in a world that gets more cruel, more uncertain, more divided by the day, there is much to be said for the hope and catharsis of standing in a crowd of people screaming along to a band and a song you all love (i’m too old for this and in dire need of replacement knees today)

you will not regret viewing these Halloween advertisements - especially as the full version of this fun/terrifying jack o’lantern acorn ad claims ‘you will have no trouble at all with THE BOGIE BOOK to plan your decorations, games and stunts’. will someone buy me THE BOGIE BOOK for Halloween?

the way this poem haunted me from secondary school to undergrad entrance exams and beyond. but now, i am healed (Ozzed up in my turn)

“Eventually, the manuscript becomes real and possesses you, making you do terrible things.”

brat is back, baby. maybe one of my favourite academic events of all time, and the first paper I gave in Bristol to the best audience… it’s time for the remix 💚

today’s #ModWrite is a slow return to a UK time zone, but reflecting on the wonderful papers at MSA 25 @moderniststudies.bsky.social & the joy of presenting strategic incompetencies with @becimay.bsky.social, @vjoshuaadams.bsky.social, @jamesreath.bsky.social, Megan Quigley & Jess Payn

today's #ModWrite I'm writing about illustrator Eric Fraser & his depiction of telephone trauma for Hamilton's radio play Money with Menaces. Fraser also invented 'Mr Therm' for British Gas: maybe the ultimate example of cute mascot & terrifying tagline? www.modernillustration.org/archive/mrth...

John Reith of the BBC: ‘a soul in torment’? My piece for the BBC looking back at the publication - 50 years ago this week - of the extraordinary ‘Reith Diaries’

joyous week 1 Austin - not pictured, my new friend Lester the trumpet player, and the huge cache of fascinating Hamilton materials at the Ransom Center

today's #ModWrite is from the Harry Ransom Center, with quirky drawings and unique turns of phrase that bring me closer than ever to Patrick Hamilton - if only his handwriting didn't turn each letter into a homogeneous scrawl, life would be perfect (but then wouldn't that be boring).

We're pleased to announce that the CFP for the TMR Virginia Woolf special issue is now open! 📆Important dates: Expression of interest: September 15th, 2025 Submission due date: October 10th, 2025 Please get in touch with [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you! 🌻

We’re excited to share #TheModernistReview57, our first autumn issue! It includes seven reviews on diverse topics in modernist studies. Go check it out! we hope you enjoy reading: modernistreviewcouk.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/t...

today's #ModWrite is more packing than writing - one week before I arrive at the Harry Ransom Center for a deep dive into Patrick Hamilton's archive. Please send recommendations for Austin (bookshops, coffee, live music, nature, and for surviving what looks like 33 degree heat...)

weird modernists (and modernisms) unite!

Our campaign for the continuation of independent access to the BBC Written Archive Centre is highlighted this morning by Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer. Her article, with excellent contributions from David Kynaston and Ian Greaves, outlines the issue with clarity. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Please consider signing! I've been incredibly fortunate to access materials at the BBC Written Archives Centre for both my MA and PhD: my research would be all the poorer without them. Losing open & independent access is a terrible blow for anyone researching the BBC, broadcasting, and so much more.

Pls sign and share this open letter to the Bristol VC, against the School of Humanities's decision to withdraw the BA in English Literature and Community Engagement (ELCE): the only part-time, flexible undergraduate degree programme available at the University forms.gle/SbyhXPSJgQTc...

the horrors persist, but so do the poor quality and unhinged nature of my Middlemarch memes

at the stage of writing where my brain simultaneously flies off on tangents, and cannot think of how to express a simple concept - so i send myself ominous emails from my bed as i try to get to sleep.

the scenario we all feared

today’s #ModWrite is a delve back into torturous telephones in Patrick Hamilton’s radio dramas - and making a list of dream discoveries for my visit to the Hamilton archive at the Harry Ransom Center next month (happy dance)

wonderful lunch of squares (galettes) with the wonderful @becimay.bsky.social, also featuring this tantalising box… choosing to read ‘fire’ as inspirational and mind-blowing, and hoping to find the key.

