Royal Society of Literature
@RSLiterature
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The RSL celebrates and nurtures reading and writing of all kinds. We're a charity that believes literature is for everyone. ✨ 200 years young. 🌟
London, UK
Joined January 2011
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Pinned Tweet
📣The shortlist for the 2024
#RSLOndaatjePrize
is here📣🥳
From 194 entries to 14 longlisted titles, our judges
@JanCarson7280
Xiaolu Guo and Francis Spufford have selected the following shortlist:
6
57
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'"Cats don't have names,' it said.
'No?' said Coraline.
'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”'
– Neil Gaiman (
@neilhimself
)
#InternationalCatDay
108
5K
16K
'But, of course, it isn't really Good-bye, because the Forest will always be there... and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it.' ― A.A. Milne
#BrexitEve
77
4K
12K
'So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.'
― Virginia Woolf
#BOTD
in 1882
21
2K
4K
“It's still National Library Week. You should be especially nice to a librarian today, or tomorrow. Sometime this week, anyway. Probably the librarians would like tea. Or chocolates. Or a reliable source of funding.”
— Neil Gaiman (
@neilhimself
)
#LibrariesWeek
20
660
2K
Our thoughts are with our Fellow Salman Rushdie and all his friends and family at this time
5
73
1K
'All cats can see futures, and see echoes of the past. We can watch the passage of creatures from the infinity of now, from all the worlds like ours, only fractionally different.'
– from 'The Sandman',
@neilhimself
#InternationalCatDay
16
350
1K
'There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.'
― Beatrix Potter,
#BOTD
in 1866.
11
402
1K
'You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.'
― James Baldwin
#BOTD
in 1924
6
413
1K
'The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think.'
― Harper Lee
#BOTD
in 1926
6
289
1K
'Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee.
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?'
― Spike Milligan
#BOTD
in 1918
12
476
1K
'My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.'
― Mary Shelley,
#BOTD
in 1797.
3
411
993
'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'
— J.R.R. Tolkien,
#BOTD
in 1892
11
515
987
"A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it.....It’s a community space. It’s a place of safety, a haven from the world." — Neil Gaiman (
@neilhimself
)
#LibrariesWeek
5
335
942
'Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'
― Dylan Thomas
#BOTD
in 1914
7
260
873
'A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world.'
—
@neilhimself
,
#NationalLibrariesWeek
8
262
784
'Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.' ― Primo Levi
#HolocaustRemembranceDay
9
433
774
'I can never read all the books I want; I can never live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life.'
― Sylvia Plath
#BOTD
in 1932
4
266
771
@stephenfry
Wonderful to have you 🙂 For all those interested in the pens, we have (from front) Byron's, George Eliot's & T. S. Eliot's. We also have a quill that belonged to Dickens but sadly had to retire it when it started splattering ink everywhere! Follow us for more literary loveliness
17
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'Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.'
― Virginia Woolf
#BOTD
in 1882
6
221
649
'I'm tired of the news...I'm tired of anger. I'm tired of the meanness. I'm tired of selfishness...I'm tired of lying governments. I'm tired of people not caring whether they're being lied to anymore. I'm tired of being made to feel this fearful.'
― Ali Smith
#LGBTHM19
9
216
651
🎉 We'd like to wish our Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Cornwall the happiest of birthdays
@ClarenceHouse
🎉
It was an honour to welcome HRH to our
#40Under40
Fellowship induction back in 2018 and we look forward to celebrating again together soon
#FRSL
4
35
641
'...we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.'
― Philip Larkin
#BOTD
in 1922
8
313
643
'My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.'
― Edith Sitwell,
#BOTD
in 1887.
9
201
615
Our Royal Patron, Her Majesty The Queen Consort, presents Shehan Karunatilaka with the
@TheBookerPrizes
trophy for 'The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida' 🥳 🏆👏 congratulations to all on the shortlist
7
123
616
'I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.'
— Zora Neale Hurston,
#BOTD
in 1891
2
252
589
'Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books...'
– Virginia Woolf
#BookLoversDay
8
266
584
'Sometimes Matilda longed for a friend, someone like the kind, courageous people in her books.'
-- Roald Dahl
Happy
#WorldBookDay
!
11
221
584
'I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.'
― Harper Lee,
#BOTD
in 1926.
What advice do you have for emerging writers? Take our survey & tell us >> Deadline 30 April.
5
184
536
'I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish' - Simone de Beauvoir
#BOTD
in 1908
1
119
522
‘We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it’. Anthony Burgess
#bornonthisday
one hundred years ago.
2
350
491
'I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.'
— Kurt Vonnegut,
#BOTD
in 1922
9
279
506
'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.'
― Charlotte Brontë
#InternationalWomensDay
4
200
501
'Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge... it must be rejected, altered and exposed.'
