Am so enjoying Billy Ramsell’s new collection ‘Render’ - congratulations to Billy and to @bansheepress.bsky.social on another gorgeous book. Read the whole world in the sum of ‘A Pocket Square’, a tiny poem, as economic and controlled as it expansive and expressive... #Poetry

and while I prefer to read from a book, to hold it and even dog-ear it, the advantage of ebooks is the search option, and the ease it provides to look up phrases, repeated phrases and passages in the text... #ABookThing #Reading #Books

Prelude

...the third death is “that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time” Pleased to be Talks Curator for the #ThomasMacDonaghHedgeSchool 2026 (16-19 September) again this yr Thanks to Garry Cotter, Editor at the Nenagh Guardian, for publishing my article this week.

New hardback forthcoming of Bowen's novels The Last September & The Death of the Heart. Intro by #tessahadley Published 30 July 2026 | Everyman’s Library | £17.99 | Hardback '...depths of private tragedy with a subtle ferocity and psychological complexity reminiscent of Henry James.'

Researching the life of Dr. Kathleen Carpenter, pioneering #freshwater ecologist in Wales and North America. thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-fe...

Last walk of the day and we hear a sedge warbler A little bird with a big voice Kicking up a fuss all night Serenades - Heaney the bird is considered a comforting spirit of the dead …believed to carry the souls of children returning to the waterside to sing and comfort their grieving mothers

Lovely to see Maggie O'Farrell chose Seán Farrell's #FrogsForWatchdogs (New Island Books) as her favourite read of 2025 @lilliputpress.bsky.social #Books www.her.ie/books/maggie...

“...the steep rise of technology really does change so much culturally and socially, there’s this value of handwritten communication, which is kind of how we have history.” www.the-independent.com/arts-enterta...

Living furniture #GrandfatherClock

The first translation of Dirty Linen, into Polish by Maciej Studencki, is published in August by Luneta. eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Fewer sleeps now! My website has been updated. Some #haiku sequences from ‘Wishing Tree Note’ are in there now, along with a facility to order copies. Also other work (poems, haibun, essays & features), plus some info on my workshops and mentoring. Why don’t you swing by? www.maeveosullivan.com

'Selling one’s soul and saving it' by Raymond Geuss, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge Essay in the latest Dublin Review of Books #EthicalQuestions drb.ie/blog/selling...

John McGahern's World "The deliberate blurring of inside and outside is central to McGahern’s vision, the writer at once being absorbed in his surroundings and yet stepping back to articulate what goes without saying on the daily round." By Luke Gibbons #DublinReviewOfBooks drb.ie/article/john...

Encrypted’ #ATugOfBlue #poetry

With a standstill on the M50, the Red Cow Luas out to graze, the Dublin bus taking the scenic route through Buttevant (🙄) I missed this wonderful book launch the Gallery Press last month. Love to get parcels of books Huge congrats to @martinadalton.bsky.social , Mícheál, Eamon & Stephen. #poetry

JOB: Lecturer in Creative Writing (Research & Teaching Track) School of Critical Studies. University of Glasgow Salary: £41,064 to £46,049 per annum #HigherEd #English #EduSky www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRR372/l...

Launch of ‘Shapechangers’ published by @arlenhouse.bsky.social, edited by @nessao.bsky.social - Monday 22 June, 6:30pm at The Teachers Club, Parnell Square, Dublin #Anthology #BookLaunch

🐦‍⬛Thank you! to judge Diane Seuss @dseuss.bsky.social, and editors Meg Pokrass @megpokrass.bsky.social & Gary Fincke. Thanks also to Fictive Dream's Laura Black @fictivedream.bsky.social for submitting Peor Es Nada to this great annual contest! Anthology out 7th July ✍️

Every schoolchild now knows of the gift the Choctaw Nation gave to the Irish during the Famine but it wasn't always so. Losing a language can mean losing folk memory. jrnl.ie/7048199

‘The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.’ Ernest Hemingway

The Appropriators, a new darkly comic novel by Rosemary Jenkinson @saltpublishing.com www.saltpublishing.com/products/the...

Roundup of latest book news @martindoyle.bsky.social’s newsletter @irishtimes.com #NewBooks #Reviews #LiteraryAwards www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

“To call Irish people anti-Semitic is a collective punch to the stomach” @irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Happy to have an essay in ‘Shapechangers’, a new anthology from @arlenhouse.bsky.social, edited by @nessao.bsky.social , and available to pre-order from @booksupstairs.bsky.social booksupstairs.ie/product/shap...

Incredibly cool to read at the launch of Issue 54 of @stingingfly.bsky.social at @ilfdublin.bsky.social Fabulous readings to a full house and a super appreciative audience. Amazing photographs are by Patrick Flemming #Launch #LiteraryJournal #Poetry #Prose #NonFiction

The Mayfly is up #LoughDerg

Delighted to be invited to read my 2 new poems in Issue 54/Summer 2026 of the @stingingfly at the launch @ilfdublin.bsky.social 16 May. Hope to see you there. #poetry My thanks to editors Annemarie Ní Churreain & Lisa McInerney ilfdublin.com/whats-on/fes...

Sorry to hear of the death of Carol Rumens, who has passed away aged 81 www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

So thrilled to see ‘Midnight at the Saltmarsh’ @thegallerypress.bsky.social reviewed in The Irish Times. Enormous gratitude to Declan Ryan 🙏🙏🙏

The Kekulé Problem: Where did language come from? - an essay by Cormac McCarthy in Nautilis #Language #Philosophy nautil.us/the-kekul-pr...

Catriona Crowe on plans for Bessborough Mother and Baby Home. @irishtimes.com #Bessborough www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Listening to the back catalogue of #ThisCulturalLife podcast whilst gardening - Florence Pugh is a super talented actor. We watched Midsommar. I found the film incredibly disturbing and, reading her interviews about the depths she accessed to play the lead, so did Pugh. #Midsomnar #Podcasts

Jennifer Lee Tsai launches her debut collection. Not to be missed. www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/st-an...

Am re-reading George Eliot's 'Middlemarch', last read it when I was about 14 or so - gas to see Peter's Greatx20 Uncle, Richard Hooker (Richard the Divine) mentioned in Chapter 1 and 20. #Reading #TheClassics en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard...

Cuckoo #home #ForTheBirds

Been reading these two gorgeous collections since they arrived in the post - Nessa O'Mahony’s ‘Dodder Daughter’ and Lorna Shaughnessy’s ‘Throat Full of Feathers’, both published by Salmon Poetry. Poems: ‘Cillín’ is by Nessa (am kinda obsessed by this poem) ‘Word Cave’ is by Lorna #Poetry

Great to see Virginia Evans The Correspondent’ on the shortlist for Women’s Prize for Fiction womensprize.com/revealing-th...

my latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Got this collection last week from No Alibis Bookstore, Belfast's best bookshop. Am completely bowled over by it (by Pulse, yes, but also by the fabulosity of No Alibis). Last page of first story.

The Four Pillars Press - Poetry Pamphlet longlist #Poetry www.3pillarspress.com/post/longlis...

Currently reading: Four Night Seas, a marvellous collection of short stories by Niamh MacCabe @niamhmaccabe.bsky.social , published by @lilliputpress.bsky.social #ShortStories

Happy to have 2 new poems in the summer issue of #TheStingingFly #poetry Huge thanks to Eds. Annemarie Ní Churreain & Lisa McInerney The gorgeous cover art is by Diarmuid Breen & design is by Eimear Gavin The summer edition will be launched at @ilfdublin 16 May ilfdublin.com/whats-on/fes...