My best bud graduated with her DFA yesterday & I’ve never been prouder of someone. I loved her novel before I met her (I’m a creep) she did this weird thing of taking a photo of me in the street & sending it to me…how’d she get my number? Anyway. That’s how adults like me make friends, thank god.

Eggy eggy eggy! Oi Oi Oi!

‘𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘮 took Sarah Hall twenty years to write. She seems to have stockpiled characters along the way, and is now keen to deploy them all in one go. They emerge with a remarkable array of foibles, histories and contradictions.’ Philippa Conlon on Hall’s new novel. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

We came we saw…unfortunately we didn’t take home a trophy, BUT we were Highly Commended! Thrilled to be nominated, so this really means a lot to us, especially being in with some big hitters. Well done to all of the other nominees & winners! Colin & Claire ✌🏻🍽️📚

‘Marilyn’s characters could be giggly, they could play dumb, but there’s nothing dumb about her here. This is an image of a 20th-century woman in control of the means of production, with flashbulb intelligence.’ Andrew O’Hagan at the National Portrait Gallery. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Enjoy an allergy free dose of CASHEW! Featuring poems by Severo Sarduy, Francis de Lima, Ranudi Gunawardena & a non-fiction essay by Kopal Agarwal. Link to listen in bio, available everywhere 🎧🥜❤️🍽️✌🏻 Ps…here’s Claire’s squirrel friend, Barnaby, who seems to be getting a lot of air time recently.

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love is the wolf that guards the gate… —Edwin Morgan, “Love” published in A BOOK OF LIVES, @carcanet.bsky.social 2011 #BookWormSat #poem #poetry #PrideMonth 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ www.carcanet.co.uk/978185754918...

Gorbals, Glasgow, 1969, photo by Robert Blomfield.

I love chairing panels at academic conferences and I Have Thoughts about it! I think it’s a really important service role AND you can create the conditions for everyone in the panel to have a good time AND it can be fun! A 🧵👇 1/9

This map of all the regional names for woodlice in the UK also serves nicely as a guide to the future tribes of humans to be found on the same landmass after The Great Digital Crash and ensuing breakdown of society AND a guide to some of the country's best forgotten lo-fi indie bands from the 1990s.

There's an incredible new tiled mural at Glasgow Central today, produced by Make It Glasgow. It recreates an advertising poster by Margaret & Frances Macdonald for Joseph Wright's Drooko Umbrella Co. #Glasgow

Episode #48 out now! The proof of the pudding is in the eating & we both dig this notoriously polarising sausage! This week we discuss Black Pudding & its variations around the world, including reference to poets & authors including Bill Buford, Eileen P Keane and Luis de Góngor.

Reading at The Poetry Society for the London Launch of Colin’s Aquafaba & Nicky’s Get Tae. Still smiling despite 8 hours in the car together…

Hoping to coincide this with a thunderstorm and hot chocolate

At the stage of novel writing where I’ve made friends with a squirrel

This Iced Einspänner is like a tiramisù in beverage form. nyti.ms/4uHJQxA

Air iomall an talamh-àitich, eadar dhà sholas, tha a’ churracag a’ ruith ʼs a’ stad, ʼs a’ ruith ʼs a’ stad… —Ruaraidh MacThòmais, “Pabail” #poem #poetry www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/pabail/

The launch of Nicky Melville’s Get Tae & Colin Herd’s Aquafaba! 5th June! The Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, Big London! Link in bio!

Friday’s BULB! was magical. Dan Dean read from his Calligramatic Herbarium, Tim Tim Cheng from her collection The Tattoo Collector & Zain Rishi read from his new collection Noon. The garden came alive with words & birdsong & the sun came out. Perfect afternoon 🌸🥰🌱✌🏻 Back Friday 12th June! C&C xoxo

This’ll be fantastic, well done UofG!

BULB! This Friday in the garden of 5 Lilybank Gardens, G12 🌸🙌🏻🌻 Readings, food, drink & lovely people. Come along - everyone welcome …maybe bring a cagoule🌦️

The name tells you all you need to know about the significance of Sardinia’s most elusive pasta: su filindeu, the threads of God. Of the more than 350 officially recognized shapes of pasta in Italy, this is considered the rarest. nyti.ms/42JMzdu

LTEB Trawler landed a bumper catch for our Arbroath Smokies episode! W.N. Herbert reads a new poem written in honour of the Smokie for the show! Also - Elizabeth Campbell, Norman Buick, George Mackay Brown & Francis Buchanan. Link to listen in bio, & available wherever you listen to podcasts 🐟🍽️⚓️❤️✌🏻

Frances Crawford on giving the victim a voice in A BAD, BAD PLACE Frances Crawford’s debut novel A BAD, BAD PLACE establishes an exciting new talent in Scottish #crimefiction. @snackmag.bsky.social spoke to Frances to find out more. 💙📚 snackmag.co.uk/interview-fr...

