Katie Hale - novelist & poet 🌈
@halekatie
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❄️ The Edge of Solitude - COMING JULY 2024! ❄️ / rep @agent_luck / White Ghosts / My Name is Monster / Northern Writers' Award 21 & 22 / Aesthetica Prize 23
Cumbria, UK
Joined September 2009
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👀COVER REVEAL for
#TheEdgeOfSolitude
!! 👀
Isn't she gorgeous?? So much love for Valeri Rangelov's stunning design for my icy Antarctic novel.
@canongatebooks
knocking it out the park again! ❄️
Pre-orders are here if you want one for yourself:
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HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY DAY! Time to once again share the greatest poem ever written.
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SOME NEWS!! 💍💍 We’re not doing engagement rings so we had to use haribo as props for the photo, but we are planning to get MARRIED!!!
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I think about this Adrienne Rich poem at least once a week. Sometimes every day. On Friday I took it to show my young writers, who also loved it. What was sad & beautiful was how we all said we could relate to it.
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How it started / how it’s going!
SOME MORE NEWS… WE GOT MARRIED!! 💕🥂
Still planning a blessing & big bash in May - we just moved the legal ceremony forward a bit. We got married 2 days before Christmas: just us, our parents, & a great big Christmas tree! 🎄
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Just rescued this enormous beauty from the bathroom - anyone know what it is?
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WRITERS! The summer bank holiday is over, and we're into the final third of the year. But instead of slinking meekly into the dark days of winter, here are a few opportunities you can apply for this autumn:
#THREAD
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Over the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking a lot about this poem.
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@PhilipPullman
Serious answer: we’ve been using ‘they’ as a singular pronoun for years when we don’t know someone’s gender, always followed by plural conjugation.
Eg.
‘I saw the doctor today.’
‘What did they say?’
Why should it be any different if it’s an individual’s chosen pronoun?
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RESOURCES FOR WRITERS: a list of organisations, opportunities & support, which you really ought to have on your writerly radar, and which I wish had been on my own radar earlier in my career. Hope you find them useful.
#thread
#amwriting
#writer
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Louder for those at the back: if you're charging people to enter your writing competition, at least have the courtesy to send a mass email to let people know they haven't won.
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ABBA, when they called you last night from Glasgow.
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LOOK WHAT WAS WAITING FOR ME WHEN I GOT HOME!!! THEY ARE BOOKS AND THEY ARE REAL AND THEY HAVE MY NAME ON THE COVER!!!
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Writers! Fancy applying to some
#writing
opportunities this weekend?
Coming in a bit later than usual, because I've spent the day driving to a residency on Mull (!) but here's this week's
#FiveThingsFriday
: 🧵
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Those of you who've been patiently waiting for my news... this is it! Utterly thrilled to have won this year's
@AestheticaMag
Creative Writing Award for Short Fiction! Going to spend the winnings on a(nother) cosy winter jumper as a little treat to myself.
Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2022
Short Fiction Winner | Katie Hale (
@halekatie
), 'Raise ...'
"The sky out over the lake is a centrefold, a glossy falling open after rain. You climb to where the path becomes trickle, becomes syke, becomes beck."
Image: Ellen Jantzen
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YOUR GAL HAS A SECOND NOVEL COMING OUT!
It's about mothers & sons, sea voyages & storms, and my great big icy love: Antarctica - and I can't wait to share it with you next July!!!
.
@canongatebooks
has snared The Edge of Solitude, a new, "terrifying and thought-provoking" novel on the climate crisis by My Name is Monster author Katie Hale (
@halekatie
).
Click the image to read the article ⬇️
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White Ghosts is out today!!! The culmination of 7 years of research, writing & support - and somehow it still doesn’t quite feel real.
A huge thank you to everyone who has already bought a copy - and if not, you can order it from
@NineArchesPress
here: 🦌
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Some news!!! My debut poetry collection, ‘White Ghosts’, is coming out with the magnificent
@NineArchesPress
in March! 📚🎉🔥
Following, in March 2023, we have White Ghosts by Katie Hale
@halekatie
- revealing, unflinching poems tracing maternal lines and difficult legacies of slavery and whiteness interwoven into the fabric of America.
