I’m a few months into my coaching journey and it’s been so brilliant to get to know writers at varying stages of their process and help them on their way. I’m keen to work with more people so do get in touch to discuss a first meeting and rates!

It is something which is being done to us by a long, purposeful dismantling of institutions that support mass literacy. I have essay coming later this year, but basics are covered in this talk. Deliteracy is not symptom of algorithmic tech, the tech is being developed to assist deliteracy.

After OpenAI (Vandal Live at Wake Forest Humanities Institute)

Listen now (83 mins) | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

theamericanvandal.com

Big thanks to everyone who came to Leeds for the first @bacls.bsky.social graduate conference and helped to make it such a memorable experience! We loved having you there, and we're looking forward to seeing you at future BACLS events @smritiverma.bsky.social @annadevs.bsky.social

Max Shirley@maxrshirley.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Had a fantastic time last week at the @bacls.bsky.social graduate conference, which I co-organised w/ @aandres.bsky.social and Liam. Really excellent selection of papers & conversations throughout the day!

Had a fantastic time last week at the @bacls.bsky.social graduate conference, which I co-organised w/ @aandres.bsky.social and Liam. Really excellent selection of papers & conversations throughout the day!

Duke U Press has made available the first 30 pages or so of "The Future of Totality," including our Introduction and the wonderful Foreword written by Kim Stanley Robinson. www.dukeupress.edu/the-future-o...

The Future of Totality: Fredric Jameson and the Prospects of Critical Theory

dukeupress.edu

Today marks 50 years since the world premiere of Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich on April 24, 1976, at New York’s Town Hall, performed by Steve Reich and Musicians.

Campaña a favor de un sello de traducción humana. ¡Gracias! @acetraductores.bsky.social sellodetraduccionhumana.ace-traductores.org

So good

London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 5mo ago

‘After more than one sold-out screening of 𝘑𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘢𝘯 last year I overheard departing cinemagoers complaining that they would never get back those three hours, but Chantal Akerman would not have been offended by this.’ Daniella @Shreir.bsky.social on the director. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Loved this. I'd read a William Basinski autobiography in a heartbeat

‘We watched 9/11 from the rooftop, blasting the music out’: how The Disintegration Loops became a requiem for the attacks

It is an epic piece of music that literally falls apart – and it perfectly captured the end-of-days chaos after the tragedy. Composer William Basinski and musician Anohni recall its febrile birth in N...

theguardian.com

A part of Akinola Davies Jr's speech the BBC decided not to air

Great essay by Heather Perry on "********* *******" open.substack.com/pub/heatherp...

this is not an essay about Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights"

why can't we cope with ambiguity these days?

open.substack.com

"How will a student who is learning to write well know when to transform an automated output or how to infuse it with A-worthy value? Which of a chatbot's always confident ideas or texts do or do not meet the bar?" Really brilliant piece on AI infiltrating the university.

Dr. Heather Leslie@heatherleslie.bsky.social · 7mo ago

One of the best AI critiques I’ve seen read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...

Interested nonfiction writers! Do you have a book project you'd like to get off the ground but aren't sure where to start? I'll be offering one-on-one consultations from February! DM me here or contact me through my website to discuss if it could be right for you

Thought this was very good on the Hamnet Mass Delusion letterboxd.com/miseryminist... 'significations of significance itself'; 'the actual image counts less than its conspicuous aura of prestige'. All correct!

