Nothing could be more lovely

A lot of people seem to think I'm called Jolly Odd

Did we know they made a film of Train Dreams???

Congratulations to @cdrose.bsky.social for his @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social win with We Live Here Now! You can read his Personal Anthology picks, here - couple of seasonal specials and then a typically idiosyncratic Anthology of his own! apersonalanthology.com/category/cd-...

“…she’s prepared to look ignorant, grumpy, petty and small if that’s in pursuit of emotional truth. She makes us all work harder and stay braver.” A great survey here by Rochelle of the work of the very special person that is Helen Garner

Look at this! Congratulations to @cdrose.bsky.social - We Live Here Now has won this year's Goldsmiths Prize! @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social A writer who has pursued his own vision and refused to be swayed by the world - lovely to see this rewarded

Recent wandering...

Just released from @tramppress.bsky.social is An Alternative Irish Christmas - a collection of short stories from some of Ireland's best writers, packaged in a great design by @feekra.bsky.social .

Warwick Prize for Women in Translation longlist 2025 clairemcalpine.com/2025/11/04/w...

Beautiful photo of a stunning piece of slow art, caught by @damianward.bsky.social with the uplifting back story told here by Emma Croman. thehumblehome.uk/posts/the-sh...

"Wallace Shawn from 'husband of Deborah Eisenberg'"

I'm reading some Icelandic sagas this week, & while they are both very entertaining & immensely interesting, they are also sometimes very difficult to read because the protagonists are often annoying dipshits. Like, listen to your mother just this once, for crying out loud.

Where can we live but days?

My Substack post for November is now live - featuring lizards a la Cormac McCarthy, a fantastic new book of short fiction and this incredible book by John Burnside. 🦎📚🧡 open.substack.com/pub/victoria...

I haven't written much fiction, but this is one of the few short stories I've managed to write. I want to get that 'voice' back in my head. sublunaryeditions.com/magazine/alw...

I asked my French publisher why they are so completist publishing all of an author's work, even novels less likely to sell. She said she sees part of her role as like monasteries in medieval times, to preserve knowledge through the dark ages. I was struck in the gut a bit by this, felt emotional.

…Tuberaria guttata (the spotted rock rose or cor-rosyn rhuddfannog), an otherwise Mediterranean flower that only occurs in two places in the UK - a tiny bit of the Llŷn Peninsula and a tiny bit of Holyhead Mountain. It only flowers once in its lifetime so isn’t always easy to spot. 2/

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve cracked open Adrian Duncan’s story collection Midfield Dynamo, and the footballing story ‘Prosinečki’ is as heart-stoppingly, heart-startlingly good as two Personal Anthologists have suggested: apersonalanthology.com/tag/adrian-d...

A poem in answer to Charles Causley’s poem On All Souls Night – and also to celebrate the birth of my daughter on All Souls Day. From ‘Red House’ @carcanet.bsky.social

I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches, A delegation would appear there in masks and wigs, And dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living. Czeslaw Milosz, All Hallow's Eve #everynightapoem

ICYMI, I wrote about this excellent collection of short stories by an important Slovak writer, now available in English from @karolinumpress.cuni.cz @juliasherwood.bsky.social “Pain is a privilege of the living.” The Last Thing by Leopold Lahola roughghosts.com/2025/10/30/p...

For the day that's in it... 'All Hallows' by Louise Gluck - has a deep sense of loneliness and loss, that shifting between the seasons, and the final lines where the veil between this world and the next becomes thin #poetry #poemoftheday #Halloween

Well good luck with that

Everything quietens and slows. Some live on; some, dying, persist as seeds, bones, spores. We are rich with life and can’t outrun it. From the title poem of Rob Hindle's collection 'Sapo', available with £2 off until Sunday longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

Halloween aside, I don’t long too much for spooky encounters but finding a Ghost #Orchid here in the UK was one I craved for over three decades

'Weights and Measures' publishes today! I'd like to thank #AlanBilton, publisher #WatermarkPress, my husband, Philip at #NBDesign for the cover artwork, my agent @gaiabanks.bsky.social @sheilland.bsky.social, & the wonderful @fflurdafydd.bsky.social & #EurosLyn who were my first readers. Diolch.

