Gorgeous and mysterious👇🎄

Out today! Looking for a festive treat? Listen to this very special episode with twelve authors reading their own stories! www.spreaker.com/episode/smal...

Radio 3’s The Essay’s second tale inspired by Schubert’s Winterreise is Jo Lloyd’s Winter Machine. Welsh myth, alchemy & Ovidian transformations (of person & environment) combine in an affecting poetic meditation on identity as loss, journey & arrival @jolloyds.bsky.social @emmaharding.bsky.social

“The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life.” Nearly every sentence of The Great Gatsby is this rich and musical. I’m rereading my old, beat-up copy. Beautiful.

The first of the stories mentioned in Emma’s thread 👇, Stevie by Wendy Erskine, a melancholy & subtle piece about an emotionally restrained, precise, orderly, secretive woman, featuring the haunting song Der Leiermann from Schubert’s Winterreise, is now on BBC Sounds @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social

If all you want for Christmas is new short stories from @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social Mark Haddon and (ahem) me Then check out The Essay on Radio 3 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week Three stories of winter journeys inspired by Schubert's Winterreisen www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Winterreisen - three new stories about winter journeys, inspired by #Schubert, by @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social @jolloyds.bsky.social and Mark Haddon. Read by Siân Thomas, Morfydd Clark & Lydia Wilson. Produced by Fay Lomas and me. 21.45 22-24 Dec @BBCRadio3 @BBCSounds www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

If all you want for Christmas is new short stories from @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social Mark Haddon and (ahem) me Then check out The Essay on Radio 3 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week Three stories of winter journeys inspired by Schubert's Winterreisen www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I call this one "Disposing of the evidence"

Winter solstice always makes me sad because it marks the end of the long low light with all its moods and drama

I don't matter. I never did, much. I don't now. I don't matter, and I want out. You put a lot of ice in this.

20/12/25 - nocturn

“An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet, the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour” - Eric Maisel

My Jólabókaflóð pre-Christmas read this year will be Advent by Gunnar Gunnarsson - one of many books I found this year thanks to posts from lovely bookish bluesky people Keep posting books please!

Finished A Shock by Keith Ridgeway. Very good. Interesting from a reading and a writing perspective. Not easy to gather my thoughts on this as it has many layers, angles. I liked how the stories didn't have a centre, or perhaps had multiple centres. Just like London you might say.

Just found out I won’t have a job come January. As well as starting the regular job hunt, I thought I’d reach out here to see if anyone knew of any proofreading/editing/compliance opportunities. Or just opportunities! Apologies if this is gauche, but if you don’t shoot your shot, as the kids say 🎄

Best sentence I've read all day

My Jólabókaflóð pre-Christmas read this year will be Advent by Gunnar Gunnarsson - one of many books I found this year thanks to posts from lovely bookish bluesky people Keep posting books please!

In the end credits for Barry Jenkins’s Medicine for Melancholy, the credit for each song on the soundtrack is illustrated with a still of the scene where it played. I love this passionately and think everyone should do it.

new Joy Baglio story! In one of my favorite magazines! tell your loved ones you want a subscription for the holidays

Thinking of 2026— "There Will Come Soft Rains" Sara Teasdale poets.org/poem/there-w...

Oooh look - new Adrian Duncan! Should I start reading now - or wait until after the seasonal hoopla???

Oooh look - new Adrian Duncan! Should I start reading now - or wait until after the seasonal hoopla???

Poem by Denis Johnson (via Narrative)

"So many systems are in place to keep us from understanding the harm that’s been caused to us and push us into accepting all kinds of harm" Lydi Conklin discusses cancel culture and trauma responses with Anna Marie Cain: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/i-wanted-to-tell-a-different-story/

Here’s the new podcast of a short story by Welsh novelist and poet, Christopher Meredith. Enjoy! open.spotify.com/episode/3yAM...

One-flowered Wintergreen is Day 18 of my botanical #adventcalendar. This rare Caledonian pinewood specialist is a beautiful and fascinating plant that is mixotrophic - it can photosynthesis, but crucially relies on mycorhizzal fungi for the nutrients needed to germinate its seed #wildflowerhour

I prefer to bloom in winter.

Today, my parents & I began the brewing of the traditional Christmas ale, which is predominantly flavoured with juniper. These are the juniper twigs I harvested yesterday, now having been boiled to extract the flavour. It smells heavenly.

I love this piece - for more underwater stags see www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

forever obsessed with James Tate

Looking Eastwards in December. My slow artwork is now six years old, and counting... www.dirtmeetsthewater.co.uk #Scape #photography #art #eastcoastkin #shotonfairphone

on written time (Hélène Cixous in conversation with Frédéric-Yves Jeannet; tr. Beverley Bie Brahic)

Great success. This sewing machine, over 100 y/o…and in mechanical terms, a beautiful work of art..is immeasurably better than the pos electric Alfa I have, which skips a cog and snaps the needle by ramming it into the bobbin.

Generally loved by our reading group - only one dissenter. elizabethbaines.blogspot.com/2025/12/read...

jollymerry hollyberry jollyberry merryholly happyjolly jollyjelly jellybelly bellymerry hollyheppy jollyMolly marryJerry merryHarry hoppyBarry… —Edwin Morgan, “The Computer’s First Christmas Card” first published in THE SECOND LIFE, @edinburghup.bsky.social 1968 #poem #poetry #concretepoetry

My @theguardian.com review of ‘Pulse’ by Cynan Jones @grantabooks.bsky.social. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

The little olive tree sends peace this December morning. #FlowerReport

These are the books included in the two posts. I used to love sharing photos of the books I read on Instagram. I think if you love books you probably love book covers. I feel very fortunate to own so many books that I love - always grateful for that.

THIS IS GREAT!

Soupy

Day 14 of my botanical #adventcalendar is this showy number from Stirling Castle Mound - White Mullein. This was recorded in Stirling in 1883, then not seen until 2024 - a gap of 141 years! This nationally scarce plant has seeds that can remain viable for many years, but even so... #wildflowerhour

Eyes of wren's-egg blue and one inclined to say hello to the other but not unattractively. A fragment, but still my #SundaySentence from Kevin Barry's THE HEART IN WINTER, a book chockful of sentences to astonish.

"AI is the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector and tech monopolists run amok. We will be excavating it for a generation or more." - Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI

Thrilled to be shortlisted for the @stanfordstravel.bsky.social Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year for #SmallEarthquakes 🎉 Many congratulations to my fellow finalists, and a huge thanks to my brilliant publisher @hurstpublishers.bsky.social for helping to make the book a reality 🙌🏽

Saturday #morningread

Dawn rocks

I’ve been thinking about my favourite reads from the second half of 2025. This is my post from the end this summer. In order of reading. Photo taken at The Regent in Blackpool 📚 kieranstorieswriter.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/b...

Thank you @nicholasroyle.bsky.social for saying this! The usual argument is everyone reads, but we don't see Ali Smith judging on Bake Off or Sarah Hall on Strictly or Bernadine Evaristo on the Turner Prize - tho' everyone also eats, dances, and looks at stuff Don't even get me started on sport

Ciaran Carson looks himself up but struggles to recognise the person he finds.