Sarah O'Connor
@sarahocwrites.bsky.social
📤 418
📥 780
📝 64
Writer, Poet, Theatre goer, Music lover, Irishwoman abroad she/her
http://linktr.ee/SarahOCwrites
pinned post!
I'm thrilled to see my name on the pamphlet prize shortlist. Thank you
@cripticarts.bsky.social
@spread-the-word.bsky.social
for seeing something in my work 🙏📚💙
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over 1 year ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Peter Ellis
about 20 hours ago
this is 100% true but it also made me imagine a much happier world with "emergency poets" you can call out on a sunday, and they'd arrive, take one look at your sad poetry disaster, and after a sharp intake of breath would tell you: "okay, let me go back to my van and fetch the iambic pentameter"
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Sarah O'Connor
Atrium
18 days ago
A steady stream of poems have been making their way into our inbox the last few days, but there's still time...
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Sarah O'Connor
Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶
17 days ago
There is a large number of women who are supportive of the trans+ community. We call on the media to report truthfully about the sources of violence against women and to address the systems that perpetuate harm.
notinourname.org.uk/petition/not...
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Women in support of the trans+ community - Not in our name
https://notinourname.org.uk/petition/not-in-our-name-women-in-support-of-the-trans-community/?utm_source=bluesky
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Sarah O'Connor
Natalie Whittaker
19 days ago
You can listen to
#LineBreaks
on SoundCloud now, featuring a poem from my
@brokensleepbooks.bsky.social
collection The Point Is You Are Alive, and loads of amazing city poems ❤️
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And now available on SoundCloud
#LineBreaks
on.soundcloud.com/2DVLkwNtBSvq...
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20 days ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Atrium
22 days ago
Submissions OPEN from NOW until midnight Sunday 24th May.
atriumpoetry.com/submission-g...
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This morning for the first time pulling out a book of poetry on the tram caused a small child across the aisle to blurt out "oooh Mum, what's *she* reading". Excellent cover
@kymdeyn.bsky.social
@ninearchespress.bsky.social
Excellent contents too 👏🙌
27 days ago
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Join us tonight! 8pm! Live on
loosefm.com
Poems to make you love your city
#poetry
#booksky
#LineBreaks
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27 days ago
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Excited for our show tomorrow evening
#LineBreaks
#LooseFM
@galiamelon.bsky.social
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28 days ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Natalie Whittaker
about 1 month ago
I'll be reading from my
@brokensleepbooks.bsky.social
collection 'The Point Is You Are Alive' on
#LooseFM
next Tuesday! 📻
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Putting the finishing touches to our lineup for
#LineBreaks
next week on
#LooseFM
with
@galiamelon.bsky.social
&
#AnnaKibbey
. Poems incoming by
@natalie-whittaker.bsky.social
@bdralyuk.bsky.social
@jmaebarizo.bsky.social
@nickmakoha.bsky.social
among many more. Lend us your ears 📻
#poetry
#booksky
about 1 month ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Patrick Freyne
about 1 month ago
Anyway:
www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...
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Patrick Freyne: Here’s why AI is making us dumber and more lonely
Writing forces people to resolve internal contradictions and confront their own bullshit. It’s why it’s hard. It’s why it’s beautiful
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2026/04/18/patrick-freyne-heres-why-ai-is-making-us-dumber-and-more-lonely/
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#FreeVerse
poetry fair today, found books by
@bansheepress.bsky.social
@brokensleepbooks.bsky.social
@the87press.bsky.social
@longbarrowpress.bsky.social
@dialectwriters.bsky.social
@kymdeyn.bsky.social
#TheLittleReview
#EstherFatoye
&
@prototypepubs.bsky.social
Then my bank fraud checked me 🫥🤣
about 1 month ago
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I spent this evening working through our program for the next edition of Line//Breaks on
#LooseFM
📻 A gorgeous gathering of voices incoming on 12th May. In the meantime have a listen to our first show
#poetry
#LineBreaks
#booksky
m.soundcloud.com/loosefm/line...