—Toni Morrison
#BOTD
in 1931
4
264
500
🎟️ Only a handful of in-person tickets left for
@GillianA
& Andrew O'Hagan next week at the
@britishlibrary
🎟️
➡️ Join as an RSL Member TODAY to snap one up for FREE:
📅 Event info:
16
53
505
“Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking."
"An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.”
― Agatha Christie
#BOTD
in 1890
4
151
504
'Making the work happen, rather than waiting for other people to offer you opportunities – that’s very much the job of the writer. It’s about creating those characters and stories that need to be told'
―
@BernardineEvari
,
#BlackHistoryMonth
3
199
488
'Reading is important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you’re given. It is how humans merge. How minds connect. Dreams. Empathy. Understanding. Escape. Reading is love in action.'
― Matt Haig
@matthaig1
#WorldMentalHealthDay
4
206
488
'I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.'
― Flannery O'Connor,
#BOTD
in 1925.
5
200
482
'If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.'
― Toni Morrison
#BookLoversDay
6
200
476
'And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of.'
― William Shakespeare,
#BOTD
in 1564.
5
245
461
Congratulations to RSL Fellow Linton Kwesi Johnson, who has won the
@englishpen
PEN Pinter Prize. In the words of Paul Gilroy
@bungatuffie
, 'Without intending to do so, he became the voice of a whole generation'.
7
187
478
'Look here Vita throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head...'
—Virginia Woolf
#LGTBHM19
7
129
471
'The sea rises, the light fails,
lovers cling to each other,
and children cling to us.
The moment we cease to hold each other,
the moment we break faith with one another,
the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.'
James Baldwin
from 'For Nothing is Fixed'
9
206
460
'When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.'
― James Baldwin,
#BOTD
in 1924.
3
221
449
‘By March, the worst of the winter would be over. The snow would thaw, the rivers begin to run and the world would wake into itself again.’ – Neil Gaiman
5
28
442
"Make up a story... tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul."
So sad to learn of the death of Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison.
1
195
435
'You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.'
― Octavia E. Butler,
#BOTD
in 1947.
7
181
436
'To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.'
― William Blake
#BOTD
in 1757
2
157
430
'Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.'
― Susan Sontag
#BornOnThisDay
in 1933
1
226
424
'The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.'
― Zadie Smith,
#BOTD
.
#BlackHistoryMonth
2
110
415
'All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.'
― J.R.R. Tolkien
#BOTD
in 1892
3
170
412
'It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.'
― Maya Angelou
#InternationalWomensDay
4
150
405
'Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.'
― Langston Hughes
#BOTD
in 1902
3
156
403
Stuck for🎄🎁 ideas?
Buy an RSL Gift Membership or a Digital Events Pass & treat the literature lover in your life to exclusive access to events like
#GillianAnderson
&
#AndrewOHagan
FOR FREE!
Full details➡️
🎉🎟️✨🎁🎄
3
51
403
'Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.'
— Emily Dickinson,
#BOTD
in 1830.
0
171
387
We’re proud to announce the 2020
#RSLOndaatje
Prize Longlist. The £10,000 Prize is awarded annually to a book – fiction, non-fiction or poetry – which best evokes the spirit of a place. In these times of isolation, their works are more important than ever:
13
149
395
'The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.'
— John Milton,
#BOTD
in 1608
5
169
369
'Those who are bold enough to advance before the age they live in, and to throw off, by the force of their own minds, the prejudices which the maturing reason of the world will in time disavow, must learn to brave censure.'
― Mary Wollstonecraft,
#BOTD
in 1759.
5
177
383
'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.' - Charles Dickens
#BOTD
in 1812
4
120
378
'Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.'
―
@neilhimself
#shortstorywritingtips
Enter the 2019 V.S. Pritchett Prize now >>
Deadline: Friday 28 June 2019
9
82
377
‘I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.’ – Maya Angelou
3
67
381
We couldn’t be happier to announce that the next President of the RSL is Bernardine Evaristo
@BernardineEvari
!
📰
Bernardine will take up her new post in January 2022 📅
📻Catch her on
@BBCr4today
from 8.40am
#RSL200
9
59
368
'“...Do you think we’ll ever really belong anywhere?”
“I suppose not,” said Papa. “Not the way people belong who have lived in one place all their lives. But we’ll belong a little in lots of places, and I think that may be just as good.”' ― Judith Kerr
#HolocaustRemembranceDay
3
101
361
'If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.'
― Daphne du Maurier
#BOTD
in 1907
9
139
356
Delighted to be announcing the winner of the £10,000
#RSLChristopherBland
Prize 2021 awarded to a debut novelist or non-fiction writer first published aged 50 or over. Watch Mary Beard (
@wmarybeard
), Chair of this year’s judges, reveal who has won!
