We urgently need a parliamentary debate on Palantir. Please sign this & share with your network. Via @the-citizens.bsky.social & @change.org. www.change.org/p/hold-a-par...

Just cancelled Disney+ and have set up a monthly to these guys instead. Take a look and think about doing the same ⬇️

As a skint single parent to two teens with additional needs, online is the only type of writing retreat within my reach. Comments like this prove that the attitude that writing isn't for the likes of me is still depressingly prevalent within literary circles. Ableist bullshit, & classist too.

If you see this please share (i.e. repost, not just like)! The Barbellion Prize is a unique award for writers with disabilities. We need to raise £20k to secure its future, so please make a donation, no matter how large, no matter how small, here: barbellionprize.org/donate/ Thank you!

I'm not the only author I know who has a huge surfeit of ideas for books that we would love to write and send out into the world if only we had the time to write them.

"I long to read more in the book of you." Beloved Moomins creator Tove Jansson's almost unbearably beautiful love letters to the love of her life (who inspired her wisest Moomin character) www.themarginalian.org/2020/06/12/t...

My thoughts exactly.

Hello! I'm a writer! I'm awful at using social media for writer stuff. I even went on a short course once, but it failed miserably in helping me build an online writers' persona. Instead, I prefer lurking, pressing 'like' on whatever I like, & commenting once a month on a random post. But... 🧵

Why the fuck are governments not speaking up and trying to get their citizens out? One member of the flotilla has DISAPPEARED - Yvonne Ridley from Scotland. Unless there’s been an update about that?!

Can we also stop supplying weapon parts to Israel, suspend trade and impose a sports and cultural boycott to try and ensure there's a Palestine left to recognise?

As I just considered reaching for my brand new bluetooth speaker & dashing it against the kitchen wall it hit me how fucking insufferable Radiohead are/have become/actually, have always been.

I'm writing fuck all - I'm lying in bed painting my nails and listening to reggaeton.

And the Universal Credit bill has passed. Some of the sickest people in the country will suffer needlessly more now. There is no justification, no excuse. Just ugly, cruel choices by ministers too cowardly to tax the wealthy rather than cut the poor. A shameful day for Starmer’s Labour.

#SHARE 👇 Today, the Muhammad Relief Fundraiser distributed comprehensive meals to displaced families in the Gaza Strip. The meals included hummus, falafel, bread, and a nutritional supplement for children You can donate here - gofund.me/da82ccde or directly - shorturl.at/PhwWo

I stand against genocide, the true terrorism.

At midnight, Palestine Action will be proscribed under the Terrorism Act. Their real “crime”? Exposing the UK’s role in arming Israel’s genocide. This is a dark day for our democracy. Criminalising non-violent resistance won’t silence the truth. We are all Palestine Action 🇵🇸

I raised good kids - here's my birthday present from them - and I love it 🤍 Thank you @yourlocalspaceman.bsky.social #MakeTroubleQuestionEverything #KatherineHamnett

Awkward grins are my bag in photos, but I was genuinely chuffed as hell to celebrate being in the @bristolshortstory.bsky.social 17th anthology last night.

Local to Bristol? Don't miss the 2025 Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Launch and Winners' Reception tomorrow, June 28th, at Waterstones, Bristol - Galleries. Get your free ticket here: bit.ly/3TIoQFU #writingprize #shortstoryprize

Yes, I'm still pinching myself

What George doesn't understand is that in the UK, we decided in 2020 that 'governing' was actually a tedious distraction from 'speculating about, and positioning for, the next general election'. It's core to our culture and it is *very* disrespectful to criticise it.

This is my good friend's Arabic teacher, please donate / share chuffed.org/project/1281...

This is the best news ever! My story Redding Rd Vs Alderaan has been shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize! I've been looking for a home for this baby for over 2 years & now at last it's got one (but not just any old roof over its head, this is a dream home in the city it was born in.) 🏙️🔥

My sadness, disappointment and fear for the future run deep. We waited years for a Labour government, and now we've got one it's a shitshow of a government with a bunch of nasty assholes at its helm led by a man with zero principles.

chng.it/ZdZCqGjHht Please sign - @bristolbeacon.bsky.social have booked Dudu Tassa, who has performed for IDF soldiers on numerous occasions, to play on 23.6. Open letter here: bristolpalestinealliance.org/call-on-bris...

