Still a few places left on this fantastic #Arvon residential week, The Power of Place, with myself and @jadeafitton.bsky.social www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

SO PROUD of my talented sister – one of 10 commended finalists in this prestigious poetry competition, which had more than 21,000 entries! Many, many congratulations, @jadeafitton.bsky.social xx

A rather nice surprise when you wake up to find one of your poems highly commended in the National Poetry Competition!

Truly rather heartbroken I can’t make it tonight for this masterpiece with the legendary, whip-smart @stuhennigan.bsky.social and @judecook.bsky.social. If you’re free and in town: go! You will not be disappointed, I promise. www.wearebardbooks.co.uk/event-detail...

Night is the vault of moths, moons and meteors, and I’ve been spending a lot of time there recently putting together a new book with @batsfordbooks.bsky.social exploring how shooting stars have shaped our understanding of the universe and our place in it! www.waterstones.com/book/when-th...

Sneak peak!

I wrote about the coolest cafe no longer in existence (and spoke to Petula Clark about it) for The Fence www.the-fence.com/short-arsein...

Before the year is out two non-fic books I loved this year but haven’t posted about. One a dive into another world entirely, the other an entirely original, whip-smart road trip across America…

For the greatest book ever published about pubs—brought to you by The Fence— I wrote about (arguably) the greatest pub - the Duke of York in Devon has seen some heavyweights through its doors. The Pub has some fun and fascinating pieces… www.penguin.co.uk/books/462310...

A couple of pages from my travelogue from my time in Cuba back in 2022 and everything I saw, heard and learned for Lunate journal, which has now closed shop. But if you’d like a copy, let me know.

If you’re anything like us and Radio 4 is the background soundtrack to your existence, listen in at 3.45 today. I wrote a short story for Short Works about a wild boar release, rural ideologies and searching for balance in an environment that is intrinsically off-kilter www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Best time to read about England is when you’re not there

I was delighted to write about the circuit I walk every night and what it means to me for @boundlessmagazine.bsky.social www.boundlessmagazine.com/p/of-owning-...

If anything were to make me believe in a god, it would be watching a heron fly over.

I didn’t see them but I heard them. The swallows are back.

I finally sorted out my ALCS profile last year and…if you haven’t…do. You might get a very nice little surprise in your bank! www.alcs.co.uk

At this point I’m wondering if anyone who’s ever had a book published has not found theirs on the LibGen search?

Trying here now: I’m going back to Rome, this time with my husband. Last time, I remember wandering into a church, (sand/lime) stone, pretty spartan, no murals or frescos, with a domed ceiling with a hole to the sky. It wasn’t the Pantheon, does anyone know what it is?

Blue morning. Working on the bedroom windowsill today, accompanied by the quarrel of sparrows in the eves. Dawn gun shots from one of the farms in the distance. Skylarks singing in the cow field.

Listened to this Short Works while driving yesterday and it was such a fantastic piece of writing (brilliantly delivered by Carl Prekopp) I couldn’t wait to find out who’s written it. Only to discover it’s my mate @tomvowler.bsky.social! It’s so worth a listen: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

A good 200 or so ravens kawing over the field a tractor’s running through, then kawing back to their roost in the graveyard. The first Dutch-spotted lambs in the fields . Snowdrops, crocuses and the accidental daff. A tuft of fox fur on the verge. It’s grey out, but I like it.

Can anyone recommend good essay comps to keep eyes peeled for (other than Fitzcorraldo—not eligible)? Have some not-pitchable bits I’d like a reason to turn into things…

BIG NEWS. Absolutely delighted to announce that my debut novel, Keshed, is going to be publishing in the autumn with @ortacpress.bsky.social one of the freshest, most interesting and eclectic indies on the scene. What a delight to have two books on the way with such a great press 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Amazingly, just shy of 1000 of you loaned Hermit out from the library over the past year!! Also spotted in @heffersbookshop by my sister @cctranslates and my friend in @Tate - thank you so much!

#BookSky Just finished reading this part memoir part exploration of solitude & those who choose to live alone. Really enjoyed it & highly recommended! @jadeafitton.bsky.social

No sunset. No wind. Only late-in-the-day sounds of heavy machinery and cackling jays beneath a lid of grey.

Feeling simultaneously blessed and frustrated that who we are seen as as/become as writers depends so much on what others will commission. Obvious, I know. Merciful in many cases. Still, wish there were more ways to get our (better) weirder stuff out there. I want more weird.

