Announcing The Scratch Winter Sale!
For two weeks before our festive break buy all our titles with 25% off.
For all the readers and writers in your life!

www.scratch-books.co.uk/shop

The marvellous @ccrrll.bsky.social is taking November by storm!

Her selection as a judge for the Bristol Short Story Prize 2026 is a fantastic achievement; congratulations, Claire!!

[ #booksky 📚💙 #WriterSky #WritingCommunity]

Hello #booksky 📚💙

@ccrrll.bsky.social has had a piece of eco-criticism featured in The Climate Issue of @stingingfly.bsky.social!

A Thousand, Thousand Slimy Things is about a real-life sea voyage taken by Claire, @gary-grace.bsky.social and her grandpa this summer.

Congratulations, Claire!

My ride or die wrote this story about a slightly mad lad going on an unorthodox quest for basketball glory and redemption in Argentina. It's in @irishexaminer.bsky.social which is pretty rad. You'll laugh, you'll cry, it'll change your life. Proud of the one and only 🖤 @gary-grace.bsky.social

If you like acid, and you like tennis, and you like me...order this gnarly anthology of debauchery published by @acidbathpublishing.bsky.social

Yay! Loved your one on Bear! 🐻👄

Claire Carroll on The Doll's Alphabet The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast · Episode

I'm being very social media minimal at the moment (last 6 months of PhD etc) but here is a podcast I did with The Library of Lazy Thinking, released this week!

I spoke to Glenn Fisher about one of my all-time top faves 'The Doll's Alphabet' by Camilla Grudova.

open.spotify.com/episode/1WNG...

YES!!!! 🎇🎇🎇

Now reading the soothing, haunting and humane 'Quickly While They Still Have Horses' by Jan Carson. 2024 was quite a good year for short fiction, I reckon... @jancarsonwrites.bsky.social @penguinbooksusa.bsky.social

I had a very nice time last week in Dublin @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social ! Big thanks to everyone who came to listen to me bang on about dead birds and the short story from, and big big thanks to Declan and all at HF (and Tom, despite the fact that he never tags me in anything!)

Beautiful marketing my loves xxx

Also thank you forever to my beloved @gary-grace.bsky.social for, like, an endless list of things. 🖤

Me and Tom from @scratchbooks.bsky.social and @declanmeade.bsky.social will be talking in @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social in Dublin in 24 hours.

Thank you to whomever put my mad book in the middle of the display 😚. Come see us here from 6pm tomorrow (Wednesday 22nd)

No worries, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Just realised my typo of 'darling', which should be 'darkly' but I reckon we just go with that....!

'Terminal Zones' by Gareth Rees. Darling comic eco-collapse will always be my jam. I especially love the one about the new father who falls in love with a pylon. @garetherees.bsky.social @influxpress.bsky.social

'Topographica Hibernica' by Blindboy. Poignant, hilarious, abject stories of geographical and bodily wastelands @blindboyboatclub.bsky.social

First up,'The Coiled Serpent' by Camilla Grudova. Perhaps even more gross than her debut 'The Doll's Alphabet', but that is no bad thing. 🖤 @atlanticbooks.bsky.social

Herewith declaring a 2025 thread of short story collections that I have read and liked or loved. (I read novels too, I do, but short fiction is my soulmate....)

Recommend these to all the readers in your life who claim not to like short fiction. 😚

A eulogy to my deceased Twitter Bot!

Thanks to @ailiteraryreview.bsky.social for giving it a home!

David Lynch, squinting, holding a cigarette weirdly between his fingers while standing against a cement wall.

“There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Looking forward to talking to Claire next week.

Lessssgooooo

Scratch Books take over @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social on 22nd January!
Join the brilliant @ccrrll.bsky.social and the immense Declan Meade of @stingingfly.bsky.social in conversation! Tickets free!

Please join us 🙏 Claire in conversation with Declan Meade.

@ccrrll.bsky.social
@scratchbooks.bsky.social

💥 d u b l i n 💥

Looking forward to being in conversation with Declan Meade of @stingingfly.bsky.social in a couple of weeks!

Come join us @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social on Wednesday 22nd from 6pm...

If you fancy dusting off that draft this January and need a little support, I have spaces for editorial and mentoring in the early part of this year!

My rates are based on £200 per day, but I can tailor bespoke packages for projects of any scale.

Drop me a line on cccrrllwriter[at]gmail[dot]com

Art should be funded like science. To properly fund art, you fund failure. Funding failure will give you occasional excellence. Creating any art with the aim of it being popular enough to make money, will give you consistent mediocrity. Arists need funding to play and fail because that's the process

If you’re near Dublin come along to this brilliant event at @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social on 22nd January!

you are being suffocated

Joe Wenderoth, ‘Early Capitalism’