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🎉 NEW YEAR GIVEAWAY! 🎉
#MyNameIsMonster
paperback comes out in under a week! 📚 So to celebrate, I’m giving away TWO SIGNED COPIES (UK), for a little post-apocalyptic
#reading
in this lockdown-by-another-name. 😊
🤞 Follow & RT to enter. 🤞
Ends midnight 5th Jan.
#giveaway
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Cumbria pulling it out of the bag for the second sunset in a row.
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WRITERS! ARTISTS! Lend me your ears! Here are some opporrtunities you can currently apply for (and help to pay for your creative practice):
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@nadiakhomami
I also don’t understand how he reaches his coffee? Does he have incredibly long arms? Or does he lasso it with the whip? And why does he not have a computer??
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And so begins my writing residency in a medieval castle! Checked into the Bronte Room at Hawthornden Castle for the next 4 weeks of writing - with a rule of silence, little to no phone signal, & 50p sherry. See you on the other side!
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For the record: I won’t be doing events where the audience has to be physically present (i.e. without a hybrid / streaming option) anytime soon. These events are exclusionary.
I’m not rich. Turning down work sucks. But it’d suck less if we all insisted on accessibility together.
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Over the moon to announce that my poem, 'The Gallery of America', has won the
@PalettePoetry
Prize! Huge thanks to all involved in making the decision, and especially to
@jerichobrown
for selecting it as the winner! 🎉🎉🎉
we're thrilled to share the winners, finalists, & longlist for the 2021 Palette Poetry Prize judged by
@jerichobrown
! ✨✨ join us in congratulating:
1st — Katie Hale
@halekatie
2nd — Claire Wahmanholm
@cwahmanholm
3rd — Len Lawson
@lenvillelaws
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I can finally spill the secret: I’m on this quite frankly STELLAR shortlist! 😀🎉🍾 Huge thank you to
@McrWritingSchl
, & to
@Malikabooker
,
@KMcCarthyWoolf
&
@billherbert
for seeing something in my poems. Off to celebrate by writing more! 🖋
£10,000 Manchester Writing Competition returns with outstanding international shortlist. UK’s biggest prize for unpublished writing was established by Professor Carol Ann Duffy. Meet the finalists:
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I've been trying to get a poem in
@Mslexia
since I was 19. I am now (as it says in the bio) 29. Welcome to the fulfilment of a decade-long dream! 😀
Swoonful, tangible poetry from
@halekatie
in
@Mslexia
this month - 'a flight of silver' stopped me in my tracks 😍🕊☀️
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I had the most amazing evening at last night’s
#NorthernWritersAwards
- and delighted to have won the Award for Fiction! Huge thank you to
@NewWritingNorth
, judges
@tahmima
&
@doug_johnstone
, and host
@AMcMillanPoet
- and congratulations to the rest of the cohort for 2022!
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So so proud to have won a Northern Debut Award for Poetry! 🎉 Enormous thank you to
@NewWritingNorth
&
@AMcMillanPoet
for selecting my work, and huge congratulations to my fellow debut poetry awardees,
@JadeCuttle
& the fabulous
@ALoulli
!
#NorthernWritersAwards
Katie Hale won for her thrilling, controlled and thought-provoking poems that explore the history of female family members, reaching back across multiple generations
#NorthernWritersAwards
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Your gal's been longlisted in the
#NationalPoetryCompetition
! Along with BOTH of my fellow
@NewWritingNorth
Northern Debut Award poets
@JadeCuttle
&
@ALoulli
- and fellow Cumbrian
@HodgsonWrites
! Hurrah! 🎉
Congratulations to all the poets longlisted in the
#NationalPoetryCompetition
2022!
(1/3)
#NPCAwards2022
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MONSTER IS HERE!! I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was about five, and I first learned that books had people who wrote them. And today, my debut novel, ‘My Name is Monster’, is officially out in the world! And yes, I definitely had bubbles for bre…
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Delighted to have won THIRD PRIZE in the Alpine Poetry Prize! I’ve been entering this one for a few years, so it’s particularly special to be selected. A huge thank you to the judges, and congratulations to the winners! 🎉
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HERE WE GO!! In a few days, I’ll be flying to Longyearbyen, to board the barquentine Antigua and spend 2 weeks sailing around Svalbard in the company of 30 artists & scientists. I’ve packed plenty of thermals, and an excellent pair of boots. Next stop: Oslo! ✈️
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ISN'T SHE BEAUTIFUL?!?!