Calvino’s ‘If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller’ discussed on this week’s In Our Time. In 2019 I wrote about the novel—written before Gibson uttered the words ‘cyber space’—and how it inadvertently anticipated the advent of the AI author themillions.com/2019/02/if-o...

For autumn hibernation, I'll recommend this beauty by @jadeafitton.bsky.social, one of the very best books of 2023. A stirring and evocative meditation on the human urge for solitude across the centuries, told with a journalists precision thru the eyes of a poet 💖💖 www.penguin.co.uk/books/445504...

In just over a week I’ll be in Amsterdam talking at G10 Festival. All the talks will be live-streamed, should the Netherlands be a bit of a stretch. It’s going to be a fascinating weekend. I’m honoured to be among these speakers. Hope you can join us! g10vandeeconomie.nl

In Vashti Bunyan’s ‘Wayward’ I came across the concept of ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ dogs, which I pursued to the back teeth of the internet (where people see their dead dogs in cloud formations) because I’ve now had two. I hopefully did them both proud for @thetimes www.thetimes.com/life-style/h...

If Amsterdam in November’s a bit out of reach I’m delighted to have been invited back to @BarnstapleLibr to coincide with their ‘Farms on Exmoor’ exhibition. I’ll talking and workshopping on November 13th. Only a few places left, hope to see you there! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-creati...

First event in Europe! It a real honour to have been invited to talk alongside such bright and interesting minds at the G10 Arts, Philosophy and Economics Festival in November. (Carlo Rovelli spoke here, for crying out loud!) Weekend in Amsterdam? g10vandeeconomie.nl

Quality line-up. And if you've not read Jade's book Hermit, do so immediately. A wonderful meditation on nature and solitude across the centuries for anyone struggling with the flat-out insanity of the modern world.

The brilliant Anna Selby and I will be starting September in Devon exploring imaginative ways to write memoir and poetry through the prism of the natural world. We’ll be tutoring at Arvon Totleigh Barton—a total dream of a space to stay and write. Hope to see you there www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

I wrote about my obsession with online auctions; my occasional, delusional flights of fancy; how internet bidding has transformed provincial auction houses; who is still bidding in person; and the weird, wonderful and woeful objects that appear in them… www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

After finding a mysterious briefcase, a former nose at Cartier broke her grandfather out of a retirement home… I wrote about how that briefcase led to the revival of a lost family legacy, Maison Godet—perfumer to Matisse and Chagall for Air Mail airmail.news/look/issues/...

I’m in The Guardian writing about an ostensibly small moment during which I made a decision that changed everything for me. It was like being rewired. t.co/n0nHJP9xEf

I am so honoured to be writing this: my strange little poem is on this shortlist, in such company! Immensely thankful to The Moth Magazine and Hannah Sullivan. The news is in The Irish Times where you can read all the poems and what Sullivan said about them. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Hermit spotted on the table in the Tate Modern alongside my fave Weird Walk has made my weird day, weird week and entire weird life....

I’ll be doing this online writers salon Thurs 29th from 1-2.30pm on pilgrimage, hermitage and creative solitude with the brilliant authors and wanderers Gail Simmons and Phoebe Smith. Hosted by wonderful author Vik Bennet who also took this photo. Link here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wild-women...

Psyched to be at Faversham Lit Fest tomorrow with Catherine Taylor! We’ll be on at 4.30 in that beautiful town talking about our memoirs and how place can transform a person: www.favershamliteraryfestival.org/index.php/pu...

I wrote this last year for The Scotsman print magazine and have been meaning to post it ever since. Despite a lot of my big face, it’s mostly about Scottish Hermits from Sara Maitland to Saint Cuthbert…

One of the very best books of 2023 for them folk that missed it. Get on the case. Lush mix of memoir, nature writing and history, with a journalists eye for detail and a poet's clarity of vision. I did a little write-up of it in here with some FAB others. uk.bookshop.org/lists/food-f...

Hermit paperback! Love and thanks to everyone who made this book possible, to those who made it readable, beautiful, and everyone who has embraced it. I’m proud of this book and plan to toast it beneath the stars, beside a fire, and holding a measure of rum at the earliest possible opportunity…

Hermit is out in paperback a week today—25th Jan, adorned with some lovely new quotes! www.amazon.co.uk/Hermit-memoi... uk.bookshop.org/p/books/herm...

Out at the end of Jan, there are some amazing poets in this set inc. some proper luminaries like Andy McMillan, Rob Miles, Ian Duhig. And with them, incongruously, ubelieveably, there's one from me 😱 www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page...

Enjoying all of these - I think the open questions have led to a great and unexpected honesty about the writing experience, which is always more than a process.