Right!

I’ve been traveling for a month and have arrived home to my beloved #SaturdayKitchen. It’s a delicious 20th birthday celebration. Even through my jet lag, I want to taste every single magical thing. The best chefs!

Getting evrything in order for my kid's wedding and revising my 9-month review materials for my Creative Writing PhD on ageing, intimacy, estrangement, and assisted suicide. This is a weird (wonderful) week. #Lifetrumpsfiction.

Yesterday marks 34 years with #T1D & today I’ve learned the term #cripcollective. Disability is such a fraught, important subject. #shedlight on it, writers. And #publishers! No one is alone. No one.

Ha

You guys! I just emailed my advance materials for my PhD 9-month review to my Brunel supervisors. This thing is REAL. The process of recapping my first-year progress was pretty cool. All this stuff I wanted to study & do anyway & now I've got a whole uni & team of academics who care about it.

Writing in Florida, about Florida. My journals are warping in the humidity. I suspect my stories warp too. Hopefully in a good way.

Also, here -- cake. My best friend from high school's kid got married this past weekend too. I'm posting this stuff to Insta, but now that I've brought it up here, I just thought you BlueSKy pals might also like cake. 😍

Someday I could & should write a freaking LONG creative non-fiction piece about the struggle to find a tolerable mother-son dance song for the kid's wedding. I'm tentatively jubilant, announcing here that we maybe found one. One my husband & I'd considered for OUR wedding, so it's kinda perfect.

I keep watching this mesmerizing mermaid writer girl. What a promo! Novelicious, you've outdone yourself.

In today's (final) @saloneurope.bsky.social session on #WritingSexuality & fearlessness, we discussed Anais Nin's abortion for her art. I wanted to add Claudel's abortion for HIS art but didn't find a way to bring it up. And now here you are w/this. TY #poetry! I'd love to read this #poem.

Katie Beth Hand on FB!! #T1D. #diabetes "If we had done this same hiking trip a year ago, it would have been different. Every trail would have been strategically planned. I would have carried a backpack with 2 kinds of insulin, an extra Dexcom, a glucose meter, and multiple low snacks..."

If you thought her wordplay & lyricism & meta & poetry was by accident, a stroke of luck, a fluke -- au contraire mon frere. Girl works hard and smart. #Respect. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B8-...

Dorothy Parker in my parents' 1954 Modern American Humor: "By the time you swear you're his/Shivering & sighing,/& he vows his passion is/Infinite, undying --/ Lady, make note of this:/One of you is lying." As I'm deep in the @saloneurope.bsky.social Writing Sex course, this is gold. TY M&D.

#write! John Updike said at a cocktail party where people were talking at him, he felt pelted by tiny ping pong balls. "Snappy dialogue, when it's not called for, makes me feel... pelted." - Anne Lamott. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC8Z...

Today I found the need to google the word #mordros again. I highly recommend you follow Lucy Durneen @tigercubkin on intagram for her pictures & her poetry & her wild seas of Cornwall. She's not here on BlueSky, but it's worth jumping through hoops to get to her.

Sharing this now because Steve Edwards’s writing has been one of my best discoveries since I first encountered him in Brian Gresko’s remarkable book on Fatherhood. I look forward to this so much. edwardsstevenc.substack.com/p/rare-good?...

Sorry to hear this for (and about) Goldsmiths & very glad I'm doing my PhD at Brunel. I know nothing/nowhere is perfect but I'm 100% happy to be where I am. Great support, incredible staff. Hope Goldsmiths will resurrect its creative commitment & restore its solid reputation asap.

Because I'm on a serious #Magritte kick... this is a great video. #Educational! And it shows his links to two o fmy favorites, #BalletMecanique (1924) and #AliceinWonderland (1865). www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZCE... #Brussels

I admit I didn't know this artwork was #Magritte, but my flash fiction "A Yellow Tulip" at Hobart is a favorite favorite & I LOVED the art they added -- "Les Amants." It's perfect. Total joy seeing it in the Magritte Museum's gift store. #Brussels www.hobartpulp.com/web_features...

#Holidays re-energise us, leaving us with good memories. A #writingretreat does that AND leaves us with new friendships and #writing skills that last a lifetime. Learn more here: valeriavescina.com/teaching/wri... #WritingCommunity

Holy moly. I just read the 1st story for tonight's @saloneurope.bsky.social #writingsexuality course - Georges Bataille 'The Tale: Cat's Eye.' Having just spent a girls-trip weekend in Brussels w/excellent old friends - all topics allowed - you'd think I'd be up for this lit. I'll get there. I will!

Roasting a whole celeriac right now and it's gonna need attention while I'm right in the middle of the @saloneurope.bsky.social zoom event. I'm surely a better #flashfiction writer than root vegetable baker. Never fear - I have a plan that might just work. (It's starting to smell GOOD!)

Pic from Cambridge train 2 days ago. My 2013 novel #RAPESEED was inspired by a similar English countryside view 27/04/2003. To celebrate the book's conception date, the UK ebook will be 99p starting the 27th. And then a few days at 2.99. Please share! (Sorry USA, this year it's just UK).

