Lizzie Speller
@l1zz1e.bsky.social
Tutor CW Cambridge. Ex Classicist. Love poetry, water, ruins, churchyards. Author,The Return of Captain John Emmett; At Break of Day, memoir, lyrics. Short-listed Forward Prize. Judge International Hellenic Prize. Live Suffolk & Greek island.
'Thriving on seams That tiney island swell Just hilling from the mud and rancid streams Suiting thy nature well For here thy bill Suited by wisdom good Of rude unseemly length doth delve and drill The gelid mass for food...' From John Clare's poem 'To the Snipe' #poetry #JohnClare #birds
Atmospheric orchestral interludes. Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes” thelistenersclub.com/2026/07/24/b...
Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from "Peter Grimes": Atmospheric Portraits
Set in a small English coastal village, Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera, Peter Grimes
thelistenersclub.com
I am going through Bram Stoker’s earliest notes on DRACULA today - they include a list of the powers and features of the Count (then named “Wampyr” before Stoker stumbled on “Dracula”), many of which are never elucidated in the book…
Teaching in high summer weather. The hottest day last week saw transformation— longer limbs, looser clothes, light and folding when still. A fluttering of fans in colour and patterns - we became a room of butterflies; ones who could be and write poems.
Selwyn College, Cambridge. A longing for rain and regret at fallen plants. But a strange beauty in its pale straw and dry earth courts, once lush green or meadows, and will be again and now some fine survivors of fiery-coloured flowers.
The smell of wet earth, the drifts of sodden dead leaves, the dying plants showing hope, silver network of snail trails overnight. The joy of sudden and heavy rain yesterday. Not predicted so even more wonderful. #cambridge
Lovely, lovely piece. Poor John Clare- yet his words are still his gift. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Country diary: In poet John Clare’s garden, I contemplate my ancestor who lived here too | Nic Wilson
Helpston, Cambridgeshire: I picture Henry as a young lad, hiding in flowerbeds, chasing butterflies, learning to love nature
theguardian.com
Overnight, a masked bandit broke into our kitchen. Armed with opposable thumbs, he proceeded to sample everything on offer. I’d just visited the farmers market, so the menu was extensive. I can now share a highly specific peer-reviewed list of what this particular raider did & did not enjoy. 🧵
Raccoon's Evil Smile: 'Good, Good'
Alt: Raccoon's Evil Smile: 'Good, Good'
static.klipy.com
Resonant and evocative Lizzie. Another vivid memory is of the abundance of ladybirds that summer. Complaints of being bitten as tired, thirsty bugs tried to rehydrate on sweat. 🐞🐞🐞 And that ABBA song - played ad infinitum on repeat on the turntable of the flat above me which almost drove me insane.🙂
Rawhead is seeking Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, Visual Art, and Hybrid work for Issue 04. rawhead.submittable.com/submit Featured collage - “Former Life” by David Dodd Lee #cnf #creativenonfiction #submissions #litmag #nonfictionwriter #lyricessay #litmag #essays
"To accountants, some courses or departments may be viewed as cost centres. But to lecturers and students, and the places in which they are based, they are cultural resources – repositories of knowledge built up over decades." bit.ly/4gOTZo2 #Skystorians
The Guardian view on humanities cuts in universities: academic departments are more than cost centres | Editorial
Editorial: Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed
bit.ly
Couldn’t get tickets at Almeida for Ava Pickett’s play,1536, but bought the play to read. It was brilliant on the page, witty, dark, gripping. As a writer of fiction it made me think again about ways of story-telling. What can be stripped out and yet make the mood more intense. Brilliant!
An extract, in case you want to reassure yourself that it's not going to be shit: www.tom-cox.com/old-litkinov...
Old Litkinov
Old Litkinov owned the bookshop down the road and, back when I was a poor student, I would sometimes sell him books that I had stolen from delivery trucks, supermarkets and the bedrooms of people who’...
tom-cox.com
Tom Cox@dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 4w agoBIG NEWS: I have a new short story collection coming out in September & I'm doing it a different way, publishing it in collaboration with the new collective @breakthroughbook.bsky.social. You can read about it - & assist with printing costs by ordering a copy - here: www.tom-cox.com/my-next-book...
My old dream about being at Mar el Largo with Donald Trump in a red swimming thong was bad enough but last night he returned (sweaty but in a suit, thank heavens) sat by me on most of my small sofa and explained need for third term and only he capable to run the whole world. Where is Freud?
Two baby beaver kits have arrived at Ealing's Paradise Fields. Reintroduced in 2023 with Ealing Wildlife Group and Citizen Zoo, beavers are already stopping Greenford station from flooding and saving us money on infrastructure. Here’s what they’ve been up to 🦫
When people one loves die, what stays behind is a sort of wonder, especially if they were micro- hoarders. Today: shaving brushes (late owner had a beard!). Badger hair but not ivory handles. I’m now involved to the degree that I have a favourite (smallest with case). But what to do with them now?
July 4th 1916, death of Alan Seeger, an American who enlisted with French Foreign Legion as US had yet to join the allies at war. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45077/...
Being from the UK and a member of the late part of Generation X means having to live with the fact that every photo from your childhood resembles a still from a cultishly acclaimed but commercially disappointing folk horror film. ESPECIALLY IF THEY ACTUALLY ARE: www.tom-cox.com/some-photos-...
Some Photos From My Family's Archive And The Cult Low Budget Horror Films They Became
I wrote this extremely silly episodic slice of what people much cooler and more digital than me now call "flash fiction", themed around some old photos I found in a trunk at my mum and dad's house, a ...
tom-cox.com
Mid year resolution; must not eat spoonfuls of peanut butter as lunch. I try and hide the jar but I always remember and track it down. Not like things I don’t hide: keys, important form, cup of coffee, which secrete themselves who knows where.
Bought two children’s books at Oxfam: a 1920’s Angela Brazil school story, and the Lambs’ ‘Tales from Shakespeare’. Inside, I found a programme for a 1931 school play.So much unexpected history in old books!
I send my daughter (a grownup) a photo of my her cat under insect-eaten leaves. No story. Somehow, AI decided to assist: ‘Mummy has sent you a picture of a black bear in the shade.’ In Suffolk this is unlikely. #thesuffolkbear
Wake up in England on Greek clock. No doubt I’ll fade out by lunch. Last night we chose the winner of the International Hellenic Prize from a short list of seven. An exciting discussion, a terrific book. Title to follow.