A ½ review of Hamnet (2025)

I’m literally passing out on the train trying to write this, so forgive me if the results are disorganized. Not that this movie—among the year’s worst, in a shitty year—rewards extended contemplation....

letterboxd.com

Obsessed with Knausgård not only blurbing every single Significant Literary Novel of the past 12 months but doing so as "Karl Ove Knausgård - author of Recent Non-Autofictional Novel I'm Desperate for People to Read Instead of the Autofictional Stuff". Genuinely humanising grifting

Still plenty of time to submit an abstract for the BACLS New Work in Contemporary Literary Studies graduate conference at The University of Leeds on May 20th for PGRs and ECRs! Please share widely call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/11/... @bacls.bsky.social @maxrshirley.bsky.social

Still plenty of time to submit an abstract for the BACLS New Work in Contemporary Literary Studies graduate conference at The University of Leeds on May 20th for PGRs and ECRs! Please share widely call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/11/... @bacls.bsky.social @maxrshirley.bsky.social

Time to speak truth to power: not only is it a banger but also it's effectively the first Animal Collective song ever

Annie Zaleski@anniezaleski.bsky.social · 8mo ago

When NPR reaches out and says, “Hey, do you want to talk about Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’?” you of course say yes. www.npr.org/2025/12/01/n...

In my experience, Iris Murdoch is the only novelist who allows their characters to say "Oh goodie!"

Kirkdale Bookshop@kirkdalebooks.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Selling a few Iris Murdoch novels. What fun! me: "The wrong person dies in this one, that's all I'm saying" IYKYK

Best thing I've read so far on the new Pynchon (imo a good-not-great, astonishingly addictive novel, which to be fair is a lot more than I expect to contribute to society at age 88) + just an extremely lucid career retrospective

n+1@nplusonemag.com · 9mo ago

“We’re back in pulp fiction wonderland, the fleeting apocalyptic allusions having been yoinked offstage by a vaudeville hook from the wings.” New online: Mark Iosifescu (@iosifescu.biz) on Thomas Pynchon’s SHADOW TICKET. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

I went to pay homage at Thomas Bernhard's grave in Vienna. A few minutes later, I was locked in the cemetery and had to try to flag down the caretaker to let me out. It was pitch black aside from the many candles guttering on the graves. I was unnerved, but I expect TB thought it hilarious.

New Rafael Toral is beautiful and strange AND a perfect cosy season album rafaeltoral.bandcamp.com/album/travel...

Traveling Light, by Rafael Toral

6 track album

rafaeltoral.bandcamp.com

Thrilled to share that Killing Children in British Fiction has been jointly awarded the @bacls.bsky.social Monograph Prize 2025. Thanks to judges; huge congratulations fellow winner @dremmaparker.bsky.social and shortlisted @olihaslam.bsky.social @gabriele-lazzari.bsky.social. bacls.org/news/187/

The MHRA has transitioned from Twitter/X and will now use Bluesky to communicate our work. We are excited to contribute to establishing Bluesky as a dynamic, inclusive, and engaging platform for academic exchange and collaboration. To celebrate this new chapter, we are hosting a book giveaway! 👇

Then there was the famous exchange between Bill Gates and Terry Pratchett in 1996(?) when clearly only one of them understood where human nature would take the Internet, and it wasn't Mr. Microsoft.

Been thinking a lot about Raymond Williams’s “Culture & Technology” essay where he critiques the liberal account of technological disruption: organic progress, rather than conscious choices by capital. Just imagine if the money we are flushing into data centers went to railways or solar panels.

This is great. 'A refusal of AI in creative work begins with a refusal of that product’s ideological packaging'

n+1@nplusonemag.com · 11mo ago

“An extraordinary amount of money is spent by the artificial intelligence industry to ensure that acquiescence is the only plausible response. But marketing is not destiny.” Out from behind the paywall: the Editors on the literature of AI resignation. www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

Post-feudalism 🤝 neo-feudalism

Olga Nesterova@onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 11mo ago

Look who came with

I’m very proud to be running to be elected to the Management Committee of the Society of Authors. You can read my full statement here: jencalleja.com/writing/

Love this album so much

The Quietus@thequietus.com · 11mo ago

'Devonté Hynes returns to England with a jolt on the first new Blood Orange LP for 6 years. Essex Honey isn’t about England, it’s about the mourning Hynes experienced there. If there’s anything more complicated than country, it’s that.' Blood Orange - Essex Honey buff.ly/bi8GJvC