Hahaha! My weirdness is now fully in the LRB my friends.

Just started on this and it rocks. Brighton friends you should check this out.

I will be at this and if you are there too you will see me having a v good evening

- you clean up that banksy? - sure did, your honour, leaving a perfect, permanent outline, imbuing the work with real fuckin gravitas while making its point better than the artist did himself just like you asked

Great list of books from librarians here.

Occasional reminder that my book ‘Darker With the Lights On’ is available from @transitbooks.bsky.social. My stories have been praised by Helen Garner, Claire-Louise Bennett, Max Porter, Elizabeth McCracken, Kevin Barry, Wendy Erskine & Eimear McBride, among others. www.transitbooks.org/books/darker

Professor Nick Maynard: "Let me tell you about Zainab, a 7 month old girl.. we had run out of formula feed.. she died whilst I was there.. 4 days before she died a group of US doctors had brought in formula feed.. they had every bottle deliberately removed by the Israeli border guards"

The long-awaited second novel by Guillermo Stitch, coming this Bloomsday. Available now for preorder at  https://thecoastofeverything.com and https://saggingmeniscus.com/catalog/the_coast_of_everything. "A timeless, extraordinary work.”—Nuala O’Connor

Just trying to make sense

'I want stories that commit to the idea – no matter how weird things get – like a kind of bird that might not obviously be able to fly, but then it does, and of course, when it lands, we are breathless.' – Ben Pester Enter here: thelondonmagazine.org/short-story-...

Dave Tynan’s collection of powerful and compelling short stories, ‘We Used to Dance Here’ has just been published @grantabooks.bsky.social. Essential reading.

‘A debut novel with echoes of Kafka, Flaubert & the office sitcom… Both poignant & disconcerting… Beautifully observed… A fever dream of a novel – disconcerting, strange & unexpectedly touching’ Terrific review of @benpester.bsky.social's The Expansion Project in @thespectator1828.bsky.social.

Dream dream dream @foylesforbooks.bsky.social @grantabooks.bsky.social @jasonarthur.bsky.social

Dreaming

Perhaps, one day, schoolkids will study this squalid little chapter in British terror-panic history. When they do, I hope these two headlines from today are printed side by side, with clear annotation of which individual faced more outrage and condemnation.

This is from Anthony Cummins who reviewed my story collection and I’m so glad that I haven’t let him down.

Hi - uh - I’m new? Where do I go?

This song helped me write a book. I’ll be grateful forever.

‘Donnie Darko has a fifth act so startling it carries that glancing flash of meaning that can only come with poetry. You feel raw almost, and heat-high by the end.' Let’s Eat Grandma, ‘Donnie Darko’ - Ben Pester’s Expansion Project Playlist buff.ly/BAVIVNi

Outlandish in the Observer today

Really enjoyed writing this little playlist for @thequietus.com - it’s good to be able to talk about such a hidden, interior and yet essential part of my writing ‘process’ thequietus.com/culture/book...

Aidan is right - this book knits itself into your bones

Loved this review - wonderfully strange and haunting is where it’s at

I have melted into the floor

As starvation worsens by the day in Gaza, the Netanyahu government has been using food as a weapon of war — with complicity from Trump and U.S. taxpayer dollars. This is painful to listen to but here’s what a U.S. Army veteran and Green Beret who witnessed it first-hand recounted to me:

Preorder offer here for my book and many other bangers

This book is brilliant fyi

First very exciting gig for The Expansion Project - the mothership (Foyles Charing Cross) with @fishersam.bsky.social www.foyles.co.uk/events/the-e...

Powerful review (by @chrispower.bsky.social) for Liadan Ní Chuinn’s powerful debut collection, EVERY ONE STILL HERE. ‘This extraordinary book’s final words – “nobody is ever charged” – jam open the door to a past many would prefer to remain shut away’ www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Helloooo!

So many brilliant short story collections this year - and 2 more here

New story here - in which a PERIODIC REVIEW may not happen animalbloodmagazine.com/features/per...

To be in this company!

New story here in Ambient Receiver. "I got the idea I should sit down..." www.ambientreceiver.org/ben-pester

The advance praise for @benpester.bsky.social's THE EXPANSION PROJECT is coming in thick & fast. Here's the latest: ‘A slippery jewel of a novel that refracts received notions on work and family...This is a luminous and startling novel from a unique new voice' @fishersam.bsky.social

“In the search for a cheap simulacra to an actual human, we are prepared to burn down the planet and call it progress” well said @terribleman.com

Percival Everett's (current) publisher saying people hadn't heard of him until James. He was nominated for the Booker for The Trees, which was also a Pulitzer runner up. And it was UK indie publisher @influxpress.bsky.social who did the heavy lifting in the UK in celebrating/publishing him.

Black people don’t count as working class in the UK because, when they express concern for their health and safety due to racist policies, they are sneering and looking down on “the ordinary voter” - who is always white and simultaneously above them and beneath them in society.

Irenosen Okojie joins the chorus of praise for @benpester.bsky.social's THE EXPANSION PROJECT. 'Terrific. An offbeat & deft exploration of memory, grief & parental love. Ben Pester continues to impress me with his talents' Can't wait for publication so everybody can see what the fuss is about.

So pleased to see this stunning debut novel spread its wings today!

I adore Rose’s writing so this is another speechless moment for me. Thank you @regretteruane.bsky.social 🩵💛

Nice to see James win the Pulitzer and Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel as a finalist! (My interview with Bullwinkel about Headshot here: countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

The Sunday Times style magazine predicting a Severence Lit summer - it’s me, Catherine Lacey, Helen Oyeyemi and halternecks from here until autumn

Rave @thebookseller.com preview (Book of the Month, no less) for @benpester.bsky.social's THE EXPANSION PROJECT: 'I was mesmerised by this inventive, stifled scream of a novel...Full of the eerie strangeness of SEVERENCE, by way of Beckett, Kafka...& Olga Ravn's THE EMPLOYEES...An essential read'

Getting serious now! Out August 14th You can preorder now tho from your chosen places, and also here: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-...