He thinks he’s a potato.

He's filed himself

Georgia O'Keeffe carrying her canvas in the desert, c.1920 (via FB) #WomensArt

Here's a photo of me, looking quite sleep-deprived as I clutch a very early copy of my book, LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK. It isn’t out until April, but a few of these bind-ups are making their way through the world, and I wanted one as a memento. The book is written!

I miss Caroline Aherne - watching an old episode of The Mrs Merton Show, and she’s just asked whether “we should save the environment, or can we live without it?”

God, I love The Human League

I spend a lot of time thinking about when Kate Pierson from the B-52s put her motel up for sale (furniture included)

Greetings from Pascal the Puppy

I like how, when Madonna delivers the line “I wanna make love on a train…” in 'Justify My Love', she adds “…cross-country”. Lest anyone suspect that her lover could only last the length of the 0.8-mile trip from Stourbridge Town to Stourbridge Junction.

I love this so much: Brian Wilson hearing Ronnie Spector’s cover of ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ 💜

I’m coveting Wallace & Gromit’s entire cheese-centric library 📚

Pascal update: outrageous behaviour!

Van Meowogh is an artistic Parisian cat from the game Cats Atelier.

The best photograph I have ever taken of a dog.

introducing Pascal the Puppy (and my boyfriend, who looks pretty delighted to have made a new friend)

I fucking love Stevie Nicks for this

then die

There’s a bush in our garden that spends 11 months of the year being extremely drab and introverted, but pops up in May wearing an enormous purple feather boa. We call him Clive, but we haven’t really asked ourselves why.

This analysis of the "summer reading list" debacle is excellent. It starts here - the freelancer was asked to do something impossible for (I assume) a very small amount of money - and then observes that future AI nonsense will surely rely on this AI nonsense. slate.com/technology/2...

i dont want to be a killjoy but we desperately need to make it socially unacceptable to talk about asking chatgpt things in regular conversation

ICYMI: @sceptrebooks.bsky.social has triumphed in a four-way auction for Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, James Bailey’s biography of Muriel Spark. Sceptre will publish the book in April 2026 👇 #BookSky

Ooooohhhh… another one to add to my ever-expanding shelf of intense lady writer biographies.

Really looking forward to this biography of Muriel Spark out next April.

Very excited for this. Spark exercised a lot of control and creative license when it came to her personal and professional truths. Which makes zero difference to me in my love of her work. But still, I’m curious. This seems different.

Ooh, I’m excited for this. 👏 @drjamesbailey.bsky.social

ICYMI: @sceptrebooks.bsky.social has triumphed in a four-way auction for Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, James Bailey’s biography of Muriel Spark. Sceptre will publish the book in April 2026 👇 #BookSky

Goodness, this sounds so enticing. A treat for Muriel Spark fans! #BookSky 💙📚

Want this. WANT! [keeps hitting refresh until pre-order options become available]

@sceptrebooks.bsky.social has triumphed in a four-way auction for Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, James Bailey’s biography of Muriel Spark. Sceptre will publish the book in April 2026 👇 #BookSky

This is very exciting. Many congratulations, @drjamesbailey.bsky.social.

I'm very excited about this!

What wonderful news! I shall wear my Muriel Spark tshirt to celebrate.

Exciting news for Sparkians 👀

So excited to read this!

Cannot wait to read this by @drjamesbailey.bsky.social www.thebookseller.com/rights/scept... Fellow Muriel obsessives, it's our time.

The cat’s out of the bag! 🐈‍⬛ LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD, my weird, slippery biography of Muriel Spark, will be out in April next year. A huge thank you to the team at @sceptrebooks.bsky.social for helping me bring it to life. Please tell your libraries and favourite bookshops!

Very unfair that Sam Mendes can make 4 films about each member of the Beatles, and yet I can’t make just one film about the time Kate Bush did a photoshoot with a stuffed crocodile in a car park 😤

I stroked next door’s cat under the chin about 2 years ago, and he’s turned up on my doorstep pretty much every day since, so that’s nice isn’t it 🐈

Well now you’re just showing off

Hello from the miniature model of Derek Jarman’s cottage I made when I was stuck indoors with Covid

When I’m struggling to write, I often go back to this David Lynch quote. ‘I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath’

I made this tempestuous-looking pot the other day, if you’re interested in that kind of thing

Gonna share this story a few times this week because I love it. It's always a joy to publish with lit mags, but sometimes it's nice to hand people the thing you've made. Here's "The Wall-Hole." Riffing in the Kafka/Lynch Zones. It's sad, eerie, but not horror. Living in the evaporating dream.

Was talking about this to a writer mate earlier. If you’re used to making affordable telly with solid cultural values - comedy, say - you have nobody to talk to with any cash to pay for it, now that all television has to be entirely international and more expensive than God.

After sparking fury from some members of Mexico’s Catholic community, contemporary artist Fabián Cháirez’s exhibition featuring suggestive portraits of queer priests and nuns has been suspended per a judge’s orders.

My mum, during the final twenty minutes of The Substance: “I wouldn’t like that to happen to me, James”

I baked a cake for my boyfriend’s birthday, and it didn’t end up resembling something from the final scene in The Substance, so that’s nice isn’t it! 🌼

My book is well traveled. I am not 😆 Pic by: @drjamesbailey.bsky.social At Salt's Mill.

steeplechase above, atlantic city, new jersey, 1978