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Line Breaks w/ Anna Kibbey & guests: Sarah O'Connor & Galia Admoni - 24 Mar 26
Stream Line Breaks w/ Anna Kibbey & guests: Sarah O'Connor & Galia Admoni - 24 Mar 26 by LOOSE.fm on desktop and mobile. Play over 320 million tracks for free on SoundCloud.
https://m.soundcloud.com/loosefm/line-breaks-w-anna-kibbey?ref=clipboard&p=i&c=0&si=E3B1B3D39EEA4B0380AD81E16C1F2C96&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Sarah O'Connor
Frances Ryan
2 months ago
“That the universal credit cut will affect new claimants says the quiet part out loud: anyone can become disabled or ill. And every time governments slash the safety net, we can’t know if it’ll be us, a loved one or stranger who will fall through it.” Today’s col
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
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Next week’s disability cuts will make people destitute – and you might not understand how bad they are until it’s too late | Frances Ryan
If new claimants don’t meet strict criteria, they’ll lose half of the health element of universal credit. Don’t ignore that: in life’s lottery, that could easily be you, says Guardian columnist France...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/02/labour-disability-cuts-universal-credit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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And now with a recording for those who couldn't join live 📻
on.soundcloud.com/RN3u6k4SH0O1...
Thanks again to
@zosiasamosia.bsky.social
@karanchambers.bsky.social
&
@oliverinthenorth.bsky.social
for lending us your incredible poems ❤️📝 Next show 12th May on
#loosefm
@galiamelon.bsky.social
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
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reposted by
Sarah O'Connor
404 Ink
3 months ago
📢 THE 404 INK BURSARY FOR UK-BASED SMALL PRESSES NOW OPEN Applications are now open for our bursary to support small presses in the UK. There are 2 strands you can apply for: donating £1,000 towards creative projects, or £500 towards hosting an intern.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
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Apply for the 404 Ink Bursary
404 Ink is the award-winning independent publisher, founded in 2016 to ‘publish loudly’, run by freelancers Heather McDaid and Laura Jones-Rivera. We will be closing the company on our tenth birthday ...
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSctcJX1SPfzYDoism0XG1Sx8PwPuuxlZ_r0dA-2yC0VS24luA/viewform
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Lots of fun, and only a few fluffs operating my first sound show since about 2013 😬😆 I'd almost forgotten how much I love diving into great poems with
@galiamelon.bsky.social
&
#annakibbey
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3 months ago
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Gearing up for this new poetry radio hour - tonight @8pm on
#LooseFM
www.loose.fm
Lend us your ears 🙏💙📚
3 months ago
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Putting the final touches to this. Have a listen on
#Loosefm
from 8pm tomorrow
add a skeleton here at some point
3 months ago
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reposted by
Sarah O'Connor
Mostly very excited & only marginally terrified to host this new poetry radio show on
#LooseFM
with
@galiamelon.bsky.social
&
#AnnaKibbey
. Join us at
#LineBreaks
for some excellent readings from
@karanchambers.bsky.social
@oliverinthenorth.bsky.social
@zosiasamosia.bsky.social
🎙️📻💙📚
#booksky
#poetry
3 months ago
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Mostly very excited & only marginally terrified to host this new poetry radio show on
#LooseFM
with
@galiamelon.bsky.social
&
#AnnaKibbey
. Join us at
#LineBreaks
for some excellent readings from
@karanchambers.bsky.social
@oliverinthenorth.bsky.social
@zosiasamosia.bsky.social
🎙️📻💙📚
#booksky
#poetry
3 months ago
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reposted by
Sarah O'Connor
Rishi Dastidar
4 months ago
My friends at Poetry at Leeds University have opened the Brotherton Prize up for submissions; it's open to anyone in the world over the age of 18 who hasn't yet published a full collection of poems. Full deets &c here:
poetry.leeds.ac.uk/brotherton-p...