Although it’s Halloween, I’m afraid the flash fiction piece I’m sharing is not even remotely supernatural. Apologies in advance. It’s called “The End of Craftmanship”, and just came out in the Euphony Journal. euphonyjournal.org/2025/10/22/p...

⚡Cover reveal!⚡ We are delighted to announce our forthcoming essay collection, 𝘈𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭: 𝘌𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴! 𝘈𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 is a compilation of recollections, a sequence of encounters with monuments of all shapes and sizes. Pre-order: papervisualart.com/product/as-i...

A kind friend sent me a photo of @curiousfoxbooks.bsky.social in Berlin - I've never been to Berlin but I can tell it's a bookshop with excellent taste

'A book with an innovative approach will ... deliver no message.... But, lord, you will have experienced something.' @cdrose.bsky.social talks to the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social's Emily Lawford about the wonderful #GP2025 shortlisted novel, We Live Here Now www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

Huet's botanical work is very rare, he was best known for idyllic farming scenes. You can see this study by appointment in the Western Art Print Room. 🎃 Study of two gourds, Jean-Baptiste Huet (1745 - 1811), 1785. WA1942.25

Week 43 of documenting everything I buy from the supermarked reduced counter this year. Plant Chef Festive Feasts come earlier every year.

The Japanese word “tsundoku” describes the secret habit of acquiring books and then letting them pile up without necessarily ever reading them. I plead guilty! For some, just possessing a book is sometimes enough (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Today is Octidi the 8th of Brumaire in the year 234. Brumaire is the month of mist. Today we celebrate black salsify.#JacobinDay More information on black salsify

I had so much fun making this list of amazing short story writers and novelists for @49thshelf.bsky.social It includes @zoewhittall.bsky.social @mbatiz.bsky.social Chava Rosenfarb Val Bah @sydhegele.bsky.social and more 💗💗📚 49thshelf.com/Blog/2025/10...

What a day for a walk to Andy Goldsworthy’s extraordinary Hanging Stones on the North York Moors #AndyGoldsworthy

How do you start? "Every single time, make a list. When you’re overwhelmed, boom, it turns out a list solves everything." Writing advice & snappy opinions from Brandon Taylor (It's so easy to type "onions" instead of "opinions" that I'm now wondering if "know your onions" originated in a typo)

Sixteen detached blog posts on Ian Hamilton Finlay some-landscapes.blogspot.com/search/label...

Short story writers! I am running my 8-week online course again in 2026: 'What can a short story do?', exploring the possibilities of this wonderful form. We'll read 8 contemporary short stories and use them as a launchpad for our own writing. More details ⬇️

For folks who don't know it, here's the "kick-ass" Diane Seuss poem Beth Ann Fennelly refers to in her article.

This painting woke me this morning.

Lovely piece here on memory, facts and fiction from @janefraserwriter.bsky.social - where family history ends, fiction begins

... Millions long for immortality but don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. ― Susan Ertz

'The Poems of Seamus Heaney', reviewed by @fotoole.bsky.social A "glorious gathering-in of his achievement, edited with meticulous care by Rosie Lavan and Bernard O’Donoghue". observer.co.uk/culture/book... Hear the editors speak at 'Circling The Square'. www.thesourceartscentre.ie/whats-on/eve...

Happy Saturday! Today we're featuring Derrick Martin-Campbell @dmartincampbell.bsky.social and his new fiction "Two Dreams" in our Fall 2025 Issue OUT NOW! Check out his piece on our website, linked in our bio.

trip to the smoke & took in Andy Goldsworthy 50 year exhibition - so strange & provoking to find the familiar - barbed wire & fallen oak - indoors, & movements of sheep around salt-lick rendering winter sun

Steven Millhauser

Nearly Halloween.