Look at this elegantly foiled beauty. We may have shared it already but JUST LOOK AT IT. My Name is Monster is Katie Hale's incredibly special debut, out June 2019, and we couldn't be prouder.
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Look what
@canongatebooks
have made!! Isn't she beautiful?!
#MyNameIsMonster
Well, this is VERY exciting: proofs of our biggest debut novel of the year have just landed, and they are looking *beautiful*.
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Beyond excited to be joining the magnificent list of magnificent authors at the magnificent
@canongatebooks
! (Shoutout to
@JoDingley
&
@agent_luck
, who are also magnificent.)
#ArtsCumbria
#WriteNowLive
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Went out for a walk and ended up buying lunch.
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A day in the life of a writer with a book coming out: today I’m off on an adventure!
Taking proof copies of
#TheEdgeOfSolitude
to some of Cumbria’s bookshops, and hanging out with booksellers all day!
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WRITING NEWS! I’m over the moon to have been shortlisted for this year’s
@DesperateLit
Prize - and even more so to have won the Georgia Writers’ House Prize! 🇬🇪 (And with a story that uses Lakeland dialect, too!) Can’t wait to read the rest of the stories.
#AmWriting
#Cumbria
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White Ghosts comes out tomorrow!
It’s so easy to think of writing as a solitary process - but it’s taken 7 years & all kinds of support to reach this point. So I want to take a moment to thank all those people & organisations who helped make this book possible:
🧵
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Over the moon to have been awarded an
@ace_national
#DYCP
grant to develop my poetic practice, and to write & research a poetry collection based on my family's female heritage. What a joyous thing, to be paid to write poems! Thank you! 😀🎉📚
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I just learned my story was in the Top 50 for this year’s BBC Short Story Award, and I don’t think I could be more thrilled! Huge thank you to everyone who enjoyed it & selected it from among almost 1100 other entries.
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Just learned my application for the Arts Council Emergency Response Fund was successful! Immensely grateful to
@ace_national
for tiding me over during these difficult times - it makes a world of difference, and eases the anxiety a little. Thank you!
#ACE
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This year everyone in the village is putting an angel in their window, so here’s mine, looking very on brand.
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This is my debut poetry collection, ‘White Ghosts’. It explores whiteness, white heritage, and the legacy of slavery in my own family & beyond. It is - very much - political.
The book’s research & development was funded by
@ace_national
.
APNews: Arts Council England (
@ace_national
) has updated its policies, warning that "political statements" made by individuals linked to an organisation can cause "reputational risk", breaching funding agreements (1/5)
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And here she is! As promised. A round-up of my rejections from 2020, complete with pie charts and a bar graph, and a battle plan for 2021.
Warning: it doesn't make for cheery reading. (But on the plus side, pretty graphs, so yay!) 📊
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After two weeks off grid in the Arctic, I’m back online! There’s no pithy succinct tweet that can sum up this experience, so for now I’ll simply leave you with a couple of photos - and the promise of many more to come.
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Good morning from the proofreading desk! ☕️ What’s everyone else working on this week?
#AmWriting
#TheEdgeOfSolitude
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Writers! As another week draws to a close, it’s time for another
#FiveThingsFriday
: 5 opportunities for you & your
#writing
, to apply for over the coming weekend.
Brought to you this week from my residency overlooking the harbour at
@ATandMT
on Mull!
Ok - here goes: 🧵
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It's here! A bit later than normal, but I've analysed my 2022-23 income, and the graphs are in!
Each year, I write a blog post about how I've made a living as a writer in the previous year - in the interests of transparency, & colour co-ordination. Enjoy!
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Currently trying to consume all the ice cream in my freezer, just in case the power goes out again.
#Ophelia
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@CovePark
@VarunaWriters
@WritersCentre
@TheEmmaPress
@themothmagazine
@magmapoetry
@CarolineBirdUK
@NewWritingNorth
@nationaltrust
@NorthumbriaUni
@Poetry_London
@Soc_of_Authors
@writingwestmids
@BritishArts
@poetrybusiness
@Idharker
@IMcMillan
@arvonfoundation
@LukeKennard
@Mslexia
Write scripts?
@bbcwritersroom
is looking for unsolicited drama scripts, for TV, film, radio, stage or online. Deadline 6 Jan.