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Brotherton Poetry Prize | Poetry@Leeds
https://poetry.leeds.ac.uk/brotherton-prize/
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I didn't realise I needed to read this article today but I did 🙏❤️
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5 months ago
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reposted by
Sarah O'Connor
Michael Rosen
7 months ago
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
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I’ll never forget the horror of the Covid wards | The Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/we-covid-doctors-knew-who-would-pay-the-price-for-johnsons-inertia
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I read this cover to cover today and it is just as beautiful, present & moving as I thought from Natalie's reading. Full of life and language and craft ❤️📚💙
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7 months ago
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Tonight I heard Natalie read from this & it was wonderful. Really looking forward to reading the whole book ❤️🙌
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7 months ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Atrium
8 months ago
Sonnet for Perimenopause – Victoria Spires
@victoriaspires.bsky.social
atriumpoetry.com/2025/10/03/s...
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Sonnet for Perimenopause – Victoria Spires
Sonnet for Perimenopause . . Victoria Spires is published in Berlin Lit & The London Magazine. She has been commended/shortlisted in: Ledbury, TPW Prize, Aesthetica Arts, Artemesia Arts, Plough…
https://atriumpoetry.com/2025/10/03/sonnet-for-perimenopause-victoria-spires/
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A reminder of what can happen when politicians are led by policy not popularity 🙏🙌
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8 months ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Jim Pickard
8 months ago
this is an extraordinary canary in the coal mine
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Sarah O'Connor
Mike Brooks
9 months ago
Go on, stick yer name on.
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Sarah O'Connor
Naomi Alderman
9 months ago
I love London so much. So much. Did you know that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any city of comparable size in the world? Multiculturalism has in fact worked here. They just don’t want it to be true because we happen to have a Muslim mayor.
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Sarah O'Connor
Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann
9 months ago
Please read this timely and excellent opinion piece by our
@irishpen.bsky.social
Board member
@cauverymadhavan.bsky.social
Cauvery Madhavan.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
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When I left India, Ireland welcomed me in. I won’t let bigotry destroy the country we love | Cauvery Madhavan
People from the Indian community, and others, are facing violence that was once unthinkable. We must not give in to the racists, says novelist Cauvery Madhavan
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/08/ireland-india-racism-bigotry-country-attacks-violence
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Sarah O'Connor
Nikita Gill
9 months ago
So utterly sick of politicians saying the most unfathomably cruel things because they want to be treated like a celebrity with controversial opinions and not a public servant, which is what they are elected to be.
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So my final stack for
#TheSealeyChallenge
I got to 23 rather than 31 but given the number of collections & a few languages scattered through I'm more than happy. Some excellent writers discovered & the realisation there are loads of pockets of time in my day for
#MorePoems
#SealeyChallenge
#Booksky
add a skeleton here at some point
9 months ago
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reposted by
Sarah O'Connor
Vicki Ziegler
9 months ago
"Could the rain-carried pain be my banshee's caoineadh, soothing my homesickness in its own morbid way?"
#TodaysPoem
#poetry
I can't reach the greengage and my tomatoes are blight-ridden. by Sarah O’Connor (
@sarahocwrites.bsky.social
) (2024
@anthro-poetry.bsky.social
)
tinyurl.com/yc64ha8h
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2 poems by Sarah O’Connor
After the funeralyou set the tablefor one place less. Not waitingto be asked, for once.You take down a bottle of regret,pop the cork, and pourus all a glass.Deep draughts keep us eachafloat, or some s...
https://tinyurl.com/yc64ha8h
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My favourite book of 2024 now available as audio 📚🎧🙌❤️
add a skeleton here at some point
9 months ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Sylvia de Mars
9 months ago
The Quakers are doing exactly what all public services are legally allowed to do even if the EHRC wants to pretend they're not: say gender-based toilets are inclusive and for anyone bothered by that as a matter of belief, there are stand-alone cubicles that they are very free to use. 1/
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@lesfugitivespress.bsky.social
+ poetry 🤩 = Colour me excited 🤗
add a skeleton here at some point
9 months ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Méabh de Brún
9 months ago
Advanced capitalism has exhausted us. We can only see the “labour” in “labour of love”. Instead of a lessening of burdens, we’re being offered a tool to remove that labour. But this labour is synonymous with the love. This work is the work of being alive. Don’t settle for outsourcing your life.