The @thetls.bsky.social let me eviscerate Wyndham Lewis 🖤🔥🔥🖤

today's #modwrite is a modernist read, of Cecil Lewis' 1927 Radio Times article on the importance of action in radio. The title, 'St. Augustine and the Cucumber!' is not only fabulous but fabulously obtuse. Petition to bring back the exclamation mark, and fabulously obtuse titles in general.

“Daventry calling…” Happy centenary day to the world’s first national transmitter! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

[Lady Bracknell voice]: “A yearwig?!”

thinking about starting a photo diary of archive water cups - today’s BBC chalice scores a 7/10 for volume and durability

Not enough has been written about Schrödinger’s assistant, Otto.

I need another bookshelf so that there will be something to fall on me Leonard Bast style

me, as i turn the pages of Nobody’s Empire: “wow, this novel is really making me want to listen to Belle & Sebastian again” Stuart Murdoch, author of Nobody’s Empire and, as it turns out, THE Stuart in Belle & Sebastian: “er…” youtu.be/guq_1i0oDrY?...

🌞 🌞 On this incredibly sunny day, we are pleased to present issue #56 of The Modernist Review: 'New Work in Modernist Studies Part Two'. Explore a great variety of pieces below, all stemming from the NWiMS conference last year: modernistreviewcouk.wordpress.com/2025/06/13/t...

joan didion reading the tax stamps on cigarette wrappers, childhood me obsessed with reading cereal boxes… i like to think it’s both a nervous addiction and an insatiable quest for knowledge

straight to my reminders. thank you Microsoft teams

who knew Microsoft Teams had elaine scarry on the payroll

for today's #ModWrite I'm looking back at some old favourite 1930s texts and rediscovering maybe one of my favourite opening lines, from Henry Green's 1939 novel Party Going: "Fog was so dense, bird that had been disturbed went flat into a balustrade and slowly fell, dead, at her feet."

what a loss - jonathan sterne‘s writing was some of the first sound studies material i encountered, i (and so many others) will be forever in his debt

RIP Patrick Hamilton, you would have loved 'Hedonism (Just Because It Feels Good)'. today's #ModWrite is some very messy thoughts about Hamilton, sound, and feeling, appropriately soundtracked by skunk anansie, a band i get to see live for the first time tomorrow. youtu.be/LLs-JP5FGAg?...

back to life, back to…

📣

🌼 Spring has arrived, and so has our latest special issue of The Modernist Review #55! Explore our exciting collection of New Work in Modernist Studies, Part 1. Enjoy! 🌼 modernistreviewcouk.wordpress.com?p=5848

Not sea glass but fragments of plastic car tail lights, indicators and brake lights, probably washed into storm drains after heavy rain, eventually making their way to the sea. #oceanplastic

i’m running for one of the PGR roles below, alongside two other fabulous candidates - if you’re a @modernistudies.bsky.social member you should have received an email with a voting link ✉️

alternative title for my eventual PhD defence just dropped… “radio insanity plea by bandit brings freedom”

today’s #ModWrite is some scribbling on Patrick Hamilton’s weird little radio farce ‘This is Impossible’, about the difficulties of directing actors to say their lines properly - and trying not to devolve into nonsense as i write about nonsense

bro r u even flaneurmaxing yet. bro u gotta get ur weltschmerzcore vibes pumping. bro where's ur fin de siecle ennui. bro do u even drink vast quantities of absinthe of dubious provenance in darkened dens of vice and write reams of tortured poetry

as always, same jean (maybe hold the face lift)

for today's #ModWrite i'm trying to teach myself about entropy and thanking the YouTube gods for this amazing summary, which quotes Talking Heads in the first minute: "things fall apart / it's scientific". Science needs more David Byrne, IMO. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7se7...

“the world was full of holes, tiny apertures of meaninglessness, microscopic rifts that the mind could walk through, and once you were on the other side of one of those holes, you were free of yourself, free of your life, free of your death, free of everything that belonged to you.” dammit auster