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What's that? Shortlisted for the Dinesh Allirajah Prize, you say? Why thanks, don't mind if I do! 🎉
The judging panel and shortlist for this year’s Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction - organised by
@commapress
and
@UCLan
- have been unveiled.
Read here:
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Some sad news for all his fans on here: my gorgeous
#NotMyCat
Monty died yesterday. He had a heart attack while out hunting, so he died doing what he loved. Obviously I'm wrecked. He was old, but also so kittenish, lovable, needy, goofy, noble, fierce & playful. The best of cats.
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Today for my mum’s birthday, I took her to a fancy hotel* for afternoon tea, and then we all retired to the drawing room for coffee**
*my kitchen
**collapsed on the sofa, loosening our waistbands
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This is the secret project I’ve been alluding to for the past few months! Tune into
@BBCRadio4
at 4.30pm on 2nd June, to hear me exploring some of Cumbria’s dialect poets.
#Cumbria
#CumbriaPoetryTakeover
#VideoKilledTheRadioStar
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Delighted to have won the
@speclit
Gulliver Grant, to keep working on & researching my novel about Antarctica! Some lovely news to break up the Covid isolation 😊 Thank you!
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@Joannechocolat
At a signing event: 'Can you tell me the ending so I don't have to buy the book?'
#WeirdShitAuthorsHear
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Mummy Hale knitted me a jumper and I love it. 🧶
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WRITERS: seize the opportunity! Apply for the thing!
In 2 months, my debut poetry collection comes out with
@NineArchesPress
. To celebrate, here's a thread where I trace my entire 10+ year writing career back to a young writers' competition I entered when I was 15: 🧵
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I have news that I am almost literally BURSTING with, and not allowed to talk about! So here’s a photo from my Arctic Circle residency in Svalbard a few months ago, to stop myself going pop. 😬
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Arrived home from holidays to find this gorgeous creature waiting for me: looking and feeling and smelling all wonderfully book-like. 😊📚❤️ June 2019 is going to come around so quickly!
#proofcopy
#MyNameIsMonster
#WriteNowLive
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Overjoyed to announce that my poem 'Snapshot of My Great Great Great Grandmother, Missouri, 1863' has won the
@Prolebooks
Poetry Competition!
Huge thanks to judge
@Carrie_Etter
- and you can read it here, alongside two stunners from
@gandercat
& fellow Cumbrian
@PoetCaroline
! 😃
Congratulations to Katie Hale for winning the 2021 Prole Poetry Competition. Congrats also to runners up Catherine Gander and Caroline Gilfillan. Poems can be read here if you scroll down past our current comp
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A bit of exciting bank holiday news: next April I will be the Emerging Writer in Residence at
@KSP_Writers
in Perth! Australia, here I come!!
#writinglife
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Some shortlisting news! 👀🎉🥂
🏅 We’re delighted to announce the shortlist for the 2022 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, featuring 6 phenomenal short stories by:
Kaliane Bradley (
@ka_bradley
), Jeremy Galgut, Katie Hale (
@halekatie
), Chris Kohler (
@_ChrisKohler
), Martin Raymond & Ruskin Smith
#RSLVSP
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Introducing... THE WRITE CHAT!
In 2021, I'm launching a series of chats with some INCREDIBLE writers, talking about the craft of
#writing
. Guests include
@RashmiWriting
,
@HelenMort
,
@MWCravenUK
,
@YBattleFelton
&
@MollyAitken1
- with more fab writers TBA!
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Delighted to have been longlisted for the
@GalleyBeggars
Short Story Prize! 🎉🎉🎉
Huge thank you to judges
@IshaKarki11
,
@john_self
&
@EricaWgnr
for selecting my story out of such a huge pool of entrants. I can't wait to read the other longlisted stories!
/ 1
The GBP Short Story Prize longlist, 2021/22:
Alex Aspden, ‘Jamboree’
Manish Chauhan, ‘The Tree Wife’:
Wayne Connolly, ‘The Life and Sulphurous Death of Theo D.’
Conor Crummey, ‘The Good People’
Clare Fielder, ‘That More Dear Than Hand Or Tongue’
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My Name is Monster comes out FIVE WEEKS TODAY!!! 🎉📚🍾😃
And since I don’t think I’ve posted a pre-order link yet, it feels like today should be the day. You’re welcome 😊
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And here she is! 26 days of library residency + 85,000 words + multiple coffees = a completed second draft of the novel! Time to take a little break, I think, before I dive into draft 3.