19
38
362
'I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.'
— Jane Austen,
#BOTD
in 1775.
5
159
348
'When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair...'
― Simone de Beauvoir
#BOTD
in 1908
9
160
344
'You write not for children but for yourself. And if by good fortune children enjoy what you enjoy, why then you are a writer of children's books.' - Arthur Ransome
#BOTD
in 1884
5
53
343
“He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion-‘
‘I don’t, ‘ She said. ‘I have my own.”
― Toni Morrison
#BOTD
in 1931
1
97
344
Delighted to announce the longlist for the '22
#RSLOndaatje
Prize, awarded to a book (fiction/non-fiction/poetry) which best evokes the spirit of a place 📚
Congrats to all 2⃣1⃣ longlisted authors 🎉
📰
📅 Shortlist 20 April, Winner 4 May
#RSLOndaatje
6
113
330
We are delighted to announce the longlist for the 2019
#RSLOndaatje
Prize, awarded annually to a book – fiction, non-fiction or poetry – which best evokes the spirit of a place. This is the first time we have announced a longlist - in celebration of the 15th year of the Prize.
8
167
325
'You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.'
― Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Literature cultivates empathy. Tweet us your
#ReadForEmpathy
book recommendations.
#EmpathyDay
9
171
316
'The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.'
― Emily Brontë,
#BOTD
in 1818.
3
120
314
'The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.'
- Zadie Smith
#BlackHistoryMonth
2
65
317
Virginia Woolf said that to be a writer, a woman needed money & a room of her own. We want to know what UK writers need today in order to flourish professionally. Writers! Complete our survey. Tell us what you need to thrive.
#UKWritersSurvey
#ARoomOfMyOwn
31
245
311
Congratulations to
@Anthony1983
- winner of the 2023 RSL Ondaatje Prize for 'Heritage Aesthetics'
@GrantaBooks
25
51
316
'Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.'
― Jack Kerouac
#BOTD
in 1922
3
112
292
'I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.'
― Langston Hughes
#BOTD
in 1902
2
197
278
The BIGGEST of thank yous to the wonderful
@GillianA
& Andrew O’Hagan for a fantastic
#LiteratureMatters
#RSL200
discussion at the
@britishlibrary
🤩
Huge thanks to all of you who joined us in person & tuned in online too ❤️
13
36
293
We are absolutely thrilled to celebrate so many great names in contemporary literature with this year’s new Fellows and Honorary Fellows.
Please join us in congratulating all 62 of our new Fellows, who we are formally inducting and celebrating at our Summer Party today👏
14
57
288
'I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.'
― Jorge Luis Borges
#BOTD
in 1899
4
89
283
It is a proven fact that reading can help reduce stress. This
#NationalStressAwarenessDay
, take some time for yourself and cosy up with a good read... ☕️📖
10
145
280
“...we won’t belong. Do you think we’ll ever really belong anywhere?”
“I suppose not,” said Papa. “Not the way people belong who have lived in one place all their lives. But we’ll belong a little in lots of places, and I think that may be just as good.”
― Judith Kerr
#BOTD
1923
7
77
277
On
#DallowayDay
we celebrate Virginia Woolf's work. 90 years after A Room of One's Own we've asked writers today what they need to work. As well as events throughout the day, we're publishing new writing from RSL Fellows and launching our
#ARoomofMyOwn
#UKWritersSurvey
report.1/4
9
119
266
🎂 We'd like to wish Her Majesty The Queen a wonderful 96th birthday 🎂
Here's HM Queen Elizabeth presenting RSL Vice-President Grace Nichols with the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry earlier this year 🏅
#ThrowbackThursday
#PlatinumJubilee
0
25
265
'I believe that the main thing in beginning a novel is to feel, not that you can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can't cross; that its to be pulled through only in a breathless anguish.'
― Vita Sackville-West,
#BOTD
in 1892.
10
86
263
“Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?” ― Edith Wharton
#BOTD
in 1862
3
103
260
'You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.'
― Pablo Neruda
#BOTD
in 1904
3
87
259
'A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort.'
― E.B. White, author of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web,
#BOTD
in 1899.
4
109
248
'For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.'
― T.S. Eliot,
#BOTD
in 1888.
2
116
246
DSI Stella Gibson, Miss Havisham, Dana Scully, Dr Jean Milburn...
🎭
@GillianA
has devoted her career to inventing, inhabiting & adapting some of the most memorable characters ever written.
📅TOMORROW NIGHT Gillian Anderson & Andrew O'Hagan (LAST FEW 🎟️):
3
30
245
'Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.'
― Jean Rhys,
#BOTD
in 1890.
2
82
238
'We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.'
― Cecil Day Lewis
#BOTD
in 1904
2
70
242