Our Winter 2025 bonus issue, Spectral & Strange, is out now! mugwortmag.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/s...

🦇 November is here and for bats periods of torpor are lasting longer. Some begin hibernation, to save energy over the colder months, when insects are harder to find. They are using stored fat as fuel.

From today and through November, I'll be reading and responding to the spooky submissions sent to Mugwort for our special December issue, Spectral & Strange. 🖤 Submissions will open for 2026: Season 3 shortly!

Our Mugwort Magazine submissions inbox is OPEN until 31/10 for our special winter issue, Spectral & Strange, to be published in December. Check out the guidelines: mugwortmag.wordpress.com/special-call... ...then send us your best eerie, weird, or unsettling fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art!

Writers, artists: send me your winter chills! That is to say, @mugwortmagazine.bsky.social is open for special issue submissions until 31/10. 🌿 Winter 2025: Spectral & Strange will be published in December. 🖤 Full guidelines are here: mugwortmag.wordpress.com/special-call...

Our last @mugwortmagazine.bsky.social issue of 2025 is out now - Season 2: Volume 3. Maybe I'll see you in the submissions inbox when we open again on 1 November! Until then, happy reading.

Yesterday it was chilly and raining and my son said the weather was nice. I said yes it is, makes you want to read and have ideas. Autumn is officially 'read and have ideas' season. ('Spooky season' is 30 October to 31 January, and no one can change my mind. A radical, scandalous opinion.)

Just before dawn in September is the best. While reading next to the window, I get to hear these lads making their 'this is my bit of woods! go away!' sounds at the same time. Poor owl. I always feel properly told off when tiny songbirds yell at me (especially robins, house sparrows & blackbirds).

Cannot wait to share this with you all 💙🗺️🐉

Painfully aware I haven't had any Birb Drama to tell Bluesky about for ages. Wait: a couple of weeks ago the gulls were having issues with buzzards & cormorants, but I was busy & forgot to report back. But gull drama is barely even drama. It's just gulls. They're at it right now. It's their thing.

On Friday night, I saw Supergrass live at Ludlow Castle. 😍 On Saturday afternoon, inspired by the concert, I wrote a substack about memory, place(s), music, and embarking on a Fool's Journey. You can read it at thefolklorefaery.substack.com 🖤

If you like your poetry a little weird, a little folk-lore based, or nature aware, you will like this magazine. `Thanks to @kategarrettwrites.bsky.social, I have a very mugwort poem in it! mugwortmag.wordpress.com/2025/07/19/s...

New issue of @mugwortmagazine.bsky.social is out now! 🖤🌿

Hello writers! I originally hoped to respond to all subs by 1/7, but that's tomorrow & I'm still reading submissions. We've received more for Season 2 than for Season 1 - a beautiful problem to have, but it means I underestimated how long it would take to respond. I'll reply by this weekend! 💚

Poets 👀You’ve got until midnight to submit poems to @atriumpoetry.bsky.social

Mugwort Magazine is still open for submissions until the end of day (whatever your time zone) on Sunday, 15/6! See mugwortmag.wordpress.com/submission-guidelines for full details & how to submit! I'd especially love to see some images of wild flora & fauna for possible cover art. (NO AI please!)

Mugwort Magazine has just reopened for submissions. Please do send your 'writing from the edges' - I'll look forward to reading it!

While I have blossoms on my mind... In just under 2 weeks, I'll be delivering this email course of daily creative prompts (12-21 April). A bit of April flora, fauna, folklore, myth, & history to inspire your writing &/or art. Details in the link. 🌸 kategarrettwrites.bigcartel.com/product/by-a...

Flowers, so many flowers. 😍 For those who prefer birds: I did meet a robin while taking these photos. He made it VERY CLEAR that I was to stay away from his property (an ornamental bush at the side of the castle), then hopped back into said property before I could take his photo. Noted, sir. 🫡

No photos but Mr Mallard is on the roof again, & he has a companion. Congrats to the happy couple on their seasonal pairing. May they have several beautiful weeks together! Also, the best bird thing in the mornings at the moment: the sound of Great spotted woodpeckers. 10/10 no notes. ❤️

A spring prose poem of mine, 'Gently does it', posing with some scrappy primroses (they sprouted through cracks in the concrete in our garden) - a day late for the equinox, but on time for World Poetry Day. 🌿💛

Mimi-cat leapt onto my lap while I was taking a five minute crochet break - now I don't know when I'll be allowed up again. It's a beautiful problem to have, honestly. 🩷💙🧡

Look, I haven't had any major bird drama to report since the cormorant & corvids business. However, it's now ducks-on-roofs season down here by the river. Spring has truly sprung. Had coffee with a mallard this morning (even if he didn't know what was going on). I just love ducks-on-roofs season. 🦆

This morning, I got back from the school run & the crows over the river were agitated. Turned around to see what was up & there's a cormorant at the top of their tree. This afternoon, the crows were cross again. I looked out the window & the cormorant is BACK, looking around like 'lol what'.