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HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY TO MY GRANDMA DOT!! Born in 1920. Lived on 3 different continents, and across 2 different millennia. In her lifetime, she’s seen the Second World War and the invention of the internet. And she’s always my inspiration.
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HAPPY WEEKEND GIVEAWAY!
#MyNameIsMonster
comes out NEXT WEEK, so to celebrate, I’m giving away ONE SIGNED COPY of this elegantly foiled beauty.*
RT by end of Sunday for a chance to win. 😊📚📮
‘Tough and tender and insightful. I loved it.’ -
@Joannechocolat
*UK only 🌍
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Writers: after this week, never let anyone tell you your plots are too chaotic to be believable.
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You know how people freeze some of their wedding cake for their first anniversary? Today, on what should have been the
#MyNameIsMonster
paperback publication day, we defrosted (and ate) some of the cake from the book launch last June. 🍰
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Enormous congratulations to
@likewinterblue
&
@pollyrowena
, who have taken the helm at
@SReadBooks
!
It’s such a gorgeous & supportive independent bookshop - and if you haven’t yet had the pleasure of shopping there, now’s the time to support the shop’s new owners!
Some news from the bookshop! Wishing Elaine a very happy retirement. Will and Polly are excited to start writing the shop's next chapter...
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Every time I walk past this McD’s, I think about how I almost didn’t apply for
@PenguinUKBooks
#WriteNow
, and how I left it so late I had to come here to use the WiFi, and then how I got accepted & it changed my life & my career.
So just to say: always submit the application.
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Went outside to get firewood, and the most beautiful, enormous russet hare darted across the garden right in front of me. Then it loped up the bank, onto the back wall, and away across the fell. Feeling blessed on this sleety Sunday afternoon.
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OVERJOYED to finally be able to show off the gorgeous paperback jacket for
#MyNameIsMonster
! Isn’t she a beaut??
@Canongate_Art
have knocked it out of the park once again! 🧡💙🤍
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Hey writers! It's that
#FiveThingsFriday
time of week again - but instead of just 5 things, today I have a whopping 30 WRITING OPPORTUNITIES for you!
30 things to apply to over the bank holiday weekend.
30 ways to get your
#writing
out into the world.
Ready? Ok, buckle in! 🧵
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WE DID IT!!! 🥳💪🏃♀️🔥🏆🎉 Huge thanks to my dad for being my running buddy these past 9 weeks, and apologies to
@SarahMillican75
for all the times I’ve sworn at her. Two months ago I could barely run for a minute. Today I ran the furthest I’ve run in my entire life.
#Couchto5K
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'I'm a man - why would I want to read something that's got women in it?'
#WeirdShitAuthorsHear
What's the weirdest, funniest or most unbelievable thing you've heard as an author? Tag your answers with
#WeirdShitAuthorsHear
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@PhilipPullman
Fair. But I think the point still stands. Eg. ‘I’m seeing a new doctor today. They’ve just moved here.’
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Very pleased to have been awarded first place in the Buzzwords Poetry Competition - and with a poem about motel rooms, too.
#poetry
#success
#poetryparty
#winenowplease
😀🎉🍷
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Woke up to the loveliest message from a reader, and it has already made my day. 😊😊😊 Readers, if you love a book and there’s a way to tell the writer (through website / social media / old-fashioned letter via an agent) then please do!
#MyNameIsMonster
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Late to sharing (it's been a hell of a week...) but I'm over the moon to have been longlisted for the
@McrWritingSchl
Poetry Prize! Huge thank you to judges
@Malikabooker
@ShareClaw
&
@RuffneckRefugee
- and congratulations to the shortlist!
Manchester Writing Competition 2023 shortlists announced. Poetry Prize and Fiction Prize make up UK’s biggest award for unpublished writing. Meet the
#McrWritingComp
finalists ➡️
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This is just to say: the world, like gender, is complex & non-binary. It is possible to both disagree with someone’s trans-exclusionary opinions, and also to detest the glorifying of their abuser on the front page of a daily newspaper. That’s all.
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Aaaaaand I made the shortlist! 🎉
Turns out the third piece of consecutive news was for fiction, and was only a few days late in arriving: just learned I have a story on the
@BathFlashAward
longlist! 🎉
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