first project later.

In my Inbox this morning: 4 garbage AI requests, including one from Mary Shelley, who is, apparently, a big fan... 😂

And this morning the Shed is a bathysphere, roaming the abyssal plains…

Slightly increase a band: Exodus

Agreed, if a party has a candidate that resigns within 30 days of winning a local election then their party should be fined the cost of running the by-election to replace them. They put up the candidates so they should bear the responsibility if they aren't serious about the role.

1. Let kids read whatever interests them, regardless of if you think it’s “good literature.” 2. Model reading for pleasure, yourself.

We lost Douglas Adams 25 years ago today. This has made a lot of people very sad and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Russell Brand was sued by Pan Mac for failing to deliver two self help books for which he was paid over £200k and it appears they were going to be ghostwritten, which I have to say surprises me, I assumed he wrote his own unreadable bollocks

We were told our data would stay under NHS control. But an internal document just revealed the truth: Palantir staff are being granted “unlimited access”. Join us demanding this spy-tech firm gets out of our NHS 👇 goodlaw.social/658abc

Just sliding in here to say, I (a human) designed these stickers to express this sentiment, wherever you like 😌