still my favorite christmas post

Best books I read in 2025.

The books waiting for me in Scotland this year… @cdrose.bsky.social @jencalleja.bsky.social

🤮

Yesss a Mike Wozniak Christmas tale www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Lovely to see FAIR mentioned in Lucy’s Year in Review 💙

Readers and bookshops: please boycott any publisher that replaces literary translators with the non-reading, uncultured, lying, manipulative plagiarism regurgitator.

39 today ✨

Working my way through some 2025 books, but these are some others this year that have been published and I really enjoyed Will be sharing more as I get through them So much good stuff in here! I did cover a couple of these in my ‘Ask the Host’ segments podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/r...

“Don’t cite the Adversarial Poetry vs AI paper — it’s chatbot-made marketing ‘science’ – Pivot to AI” https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/11/24/dont-cite-the-adversarial-poetry-vs-ai-paper-its-chatbot-made-marketing-science/ > They wrote a good headline, and then they faked the scientific process bit.

If we can only have art from people who "aren't in it for the money" that means we can only have art from privileged middle-class dilettantes. Making art being a viable career is responsible for nearly all worthwhile art, and if it's not a viable career any more we will get drastically less of it.

Absolute must read!

Before the Rocket was Book of the Week and now a Book of the Month at Voce Books! Proud publisher ❤️

This should be the main story on all TV news programmes. The University of Essex is closing its Southend campus because of the fall in the number of foreign students and the loss of income they provided for the University. www.echo-news.co.uk/news/2566689...

It’s so great to see a platform like Lit Hub supporting small press books in this way (not surprised that it’s Lit Hub, they’re always brilliant).

An end of the year summary and a teaser for my next book open.substack.com/pub/jencalle...

I submitted my PhD 2 years ago today. The night before, I had a dream that I opened the document and it was just pictures of women eating handfuls of monkey nuts 🥜 🥜 🥜

If you can’t make it to an independent bookshop to buy books for Christmas presents and have to buy online, buy them from @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social. Free shipping ends tomorrow. uk.bookshop.org

A really heavy work week FAIR by @jencalleja.bsky.social @prototypepubs.bsky.social really has been wonderful to have to read when I can

Good literary translation requires understanding (language, culture, genre--on both sides of the translation) and an ability to write well. "AI" can't do that. There are no shortcuts. Treat your work and foreign language readers with the respect they deserve. You won't fool anyone with this.

one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.

Very specific request: recommendations of sexy/sensual/erotic books on or about islands. It’s for an article, not just my whims.

Exciting news ~ TL/TH in book form, from Peninsula Press in 2026✨ Too Little/Too Hard (edited by Lucy Mercer and Livia Franchini), a collection of essays from some of the most exciting contemporary writers about literature, work, time, and value (shipping May) peninsulapress.co.uk/products/202...

Thursday! @draughtjournal.bsky.social first event, with @jencalleja.bsky.social and more, gonna read in my funny accent. Come along

What a life and career Udo Kier had, have always found him mesmerising www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...

It’s here! The 2026 Dublin Literary Award Nominated Titles are out! ✨📚 69 novels nominated by 80 libraries from 36 countries, including 5 Irish authors & 30 translated works in 17 languages. Explore the full list here: dublinliteraryaward.ie/features/new... #DublinLitAward #DLA2026

wrote an article for @thebookseller.com outlining to the industry why small presses are the lifeforce & future of book production. Pls share esp w people who may not know what small press publishers do! www.thebookseller.com/comment/dont...

We need your help. @waterstones.bsky.social, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh branch less than 100 metres from our front door at the Foot of the Walk in Leith. Please read on for more information www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562908... (1/2)

Argonaut takes the risk of opening a beautiful, independent, community-oriented bookshop in Leith, then big chain @waterstones.bsky.social comes in, having done none of the work, to try and steal their market. I will always support indie bookshops, especially my local @argonautbooks.bsky.social!

Support indie bookshops !!!

Cover reveal ! 💅🍒🚬 Here’s the pretty incredible cover for my translation of FAVORITA by Michelle Steinbeck, out from @faberbooks.bsky.social on 12 February. “Part hallucinatory road trip, part feminist revenge fantasy: a wild, furious and mischievous novel…” www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...

Perfect reading between Halloween and Christmas @roughtradebooks.bsky.social

A statement about David Bellos just issued by his department: www.princeton.edu/news/2025/11...

Very much enjoyed Fair by Jen Calleja. A good read on literary translation. prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/fair/

Giving a lecture on the drafts of The Waste Land tomorrow and all the strange and haunting lines that Eliot and Pound decided to cut

Now the FAIR and GOBLINHOOD tours are over, I wanted to share this essay I wrote for @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social about writing both books. thelondonmagazine.org/article/essa... @prototypepubs.bsky.social @roughtradebooks.bsky.social

I wrote about how getting an allotment made me reflect on life writing for the ROT issue of THE MIRROR LAMP. You can read the whole issue here: static1.squarespace.com/static/601fd... Art by Olivia Sterling

My Maltese great-grandfather Paulo Calleja died aged 41 fighting for the British Royal Navy. He was on the HMS Diamond when it was bombed while evacuating Allied troops from Greece. His name is on a war memorial in Plymouth, though he never set foot on UK soil.

Today's class is on translation, translators, and the labour of translation - reading this by @jencalleja.bsky.social

Congratulations to @cdrose.bsky.social !

Congratulations to Will Mountain Cox for The Relegation Reader anthology, a collection of work by 26 writers in the US, UK & Europe. Will has included an excerpt from my novel Vehicle & I was extremely moved by the Note he includes for it in the anthology itascabooks.com/products/the...

"Life is about decisions. Either you write 100,000 words a day or you meet people and develop ties of affection. You can’t do both."

My concrete poem about the Elgin Marbles was published at Thraca Magazine today. 🇬🇷🏛️🏺#GiveTheMarblesBack

The inventive, antic, justice-fighting spirit of Jen Calleja is something to behold, bent here to an exploration of translation and the role of the literary translator. A ripper.

RIP to David Bellos whose book Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything massively contributed to me wanting to become a literary translator. When I was writing my own book about translation, I kept in mind how funny and accessible his book was.

Announcing the longlist for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2025! Featuring 10 languages, 12 publishers, 4 collections of poetry - and much more. The longlist travels from Argentina to South Korea, from Haiti to Romania, from Sweden to Slovenia. tinyurl.com/4cu8sdv9

Sign the petition to get the UK Home Office to listen to translation experts before they blindly implement automated (AI-based) translation for asylum cases. If the Home Office is serious about protecting human rights, it must listen to those who work with language and law every day.

This is great!

Tonight in Lisbon! Richard Phoenix & I discussing our books at Well Read.