Every #SaturdayKitchen, Ollie the #wineguy delivers the most wonderful metaphors. Someone needs to clip these and run them on Insta and Facebook and YouTube as short reels. PLEASE!

I've been watching Rooster. It's GOOD. The comedic pace, distance from set-up to pay-off is TIGHT. Huge bonus, Jamie Tart! And THIS, Tuca Salamanca, now in my brain all day: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLHL... #write #write #write

But what will Charles think?

Wow!

Tribune photojournalist Francisco Kjolseth captured this time lapse footage of the No Kings protest march and rally at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City. Read the story here: www.sltrib.com/news/2026/03...

Gupta: If we’re making choices, we’re making a clear choice right now about how to spend $200 billion over three months. That money could very easily be repurposed to fund a public option and provide healthcare to everyone in the United States who needs it for years.

I wrote a book called 'One Day', superbly illustrated by @benjamindraws that tells the story of Jewish members of the French Resistance who escaped from the train deporting them to Auschwitz. My father's uncle and aunt were on the same train but didn't escape.

This is so true. When I was diagnosed #T1D 34 years ago I was told to "fit it into your life," & I do. But this beweilderment, anger & fluctuating accomplishment business (AND success when I get it right) is relentless. I do know who I am, but #identityshift is still the right descriptor.

A good post! I'm not a re-stacker. I'm not even a Substacker although a couple people have clicked to follow me there. But this deserves reading and sharing. Stephen King says every writer is writing to one person. Do you know who that is? open.substack.com/pub/lindac/p...

Galley Beggar's short list! 'Clean Sheet' by @kinnesonlalor.bsky.social per Sebastian Godwin: "... taut, brilliantly written... brutally honest account of the visceral pain that accompanies the loss of familiarity & the intensity, frustration, & radicalism of novelty... disconcerting & revelatory."

hilarious and terrible.

If I feel too far away from London (which can happen even when you're IN London) Lucien Wolfson's tiny observations are just right. By the way, I thought it was #Basho - that idea of missing a place even when you're in it. Any help finding that #poem? open.substack.com/pub/onemored...

Beautiful story @thin-skin.bsky.social. #prostatecancer, #climbing, #grief & #getbackinthegame plus some good songs for your #Spotify. thin-skin.com/shortstory/t...

Bombardment began Saturday. Monday morning a security company rep arrived at my house in Switzerland to set up our safe room. Since WW2 ended, Swiss homes require bomb shelters. Until now, I’ve only ever seen them store ski stuff and toilet paper. #unnerving.

#Poetry or #ShortStory #writers! Esp you fabulous people @saloneurope.bsky.social... newwriters.org.uk/competition/...

Turns out #SwedishDeathCleaning is really tough if you're 1) not Swedish 2) very nostalgic for things/experiences/people 3) a multi-decade #expat with long-term storage in 3 countries. One day at a time here.

Pas mal, Jim Carrey! And the comments are so nice. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIDT...

I had a vivid dream of my best friend's mother's funeral, which I couldn't attend irl a few years ago. But it was beautiful & really well attended, as I know it was when it actually happened. A strange experience in a dream. Thanks, BlueSky - it seemed a thing I needed to tell someone.

#InternationalWomen'sDay is this coming Sunday, March 8th... Here are 6 #European women writers I have never read. #TBR is getting interesting! As is my online TBR - I just discovered #Europeana digital archives thanks to #WritersHQ. www.europeana.eu/en/stories/s...

Madrid! #Writers, don't be shy if you're thinking maybe you'd like to join this wonderful, welcoming bunch of #poets & #essayists & #shortstory & #flash writers & #songwriters & #novelists & #speechwriters & #scholars & #playwrights & all sorts in Madrid in September. The second big annual event.

#Writers! @saloneurope.bsky.social If you've never done one of Lucy Caldwell's Faber courses on the short story, DO IT. They don't have to be in order, but you do need some background knowledge to do SS3 first... It's up next: faberacademy.com/product/shor...

Big congrats to @kinnesonlalor.bsky.social's #story Clean Sheet on @galleybeggars.bsky.social longlist. I THINK I was the 1st to read it - awe-struck, admiring & answering the question: should I read it at the conference? with MAYBE!? or no - YES. www.galleybeggar.co.uk/07-ssp-clean...

#AssistedDying in Switzerland. Very important research for my PhD and novel. All their "share buttons" don't include Bluesky, so I wanted to make the effort and share it here. #Pegasos. pegasos-association.com/news/my-frie...

Very exciting stuff happening in the George Saunders (and Tom Hanks!) worlds. EVen more fabulous, they're producing this hybrid-live-stop-motion-animation film in London. It's gonna be an experience! open.substack.com/pub/georgesa...

Just co-judged the Impact Challenge Semi-final for #BrunelUniversityofLondon students pitching their projects to improve Hayes City Center for Hillingdon. Really smart, creative, invested students. I'm proud to be part of this uni.

#Poetry class last night w/@saloneurope.bsky.social on the Ghazal. #PArisReview summed up my 1st effort: "Every other line: godawful awkwardness. Every other line: words and phrases the poet would never have used in a million years, except they had to hustle that rhyme word to the end of the line."