We’re delighted to be shortlisted for The Scottish Podcast Awards in 2 categories! 🙌🏻🍽️📚❤️

Lovely return to our Friday afternoons together for BULB! in the Creative Writing Gardens🌻 Genni Meikleham, Candice Chung & Anthony Vahni Capildeo shared a harmonious melding of the prosaic and the poetic. We’ll be back on Friday 22nd for more! 🌸🌻✌🏻⛅️

'Your society's broken. So who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, let's blame the people with no power and no money and immigrants who don't even have a vote yet. Yeah, it must be their fucking fault.' - Iain Banks

Come join us Friday 8th May for the first BULB! We have Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Candice Chung & Genni Meikleham reading 🙌🏻 POEMS…PICNIC…PROSE…& PALS! 2.30pm in the garden of 5 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12. Hope to see you there! Colin & Claire 🌸✌🏻🍃🌻❤️🍄‍🟫

Procrastination in the sun today! Sanding & staining, a stack of protein pancakes for next 4 breakfasts, clean windows & upcoming nap are not getting this book written.

**NEW POST** I'm starting a slow listening club on my Substack. It's an invitation to come offline & listen instead. To explain why, this is why classical music is so important to me, and why I think slow, deep, engaged listening is such a powerful thing. leahbroad.substack.com/p/im-startin...

🚙🚗🚙💨💨💨 In our most recent episode we relive recent & not so recent road trips through the lens of car snacks. We discuss writing by Zain Rishi, Jayne Cortez & Bertolt Brecht & Claire shares a piece of work too. Link to listen in bio, but available wherever you listen to your podcasts 🍽️❤️✌🏻

Sweet potato falafel, Normandy Crème fraîche & Kimchi on flatbread in bed. First Monday off since January ☺️

BULB! is the delight of new words blossoming in nature, listening to artists perform in the sanctuary of the garden of UofG’s Creative Writing Department at Lilybank Gdns, with food, drink & friends…all welcome…tba another few events later in the summer. Hope to see you there! Claire & Colin 🌸✌🏻🍃🌻❤️

Tiles in the close of 34 West George St in Glasgow. Going down a rabbit hole to find out more…see ya🪰

In The Banality of Power, James Byrne anatomises the everyday mechanics of harm, tracing how cruelty becomes procedure, how violence is normalised, and how authority hides in plain sight. www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page...

First of our new monthly episodes where we interview a writes, lots or literary sorts is out now! 🥰💌❤️🍽️✌🏻

Finally had time to go see Hamnet yesterday & I’m still caught in a strange, soft gloamin. Can’t stop thinking about it & feel compelled to watch it again. Make up free this time.

What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it

Nan Shepherd (1893–1981), b. #OTD, 11 Feb. Recently her nature writing & her memoir THE LIVING MOUNTAIN have gained attention—but she was also an important #modernist novelist. Charlotte Peacock weighs her contribution to Scotland’s literary renaissance 🎂🧵 1/9 www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2020/12/quie...

Our Valentines gift to you 💌 HONEY!

Yes!…or rather Oui! Aside from laughing our little derrières off at the name, I remember it being the best tasting lemonade I’ve ever had.

Let us remember the stillborn: how they cede their places here with such good grace that no one ever speaks of them again… —John Burnside, “A Footnote to Colossians” published in RUIN, BLOSSOM (Penguin, 2024) #poem #poetry www.penguin.co.uk/books/456120...

There, there…

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, 2023. It’s a dark and rainy day in Portland, Oregon, and I felt the need for some color in my life. I think this fits the bill. #Photography #Architecture #Interior #Paris #France 📷

2026 marks 100 years since the birth of Agnes Owens. A year-long centenary programme will celebrate her life, writing, and legacy through archives, exhibitions, reissues, and public events. Full details via link in bio.

Once had privilege of listening to Ian McKellen perform at Oxford. Seemed timely then - even more so now.

Our most lenticular episode to date is out now, LENTIL SOUP 🥣 We discuss poetry by both Zharad & Maria Sledmere, & an extract from a short story by David Toulmin. Link in bio to listen, but available wherever you listen to your podcasts 🍽️❤️✌🏻 What’s your secret to a good bowl of lentil soup?🧐