This is a sheer indulgence on my part, but it turns out I never actually shared the poem here, so: 🍃

A sample poem from my forthcoming @ninearchespress.bsky.social collection and a blog post. Something about time, booksellers and folklore 💚

Repost of an old one that was a lot of fun to do.

A Creek in the Woods

Lining so many ducks in a row with my press that I could probably start a duck farm

Oi oi, did you know we have a newsletter? And that you can read our archive? buttondown.com/carnyx/archi...

Reading some absolutely cracking books at the moment. Recently finished The Spear Cuts Through Water and it rewired my brain. Think Márquez does epic high fantasy with a bit of Wuxia thrown in.

Very enjoyable trip to Ely Cathedral today

If you've been enjoying Small Prophets as much as we have, you'll probably find a few treats in our anthology when it comes out later this year...

Four years after adopting a senior cat we've discovered he knows how to high five for treats without us teaching him, an absolutely joyful discovery

In almost every instance of a book being called "an x of y and z", just picking y or z makes for a punchier, clearer, and more compelling title. Throne of Blood is a sick movie name. A Throne of Blood and Swords would have added nothing and taken away so much of its power

Tyneside morning, 1950, photo by Harry Morrison.

Tomás Sánchez Contemplar, 1995

Happy Valentine’s Day on this, the 1,757th anniversary of the day St. Valentine was beaten to death with clubs and then beheaded. #romance #valentinesday

Obviously the Green Party is going to be a very broad church of environmentalists, socialists and liberals, but it's depressing to see AI advocates crawling their way into the membership and putting forward motions on 'sustainably embracing the technology'. It's inherently unsustainable.

Another bug up my ass today is the issue of book publishing working with AI companies. Now, for argument's sake, if you knew categorically that a company had stolen from the people that directly drive your revenue (authors), under any normal circumstances would you consider working with them?

Floods, 2021

i think it was the great screenwriter william goldsmith who famously said there are only three stories in all the world. a man goes on a journey, a stranger comes to town, and people fighting their way up and/or down a high-rise building

I have been waiting for this book for years and genuinely believe it'll be the poetry collection of 2026. Don't believe me? Check out those endorsements! Pre-order 'Folkish' now. Trust me. It's incredible. ninearchespress.com/publications...

Thrilled to share the stunning cover for FOLKISH by @kymdeyn.bsky.social and make it available to pre-order now. Artwork by Letty Wilson. 'Bold, inventive, sardonic. Ripe with scavenger gods, local saints and legends.' Playful, spirited and absolutely furious. ninearchespress.com/publications...

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I've been teaching myself guitar for the past 6 months or so and good god how are barre chords supposed to be played

NEW BRAAG MICROS - up at thebraag.co/shop 👼 The Annual Convention of Most Gentle and Virtuous Saints by Heather Chapman. 🦜 Toucan by Jessica Boatright.

Our newsletter, out on Sunday, will be revealing our submission themes for the year! Sign up here: buttondown.com/carnyx

Some of you may know how I've been speaking with my local MP about AI and creative rights. Every voice on this matters so please do consider emailing your own MP. The @societyofauthors.bsky.social has an email template. It's so easy so do go for it - justiceforcreators.eaction.org.uk/write

Just to show the other end of the spectrum for budding writers, as someone who has penned a couple unpublished novels while working full time, squeezing an hour of writing in the evening where you get 500 words down can give you a novel draft in like 6 months, without having to run any 10ks

Every day I feel more insane that UK govt and businesses are normalising AI, when it's grossly environmentally and financially unsustainable, is built on massive theft, removes jobs, has huge misinformation, fraud and abuse risks - and its outputs are at best mediocre and at worst encourage suicide

When I wrote this a year ago I had no idea how bad things would get. Today, eight years after she left us, I'm trying to follow Ursula's advice: write and worry. Write and act. Worry and keep writing. lithub.com/the-way-of-w...

Revealing the title and cover of our very first anthology! Oaths and Offerings: A Carnyx anthology of folklore will be published this June, and will include folklore-inspired stories from writers across the North of England.

Hi, I'm Nathaniel 👋 I write about rivers, ghosts, weird vegetation, strange planets, and a variety of apocalypses. I'm also the editor of @carnyxpress.co.uk Read my latest story in The Ghastling: theghastling.com/the-ghastlin... Find more of my writing: nathanielspain.co.uk

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"Give me the peace prize or I will go to war with you" is a hell of a foreign policy position

Alright lads, we're doing some research into Northern bookshops, so if you've got a favourite local let us know - and if they're on bluesky, drop their @ so we can give them a follow!

I grew up in a very soggy part of England that was surrounded with rivers and waterways like the Rhee, Cam, Mel, Shep. A few of them are chalk streams, which are pretty rare globally. Here, I live near the Tyne. A tidal river with a mercurial nature and an excessive amount of bridges

Watched Hamnet, cried for two hours, it was great

No other word has done more damage to the craft of writing in recent years than “content”. Even if you’re using the word “content” ironically, or as a cute little joke, don’t. When someone calls writing “content” they’re pissing on someone’s hard work & passion. “Content” is Technosatan’s henchword.

I'm quite enjoying the Farseer trilogy, but after the first book it does seem like Fitz is trapped in an endless cycle of bad decisions and worse luck

Quick reminder that I run a micro-press called The Braag @thebraag.bsky.social / thebraag.co We have 🐸 poetry in the language of a pond 🌻 A Ukranian poem-fairytale 🍀 Lush, queer ecofiction 💀 Queer Texan hauntings 🪐 Plannet-hopping poems 🏚️ Historic necro-capitalist fiction All for sale!

Pluribus was GREAT. I've heard a few people say nothing happens in the show and I really want to find out why they think this aha, for me it was perfectly paced

It annoys me that gatekeeping is now used to describe, amongst other things, authors not giving tips on how they got published. There is no advice authors can give that guarantees publication. They are not the gatekeepers of the industry. Agents, competition readers and judges, and publishers are.

Every year chocolates get smaller and more expensive. Extrapolating backwards, in 1906 a Creme Egg would have been the size of Rochester Cathedral and they would have paid you 12 guineas to eat it.

I've completed Subnautica, which means it has entered the hallowed halls of games over 20 hours that I've actually finished aha

I) Be stubborn. Be pigheaded. It's your art. Also read a lot. I mean, a LOT. Now, go write.

Top films I watched this year (not necessarily new releases): Sinners, Frankenstein, Grand Theft Hamlet, Another Round, Anatomy of a Fall. Top TV was probably Andor s2, Severance, and Leonard and Hungry Paul.

Thinking about the discourse around how accurate Nolan's Odyssey is/whether it's important for myth or historical adaptations to be accurate, or whether that's even possible, I think it's probably more useful to think about it in terms of whether things appear truthful.

Sharing here too as I had fun putting these together - everything I read this year!

Merry Christmas! 🎄

If every new game has gen AI in it (which I highly doubt) I would simply play old games, I'm playing Subnautica right now, I'm 7 years late to the party, I've just built a massive submarine out of bits of scrap and plant juice, it's amazing

About that time 🕰️

Last call for manuscripts: our reading window closes today at midnight! Submit: carnyxpress.co.uk/submissions/