The op-ed by @stuhennigan.bsky.social challenges Booker Prize judges to look further afield to anoint big-prize winners as heavyweights – he's flying the flag for indie presses. inews.co.uk/culture/book...

The Booker is a shambles - and everyone in publishing knows it

Plenty thought my novel would make the list – it didn't. Here's why I don't give a toss

inews.co.uk

Do look up the outstanding joint winners: Nell Osbourne (Ghost Driver)and Rebecca Grandsen (Figures Crossing the Field towards the Group)

Stu Hennigan@stuhennigan.bsky.social · 11h ago

Yes, the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize (formerly Republic of Consciousness) celebrated it's 10th birthday this year, i was on the panel with @susannacrossman.bsky.social and @marinabenjamin.bsky.social www.republicofconsciousness.com

Please can andy burnham open government run grocery stores on the Mamdani model - offering 30% discounts for those hardest hit by endless hikes in the cost of living? www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...

Mayor Mamdani Unveils 30% Discount — Including All Produce, All Meat and Key Pantry Staples — at New Municipal Grocery Stores

nyc.gov

Exactly.

Hari Kunzru@harikunzru.bsky.social · last wk.

Because it’s Meta, you can assume that they know very well that the core market for the perv glasses is stalking (and — once they switch on facial recognition — repression) and this concern about ‘misuse’ is just Kabuki to stall calls for regulation futurism.com/artificial-i...

At a time when trans people face growing hostility, solidarity matters. This weekend, tens of thousands of Londoners and visitors will come together at London Trans+ Pride to show that our city stands for inclusion, respect and equality.

London Trans+ Pride march to end in Trafalgar Square for first time

London Trans+ Pride will end in Trafalgar Square for the first time when it returns to central London on Saturday (25 July).

attitude.co.uk

This is very good. I am reminded of Tom Cruise's character in the prescient Magnolia. His tag line was 'respect the cock' and his lure was 'seduce and destroy'. The movie might have poked fun at Cruise's masculinist guru, but it also portrayed him as having a massive following. Ahead of it's time!

Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 2w ago

NEW: I wrote about how the Andrew and Tristan Tate's media business whirs into overdrive every time they're arrested in their little outfits www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Nice for Bloomsbury, but what about authors? 50% of the copyright settlement goes to their publishers already - and the lawyers have still to take their cut - which, let's face it, is not going to be a modest one. www.thebookseller.com/news/bloomsb...

Bloomsbury lands £14m in Anthropic AI settlement

Bloomsbury is set to earn $18.7m (£14m) from a copyright settlement with AI startup Anthropic.

thebookseller.com

The history of art is a colonial edifice. But what about the art of resistance, art that reclaims the negative qualities heaped upon colonised peoples and throws it back into the world to disrupt and unsettle the colonial canon. Anthropophagy is just that. aeon.co/essays/anthr...

A very exciting delivery form @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social thank you @clarebot.bsky.social - I was on retreat with Mary Ruefle in the late 90s and she was as mischievous and wayward as you might imagine

It's a rare privilege to be able to work with an incarcerated writer for whom writing has become an attempt to remake himself. psyche.co/turning-poin...

Almost to the day, The Middlepause is 10 years old. Of all my books I'm happiest that this one is out there still doing business, since it had important business to traffic.

VOTE BINFACE !! (Id happily lend time and energy to this campaign)

It's so gratifying to see Nigel Farage's latest bit of showmanship backfire so completely. He will be contesting Clapton against a dustbin. I know which entity I'd vote for if I lived there!

An extraordinary essay from @susannacrossman.bsky.social about the fire tamers of northern France. aeon.co/essays/who-a...

An exemplary book review of Fiona Mozley's latest from the incomparable M John Harrison. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Read the latest essay from @lilydunn.bsky.social on how to rescue the very idea of trauma from a culture that has diluted it almost to meaninglessness. aeon.co/essays/not-e...

Too much wealth can poison people, distorting their understanding of how the world works and of their agency within it. Can a reeducation boot camp bring billionaires back down to earth? aeon.co/essays/what-...

The Enlightenment gets such a bad rap. Is there anything worth salvaging? @elianeglaser.bsky.social is asking. aeon.co/essays/lets-...

When should we let friendships take their natural course and just peter out? psyche.co/turning-poin...

This wonderful novel, published in March, was hardly reviewed. It is a marvel. Wild, moving, funny, profound. Another example of how small presses can outrun the big 5, taking risks and finding work of real worth.

The rites of a fishing town, and the bonds of community don't transpose easily onto the digital world, though at first glance they appear to. psyche.co/turning-poin...

What is the point of reading? Seriously. Does it make us more empathetic? confer better judgement? elevate our minds? Berkeley professor Flora Champy has a few thoughts on the matter. aeon.co/essays/the-r...

Frank Lloyd Wright was an artist, teacher, iconoclast, utilitarian, democrat, adulterer, cult-like leader, wayward in life and thought. This essay is so good I'm posting it again. aeon.co/essays/frank...

It was a treat to work on this essay by Noah Charney. Can AI replace art experts in settling scores over attribution and provencance? aeon.co/essays/could...

Delighted that Gwendoline Riley and Kei MIller - two absolutely brilliant writers were recognised by the Windham-Campbell prize committee. Congratulations. Miller writes personal essays like no one else. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Deplorable doesn't even begin to describe these people. The Guardian has been brilliant lately at exposing Farage's filth and his crew's miserable, small-minded vengefulness at every turn. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Reform UK would stop visas for people from countries seeking slavery reparations

The ‘bank is closed and the door is locked’, says Zia Yusuf as calls grow for compensation to remedy historical wrongs

theguardian.com

On Robert Frost: 'He liked to say that he “had as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.” Frost was a playful poet, but in order to play, we needed to agree on the shape of the field, the rules of the game.' Fab essay in @yalereview.bsky.social yalereview.org/article/kamr...

Kamran Javadizadeh: “Robert Frost at Midlife”

An analysis of three poems by Robert Frost, including “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” that first appeared in The Yale Review in 1923

yalereview.org

We like to work with practitioners @aeon.co, but boy can this architect write: A wonderful, challenging, contradition-accepting essay on Frank Lloyd Wright by Andrew Deming aeon.co/essays/frank...

And the joint winners were...Nell Osbourne and Moist Press for Ghost Driver, and Rebecca Grandsen and Tangerine Press for Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group. I'm so delighted that we found such stellar winners. www.thebookseller.com/news/the-que...

The Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026 announces joint winners

Nell Osborne, author of Ghost Driver (Moist Books), and Rebecca Gransden, author of Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group (Tangerine Press), have jointly won the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction ...

thebookseller.com

The Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize. What you need to know.