COVER REVEAL:”Tree Poets : Flames of Ice” Well, our second in the series of Tree Poets - anthologies with a good chunk of work from Three Poets, if you missed the news release - really has started well and will continue for a wee while yet. The second in the series has a stunner of a cover, which…

I wrote this February creativity course & it starts in one week - Sat 1/2! An email lesson/prompt each morning for 28 days to inspire your art (written, visual, musical - anything you create). The prices start at 10p a day. For more info & to join: kategarrettwrites.bigcartel.com/product/febr...

The other day I finished crocheting a shawl. It was my first attempt at a shawl - worn here as a scarf because it's very cold. I called it my hobbit shawl, daughter (8) says Robin Hood. Either way, I'll see you in the woods! 🌿

Go deep into the forest today with these two poems, 'I Should be in a Cottage in the Woods' & 'The Wolverine's Gift', by Kiley Creekmore. 🌿 mugwortmag.wordpress.com/2025/01/04/t...

Day 4 (just). Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #20DayBookChallenge #BookSky

Day 3! Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #20BooksChallenge #BookSky

Yes! We are celebrating the start of the festive season in Ludlow with poetry & music at @stlaurencelud.bsky.social on Friday 22 November. Performances from 6:30pm. (I even have space for another poet/musician or two, just message me!)

We are Mugwort Magazine, a home for writing from the edges. We opened for submissions in October & will close on 30/11. We'll be publishing in two seasons each year: January to March + July to September. Check out our website for information & submission guidelines. mugwortmag.wordpress.com

Mugwort Magazine has its own Bluesky now! Please do follow us, submit, read when they time comes, etc. Thank you from me, my cold mugwort plants, and all the writers & artists. 🌿

Blurry photos of my wild bird friends enjoying super cold breakfast in the garden. 🖤 At one point the jackdaws were actually playing in the snow! (Yes, corvids play - I'm not anthropomorphising them. They're wonderful. I probably spend far too much time with the jackdaws, but I love them so much.)

Day 2! Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #20BookChallenge #BookSky

Sat 7 Dec, 10am-4pm, I'm leading a creative writing workshop at Hereford College of Arts as part of a programme of one-day workshops. Whether you're a holly jolly elf or sympathise strongly with Scrooge, you're welcome to come along and write winter with us. ❄️ www.hca.ac.uk/courses/1-da...

Our books are well-constructed, good and useful things, and if you buy one, it will enable us to make more. Recent titles include Steve Ely's 'Eely', Angelina D'Roza's 'The Blue Hour', and Rob Hindle's 'Sapo'. You can order them here: longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

Please sign the petition for a proper ban on hunting: protectthewild.org.uk/our-campaign...

Their crisis is our crisis The slender-billed curlew is the first European mainland bird to go extinct in half a millennium www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new... And all I have to respond with is a poem

Spirit of the Orchard By me, 2022. More info, bigger picture, & prints: www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/artists/paul...

Ok, I'll bite! Day 1. Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #20daybookchallenge #BookSky

The highlight of my week was getting tickets to see Supergrass at Ludlow Castle in July! A 5-minute walk to see a favourite band in a favourite place - the dream. 😍 They're touring to celebrate 30 years of their album I Should Coco. Was I listening in 1995? Yes, I was 15. Don't do the maths. 🙃

Hello writers! I haven't made a Bluesky account for it yet, but I'll be publishing an online lit mag - just one this time! - again in January. We've had lovely submissions so far. It's not too late to send yours: we close on 30/11. Mugwort Magazine can be found here: mugwortmag.wordpress.com 💚🌿

Mimi-cat was hidden away in her tower earlier, looking out on the world (or at least the bedroom), waiting for me to go to bed.

This is 'With the Green Man', a poem from my time-hopping verse novella about love and god/s (amongst other things), Hart & Ha'penny. 🌿

I knitted a book, by which I mean, many threads came together to make this seemly knot: the life & times of a cunning-man, a hedge-wizard; his skill, the loosing of knots, & by like-for-like, unhitching those binds too tight in your life, your mind, your soul... I'm recording it now for listening

Hi, my name is Amy. I'm a writer and folklorist, focusing the interplay between history and folklore in Shropshire. I write a blog- nearlyknowledgeablehistory.blogspot.com?m=1 And I'm one half of the Shropshire Witches Podcast. I'm working on a book about Shropshires satanic folklore. #Folklore