Book giveaway! Jo Walton is one of my favorite novelists and thinkers about science-fiction and fantasy.

Students & researchers have a tough time keeping the names of Roman emperors and elites straight. But we do have a database to help name and number each. It is called the Prospographia Imperii Romani (=PIR) and has 15061 persons, of which 1932 are women. Please use the database! pir.bbaw.de#/search

I am very much looking forward to this book.

PUB TOMORROW! LETTERS FROM AN IMAGINARY COUNTRY by World Fantasy Award winner @theodoragoss.bsky.social buff.ly/ZeOVp7f introduction by @bluejo.bsky.social 3 #giveways @thestorygraph.com buff.ly/fAUS9Iw #goodreads buff.ly/055IqCm @fantasycafe.bsky.social buff.ly/HhnMtbe

Advanced read giveaway of the essay collection on the history & craft of science fiction & fantasy that Jo & I have coming out in spring! Pacing, plot, What Is Genre?, flying grapefruit, evolution of printing tech, impact of international translation, and much more! (This giveaway is US only, alas)

Do you suffer from vertigo? Or do you care for someone who does? Would you like to explore your experiences through creative writing? If so, please sign up for this online workshop with the wonderful @marissalingen.bsky.social 5pm GMT, 23rd November. Email [email protected] to register.

It's US only so I can't, but you absolutely should enter this. Two brilliant writers writing about a thing they love? What could be better? I am so looking forward to reading this.

If the history of SFF literature is at all of interest to you, you want to read Trace Elements. Jo and Ada taught two courses using the working draft as the textbook, and they were phenomenal. I learned so much in those two semesters!

If you thought Frankenstein's Tower in the Guillermo del Toro movie looked cool, check out the real-world inspiration behind it...

Goodreads giveaway for Trace Elements! @adapalmer.bsky.social is very interesting, science fiction is very interesting, sometimes when it isn't a Monday morning even I can be a bit interesting -- if you use Goodreads, sign up in the hope of a free copy of our book www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

If you ever thought of literary translation as some mathematical formula where there was somehow in there a literal solution, take a gander at a handful of professionals translating the first line of Beowulf and realize that it's art, and that these translators are as much authors themselves.

This mosaic has seen things... #MosaicMonday

We ate Barbara's good sandwiches at Tintern Abbey.

Morning! How are we all? Here's the Great Hall roof to inspire you this Monday morning. You too can reach lofty heights and look marvellous whilst doing it. 😘

🖼️ Autumn Afternoon, Thomas Little.

Barn owl numbers soar in Cheshire thanks to volunteers. Three decades after a survey found just six breeding pairs in West Cheshire, the Broxton Barn Owl Group now counts around 160 pairs: a 25-fold increase, driven entirely by local volunteers. buff.ly/F2PfqJQ #ShareGoodNewsToo

Wooden Train

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

Autumn sunset in Florence

We often speak of you.

‘The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.’ ~ J.R.R. Tolkien. #BookWormSat 🖼️ Tolkien

The most incredible library in the world, @bodleian.ox.ac.uk opened to OTD 1602, through the energy, money & commitment of Sir Thomas Bodley. It began with 5k books, & now more than 22m, with 2m+reader visits a year, & multi-million online users across the globe. Privilged to be its 25th librarian!

'Early Autumn in Itako' - Kawase Hasui, 1942. #JapaneseArt

Once again, @yaelrice.bsky.social and I published this article in 2020 so that no one ever has to debunk this vile nonsense point-by-point ever again. As we write (see the next post in this thread)... hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...

A moment of beauty from this morning's rainy walk. ❤️ #TinyJoys

Did women ruin the workplace?

Did women ruin the workplace?

PHOTO OF THE DAY. A policeman stops traffic to let a man carrying an inflatable rubber giraffe cross the road on his way to the British Industries Fair in London (1935) 📷 google images

England has bus routes whose names sound like outlines of a novel.

Looking forward to talking to East Lothian Embroiders and Textile Artists about Women's clothing in late medieval Scotland on Saturday 22nd at the Bleaching Field Centre, Dunbar at 2pm.

Did women ruin the workplace?

Oh wow, look at this new blurb for WHAT WE ARE SEEKING from Cory Doctorow! Preorder links here: us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

"Did wommen ruine the worke place"?

It strated to rain.

I don't remember if Follow Friday is a thing here - but follow Postcard from the Past - the juxtaposition of often bland imagery but intriguing snapshots of lives from just one sentence is hauntology at its purest. Or is that surrealism?

A perfectly marvelous collection! @theodoragoss.bsky.social delights in LETTERS FROM AN IMAGINARY COUNTRY, a new collection in conversation with folklore, Victorian lit, classics of genre fiction, & the human spirit of creativity. Lyrical and lovely: a highlight of my autumn as the weather turns.

Behold the zipper’s first upgrade in over a century. YKK, the Japanese company that makes about half the world’s zippers, has created a zipper that removes the traditional fabric tape, creating a lighter, more flexible, lower-impact closure. buff.ly/5UV5gnr #ShareGoodNewsToo

I think my motto for the rest of the year is going to be "it fixes what it fixes." Making dinner, finishing Chapter 5 revisions, doing my volunteer work: the fact that it doesn't fix EVERYTHING doesn't mean that it fixes NOTHING. The middle ground, where things fix what they fix, is where we live.

Does the language you speak affect how you see the world? This idea is called the *linguistic relativity hypothesis* or *Sapir-Whorf hypothesis*, and the @Lingthusiasm.bsky.social podcast put out a great episode treating this topic back in March.

The Roman Empire’s Entire Road Network Just Got Mapped, and It’s Mind-Blowing gizmodo.com/the-roman-em...

How can a microhistory about cooking and kitchen implements inspire speculative fiction? Here's @r-emrys.bsky.social on how "Consider the Fork" may change the way you think about the technological and cultural aspects of food 🍴

THIS IS AMAZING. ALSO WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DID WE FORGET TO RUIN?

The best thing you can do to help your favorite author is to pre-order 150,000 copies of their next book.

Currently at £6983!

Amazing book, read it!

The World Bank’s latest data shows a quiet global triumph: 93% of people aged 15 to 24 can now read and write. In many regions youth literacy has reached or neared universal levels, marking one of the most successful, least reported stories in development. buff.ly/vnsUhLo #ShareGoodNewsToo

For those who want this book (waves) & don't use B*zos's thing (not that Kobo or B&N = small businesses), also on sale: Kobo! www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/... Barnes & Noble! www.barnesandnoble.com/w/or-what-yo... In paperback, it's a little discounted on Bookshop! - bookshop.org/p/books/or-w...

My novel Or What You Will, which is about Shakespeare, Italy, imaginary friends, Brunelleschi, and the door you never opened into the rose garden, is on sale as an ebook right now for $2.99 www.amazon.com/dp/B07QPGSYL...

The one silver lining of this cold, wet, grey weather: it means I can wear these gorgeous fingerless gloves that a dear friend knitted for me a few years ago! Every single time I look at them (or just savor their warmth!) I feel happier. ❤️ #TinyJoys

Goodreads Giveaway for Letters from an Imaginary Country starts TODAY. :) www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...