The Polari Prize last week longlisted John Boyne, who only recently wrote a piece saying how much he admired JK R*owling and is a 'proud terf' - book pals: there's an open letter here that you can read + sign to show your solidarity with our trans community #booksky docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Tickets now on general sale! 🔥 The Manningtree Witches A Mercury Original Sat 28 Feb - Sat 14 Mar 2026 Adapted by Ava Pickett Based on the novel by A. K. Blakemore Directed by Natasha Rickman 🎟 mercurytheatre.co.uk/event/the-manningtree-witches/ #MercuyTheatre #Essex #TheManningtreeWitches

My new big TERFism explainer is now online and unpaywalled at Lux magazine, and the physical version in the print issue (#11-12) looks incredible. I do recommend buying it or subscribing. Thanks to Sarah Leonard & all the Lux comrades for wonderful editing. lux-magazine.com/article/terf...

'In the UK, FFB has been viewed in a vacuum, anomalous and bafflingly disconnected from similar movements around the world. Last year 1000 American writers boycotted all PEN America programming... for failing Palestinian colleagues.' www.thebookseller.com/comment/on-s...

The great David Johansen of the NY DOLLS has been battling stage 4 cancer for the past few years, unable to work. This being America, he is having a hard times paying for medical care. A fundraiser has been set up through Sweet Relief; more info below. www.sweetrelief.org/davidjohanse...

Once more with feeling: the govt does not do this out of goodwill. PLR was organised, agitated for & activated by Maureen Duffy and Brigid Brophy. Borrow their books, especially Maureen's, and give them their 💐

one of the weird violences of literary culture - the way we are (a) vilified for doing/writing about the things which might make a broken world better (b) SIMULTANEOUSLY: constantly asked, by the same people, to gesture to/perform hope, in what we write and say

cute feature in the guardian this morning about one of my favourite bands of all time: www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

if i was a wilting victorian lady, i simply would not summon an eldritch erotic entity with my thwarted yearnings

livin' life

📣 In 2022, the UK publishing industry made RECORD revenues of £7bn+ 📣 Richard Osman’s last advance was £10m, enough to fund all 9 BG festivals for a DECADE 📣 BG are investing in arms companies supplying Israel 📣 FFB are not the reason writers are poor!

1 - literary festivals contribute fuck all to author incomes 2 - fans? What happened to critically engaged readers 3 - books expand yr inner life but do not apply to real world situs eg fossil fuels/ gaza ?! 4 - ‘we need books to propagate & pay for the empire’ = creative economy discour$e 😷

Can’t put enough emphasis on what the words “last medical facility” mean in the context of this genocide. It’s pretty simple to understand what happens when there’s no hospital available.

‘Tiny broken bodies, rotting babies, flattened corpses, mass graves, levelled neighbourhoods. It is a spectacle of slaughter. All unfolding in plain sight, livestreamed and posted by Palestinian citizens and journalists, witnessed by outsiders, and described by Israelis themselves.’

'Patriarchy does not mean that men cannot act decently, and kindly, indeed that the men in our lives may not sometimes be better and more reliable than the women. But it does mean that there are no men, no people, who can ever claim to be entirely beyond its reach.' www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

RIP Richard II you would've loved chewing gum loudly

✨

it's sort of like a sexual harrassment advent calendar, isn't it?

i'll be running an online workshop on writing historical horror for @writersandartists.bsky.social & Book Aid in january. tickets here, if that sounds like a you thing; www.writersandartists.co.uk/events-and-c...

look i love emily, i love her so much, but this is very big chat for a trailblazing bedrotter

Today is publication day for 'this too is a glistening' (Bitter Melon Press) by me, Pratyusha, Nina Mingya Powles & @jessicajlee.bsky.social 💜 Thanks to @jaygao.bsky.social for this amazing blurb! Last copies of our first print run are avail at bookstores & bittermelon.weebly.com/store/p13/th...

in which i am confused by murakami www.theguardian.com/books/2024/n...

loool