It’s a mistake to be discussing drugs we know to be safe. Time after time we take the bait of their provocations - their wild claims. We need to stop accepting their terms of debate - stop wasting our time trying to win their arguments. Instead, make real connections within and across communities.

13 years, celebrated the way we know best: with good food and a lazy weekend 🌈 (this is the most delicious red velvet cake I've ever had btw)

when are the precedented times

Just finished my third (?) rewatch of Better Call Saul and man, it just gets better every time.

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

if you're reading this, you are gay, though. that much is true

It’s an absolute shame that DC fired Gretchen Felker- Martin for exercising free speech and then @bsky.app suspended her account. Every writer here should be decrying this because we have to stand up for each other! This is ridiculous.

i’m not going to be lectured about political violence by people whose politics is violence

Hollywood actor Chris Pratt who I have never once seen comment on any mass shooting in America has posted.

I don't think I took a single breath during the first half of this book. 59 Minutes is one of the best stories I've read in a while, with a twist that is SO perfectly executed, I never saw it coming. Out on the 25th from @holly.bsky.social

Iconic moment at the Downton Abbey premiere

Draw the line. Join the Green Party today ⤵️ join.greenparty.org.uk?utm_source=s...

Performative reading? I don't know her. Fun horror is where it's at. (I had SO many good things to say about the last book of the month, but then I found something weird in it so I'll be saying nothing further 👀)

So happy to have this movie in my collection! We did a tour of some charity shops today, but Vinted has been a goldmine.

I am sickened by the relentless demonisation of refugees. No refugee underfunded a school. No refugee closed a hospital. No refugee took away support from the sick and disabled. We need solutions not scapegoats. Stop blaming refugees and tax the rich instead!

The dogs got COVERED in deer poo and we had to wash them outside while everyone from the vintage car show was driving past. I fear the bagpipers were mocking us as we chased them round the driveway with the hose.

Strong contender for a new Bluesky banner 😂

This sounds like a paraphrasing of Thatcher’s “no such thing as society” if you want more evidence the man is a complete and utter cunt

What utter trash. Will someone tell him that B doesn't stand for Bald? archive.ph/jX1VD

Polari Press statement on the unaffiliated Polari Prize. As director of Polari Press, a queer-focused independent publishing house and design practice, I've been watching the developments of this year’s Polari Prize. 1 / 6

The Polari Prize has been "Paused"

Sod this boohooing and read this instead: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I am one of the 14 authors who chose to leave the Polari Prize, and I find myself frustrated and saddened at the way this entire story has been represented. 1/

Your daily reminder that if you’re talking freely on the radio, being widely quoted in newspapers and properly interviewed in magazines, you’re not actually being at all cancelled.

lmao we are so fucked

More than 800 writers workers have signed a statement objecting to the LGBTQ+ book prize’s nomination of Boyne, who described himself as a ‘terf'. 👏👏👏 to the organisers and to everyone who signed and shared. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Figured I'd put my money where my mouth is - I just picked two of the authors who have withdrawn from the Polari longlist and ordered their books. My story includes the names and links to the books by all of the authors standing up for trans people's place in the LGBTQ+ community.

Not sure why the original article was pulled, but here it is again.

It’s not “the trans lobby’s” reaction to “the inclusion of a book by a gay man”, it’s the LGBTQ community’s reaction to the inclusion of a transphobic hack who compared cis women supporting trans rights to holding down people to be raped, and got in a fight with the Auschwitz memorial!

I'm so in awe of the Polari Prize longlistees who've asked for their books to be withdrawn in the wake of John Boyne's inclusion. It's a prestigious award and would be especially life-changing for the debut authors who've galvanised this movement. What a courageous display of integrity and grit

Working on a story about this now. I reached out to another author on the longlist who I happen to know, and that person is also in the process of pulling out. (Though it was on the record and likely to be public before I pub, on principle I'm not scooping myself on social by saying who.)

UPDATE: 10 of the 24 longlisted authors have now withdrawn from the Polari Prize. First Book: Jason Okundaye, Sacha Coward, Sanah Ahsan, Amy Twigg, Mae Diansangu, Ciara Maguire Main award: Olumide Popoola, Robert Hamberger, Andrew McMillan, Rhian Elizabeth Judging panel: Nicola Dinan, Bob Hughes

New update on author withdrawals from the Polari Prize in protest of the inclusion of a proud transphobe From the First Book longlist: Jason Okundaye, Sacha Coward, Amy Twigg, Mae Diansangu, Ciara Maguire From the main award longlist: Rhian Elizabeth

Joining Sacha in saying everyone leave the polari longlist gang (apart from boyne) alone. Sacha's stepping off it but none of this is any of the authors' faults (apart from boyne)

LMAO

I will be asking to remove 'Queer As Folklore' from the long list for the Polari Prize 2025.

"Describing Boyne’s proud bigotry and support for a hate campaign as just a ‘radically different position on substantive issues’ is insulting and greatly downplays the situation." Withdrawn: @vavapoetry.bsky.social, @jaseokundaye.bsky.social, and @aetwigg.bsky.social www.pajiba.com/miscellaneou...

my timeline is FULL of people using chatgpt to show how chatgpt is rubbish and seemingly not aware that by using it, even to dunk, is still boiling the frigging oceans. we get it, it's useless. you can stop now. you're not convincing anyone of anything we don't already know.

I wrote to M&S about the stupid lingerie department story - confirms nobody offered a bra fitting to a teenage girl. The Telegraph and JK can (always) do one.

Open letter on the Polari Prize longlist and the inclusion of John Boyne, who openly expresses his transphobic and misogynistic views. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

This statement is really not it. Time for a new LGBTQ+ literary prize, lads. Who's in? www.instagram.com/p/DNDHg2aI7h...

A wee bit late but here's July's reading wrap-up! Lots of audiobooks, most of which were library loans. Standouts were The Compound (The Hunger Games meets Love Island? Say less!) and They Never Learn (like Promising Young Woman with a satisfying ending). And Suzanne Collins has my heart, the end.

Re John Boyne and the Polari Prize. I didn't think it could get worse, but here we are.

Not the Polari Prize longlisting one of the biggest TERFs in publishing. Embarrassing.

Found out via TikTok (💀) that The Darkest Night is on a Kindle* monthly deal! Just 99p in August. The runner-up for the ADCI Prize and described as a 'man-hating repugnant read' by one reviewer 💅 amzn.to/4oihw1E *(also sold elsewhere if you don't f with Amazon)

Just woke up at the exact time my agent emailed me an update on the submission we have out just now (2am for me, 8pm for her). In case you were wondering how I'm coping with being out on sub.

VERVE Books has acquired Under the Hammer, a 'darkly satirical and timely' debut crime novel about the housing crisis by Samantha Dooey-Miles, winner of the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award 👇 #BookSky

I see the age verification is going well