"Revision is where fine art begins. It’s thrilling to take an ending and pull it backward like a shiny thread through the whole fabric of a manuscript, letting little glints shine through here and there. To plant resolution, like a seed, into chapter one." -Barbara Kingsolver

As I understand it, nobody is concerned about trans men. The entire trans prejudice revolves around trans women who, as 0.35% of the population, clearly pose more of a threat to society than all the aggressive cis gendered heterosexual males in the entire world. 🙄

Another day of cloudless UK skies ends👏 🌘

Gorgeous 💪

27 pages. Of babies. Whose entire understanding of what Earth sounded like was bombs dropping & people screaming at the sky

Writing level-up achieved: I'm thrilled to share I've made the Bristol Short Story Prize longlist! 🚀🥳 @bristolshortstory.bsky.social

As a weirdo in charge of two teenage weirdoes,I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on this book ⬇️

Me every time Rachel Reeves appears on my telly.

I don’t want to be in the Yoga Nidra nest’, you want to cry. ‘I want to tear it apart, hurl the chicks to the ground and fly to the nearest pub.’ This is brilliantly written, and full of Long Covid truths

👀

This looks like a great opportunity for working class writers from @indienovella.bsky.social 👀 #WorkingClassWriters #WritersCommunity #LiteraryVoices #ShareYourStory www.indienovella.co.uk/working-clas...

The Outrun is a hard, beautiful watch - an unflinching examination of addiction, memory, & home/escape. I read Amy Liptrop's essay Nightlife years ago & it stuck with me - The Outrun manages to capture exactly the same sense of place & depth Liptrot creates in her writing, which is no mean feat 🙌

“Before any bomb falls, or any real estate deal can be made, the shithole country has first to be reduced to a conceptual nonexistence, the instrumentalist backdrop to Western interests and pleasures.” —Zadie Smith

Israel has chosen to mark the first days of Ramadan by blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza. Still, our government refuses to implement sanctions and defend international law. There is no other way of putting it: this is a resumption of genocide — and our government is complicit.

I have LC & I'm in the middle of my first major flareup in over a year. I dared to think I was recovering. I can't decide if that's the most heartbreaking thing or if it's being told there's no further treatment/support, friends looking away uncomfortably, or not knowing what my future might hold.

"Give me your rapists, your billionaires/ Your unrepentant criminals yearning to escape accountability." apnews.com/article/roma...

Call for Submissions: Share your experiences of being monotropic. Share poems, art, blogs, essays, videos, podcasts, music, etc. that reflect your experience of being monotropic. We will publish across Stimpunks & Autistic Realms as part of our community project. stimpunks.org/2025/02/23/c...

First photo taken by my son on 3rd Feb - it was 'fixed' the next day. Today it's back - I'm glad to say that Bristolians are stubborn as hell 💪 #BoycottTesla

after paying for 2 private #ADHD diagnosis in the UK + 1 in #Poland, and bringing a certified copy of my medication plan from #Germany, I've just found out I STILL need to wait 2 yrs for an official #NHS diagnosis... and I though that #endometriosis care was a joke. medium.com/@alicjapawlu...

Today, I received an unexpected gift wrapped in brown paper (the best kind), carried all the way from North Yorkshire to Bristol and given to me by hand. I met the giver briefly 2 years ago during a point of stress, a moment of shared grief, & consigned it to a one-off meeting. 🧵

I'm too ill to write an insightful, punchy review of this book so far, but I'm only 31 pages in & damn it's GOOD. I picked up Sophie K Rosa's #RadicalIntimacy in search of additional insight into my current musings around neuroqueering friendship & I'm finding so much more inside already.

Sat here in the living room of a house I've rented for 12 years in front of a massive TV I got for free nodding in agreement. In 1983 my mum had a TV we had to put 50ps in, which Kev up the road emptied every Friday night, but borrowed £250 off her dad for a deposit on a whole house 😭

Why is nobody talking about this?