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Sarah O'Connor
Maria Farrell
10 months ago
"People do not want the messy, uncomfortable truth that disabled people know—that we are all only one infection or accident away from disability. That disability is not a choice, but a natural variation of existence." Every single word. Why do editors keep getting taken in? Because they want to.
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Sarah O'Connor
The Green Party of England & Wales
10 months ago
Migrants didn't cut council funding. Migrants didn't cut NHS funding. Migrants didn't close youth centres. Migrants didn't sell off council houses. Migrants aren't filling our rivers with sewage. Farage and co. will tell you to point the finger at migrants. Don't fall for it.
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Adam
10 months ago
Channel 4 News – full segment on DecodeME results (9 mins) — the world’s largest genetic study of
#MECFS
— identifies eight genetic differences. Includes interviews with Prof Chris Ponting, a patient participant, Sonia Chowdhury, and MP Tessa Munt.
youtu.be/c5i_K3QEbCI?...
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Channel 4 News DecodeME results
YouTube video by Broken Battery
https://youtu.be/c5i_K3QEbCI?si=sDBQk5I1fbrRi907
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In a fit of over enthusiasm I've decided to take on the
#SealeyChallenge
this month! One book in and what a heartbreakingly beautiful, crafted collection this is ❤️📚💙
10 months ago
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Sarah O'Connor
Polly Atkin
11 months ago
I've made a new list on
@bookshop.org
of books that explore nature / walking / the outdoors by disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill writers - Nature Beyond Cure - aka our own narratives are messy and complex. Do share!
#BookSky
#DisabledWriters
uk.bookshop.org/lists/nature...
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Nature Beyond Cure: Disabled Perspectives
Books that explore nature and living with disability and illness from disability perspectives. No magical cures here!
https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/nature-beyond-cure-disabled-perspectives
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Sarah O'Connor
London Review of Books
11 months ago
‘Many of Kneecap’s international fans, before listening to them, hadn’t realised that the Irish language exists at all – and that far from a dialect of English, it has roughly the same lexical distance from it as Russian.’
@naoisedolan.bsky.social
on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ju...
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Naoise Dolan | Take these yokes
An Anglo-American audience is a mixed blessing for an Irish artist. Pro: you get their money. Con: their opinions, too....
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/july/take-these-yokes
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Sarah O'Connor
George Monbiot
11 months ago
One of the astonishing aspects of our times is that once-progressive parties are rushing us towards dystopia almost as fast as the far right is. This week's column is about what we might now face and how to contest it.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
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Palestine Action isn’t a danger to British democracy – but this repressive government is | George Monbiot
With their illiberal attitudes and ever more draconian use of technology to crack down on protest, it is ministers who now imperil our rights, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/04/palestine-action-british-democracy-government-technology-protest-rights?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
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Sarah O'Connor
Frances Ryan
12 months ago
It’s great to see investment in the NHS, social housing, and free school meals. But it makes no sense to cut disability benefits at the same time. Making disabled people sicker and poorer will only increase pressure on the NHS, push them out of independent homes, and deprive their children.
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Sarah O'Connor
Rishi Dastidar
12 months ago
open.substack.com/pub/whatisin...
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The leader of the opposition is not speaking
A poem “Kemi Badenoch has said she will not speak to women wearing burqas in her constituency surgery...” - The Guardian, 8 June 2025
https://open.substack.com/pub/whatisinfinitylike/p/the-leader-of-the-opposition-is-not?r=aii
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