Five indie-published books shortlisted for Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026

ICYMI: Five books and their independent publishers have been shortlisted for the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 👇 #BookSky

Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?

Virginia Woolf, Orlando

So the Daily Mail owner's wife has just given £50,000 to Nigel Farage's Reform UK

And just like that… 🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈

It’s official! Five years of Renard Press! 🦊

📚 165 books published
🌲 2,500 trees planted
😳 650 writers published or anthologised

📚 renardpress.com/books/

A short story about masculinity, social anxiety, spoken word and The Verve at a work karaoke.

Forward prize names poets Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie its first joint winners Judge of prestigious award says two best collection winners ‘address the urgent challenges of our time’ Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie have been named joint winners of this year’s Forward prize for best collection, one of the UK’s most prestigious poetry awards, marking the first time in the prize’s history the honour has been shared. Ravinthiran, who was born in Leeds to Sri Lankan Tamil parents and now lives in the US, was recognised for Avidyā. The collection is described as having emerged from “journeys of great personal significance, and out of a migrant sensibility tied to three different countries”. The Canadian poet Solie shared the prize for Wellwater, a “self-interrogative conversation with a culture in crisis and a natural world on the brink”. Continue reading...

Forward prize names poets Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie its first joint winners

Indie Press Network to host marketing and publicity day for small publishers The Indie Press Network is hosting a free-to-attend marketing and publicity day for small independent publishers on Friday 7th November at Conway Hall in London. The event has been made possible by Arts Council funding.

The Indie Press Network is hosting a free-to-attend marketing and publicity day for small independent publishers on Friday 7th November at Conway Hall in London.

Read more 👇

If you're an independent publisher who wants to sharpen your marketing skills, then Arts Council England is sponsoring a free Marketing Day for indie presses, facilitated by the Indie Press Network, on 7 November at Conway Hall in London: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-indie-...

Leonard and Hungry Paul cast and Director on telling a story about kindness, friendship, and the quiet heroism of everyday life - The feel-good series stars Alex Lawther, Laurie Kynaston and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, with Julia Roberts as narrator

Good morning.

Today Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession is launched nationwide across the UK on BBC 2.

Huge thanks to the writers Richie Conroy and Mark Hodkinson and to the crew, actors, producers and you the readers for spreading the word!

www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...

PRE-ORDER SALE!

To celebrate the launch of SAINTS this Thursday 23rd October, get 25% off your pre-ordered copy!
Just type Saints2310 at the checkout on or before 23rd October...

www.scratch-books.co.uk/product-page...

X sinks as Instagram and Bluesky spike in IPG social media survey

Independent Publishers Guild members have fled X and are turning to Instagram, Bluesky and TikTok to engage with their readers 👇 #BookSky

Nobel peace prize 2025 live: María Corina Machado wins for work promoting democratic rights in Venezuela

I took this picture of Olga and László in London in 2018. Congrats to Krasznahorkai and his translators, including George Szirtes and @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social, and long live a Central Europe free of dictators (foreign and domestic) and full of magnificent minds like these!

We can’t wait for the BBC Short Story Awards with Cambridge University this evening👏 The winners of #BBCNSSA and #BBCYWA will be announced live on Radio 4’s Front Row from the ceremony at Broadcasting House.

Tune in from 7:15pm 🎧 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

What does it cost to produce a book? Why small presses in the UK are struggling - and what can be done about it.

An article on the pressures on publishing, rising costs, what can be done about it - and how readers can also help.

open.substack.com/pub/samj/p/w...

(This ran in the Society of Authors quarterly, The Author, earlier this year. They've kindly given me permission to reproduce it on my Substack.)

UK recognises Palestine as an independent state Deeply symbolic move comes seven decades after end of UK mandate in Palestine and formation of state of Israel The UK has formally recognised Palestine as an independent state, Keir Starmer has announced. The deeply symbolic move comes seven decades after the end of the UK mandate in Palestine and the formation of the state of Israel. It comes in concert with Canada and Australia, who also made their own formal declarations on Sunday. Continue reading...

UK recognises Palestine as an independent state

PEN International’s resolutions to defend free expression, gender diversity, human rights, and climate justice  — PEN International | Promoting Literature & Defending Freedom of Expression Worldwide “At this 91st Congress we affirmed that freedom of expression cannot be atomized —whether in defending peace against authoritarianism, protecting our planet, standing with trans and gender-diverse peo...

PEN International has adopted four urgent resolutions: defend human rights and free expression; address the climate crisis as a human rights issue; the protection of trans people’s right to free expression; and the protection of free expression in the U.S. www.pen-international.org/news/pen-int...

Titan Books snares Jake Arnott’s ‘cautionary tale’ horror debut

Titan Books has acquired a British-set contemporary folk–horror from award-winning novelist and dramatist Jake Arnott. Netherwood will be published in autumn 2026 👇 #BookSky

‘Keir Starmer is in trouble.’

New on the blog: James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on Labour’s problems.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

Front cover of Titus Alone, the third novel in the Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake. The cover portrays a series of colourful figures in some kind of struggle outside the large door of a gothic church-like structure. In the background the sky burns red as blood. Menace fills the scene.

'There is no value in a rule until it is broken. There is nothing in life unless there is death at the back of it. Death, dear boy, leaning over the edge of the world and grinning like a boneyard.'

“The Green Party needs to tell more emotive and powerful stories about [how] migration benefits this country, and why the elites, the multimillionaires and billionaires, are the problems – and not blame some of the poorest.”

Sphere promotes Cal Kenny, Molly Walker-Sharp and Tig Wallace across editorial team

Sphere has announced promotions across its editorial teams, with Cal Kenny and Molly Walker-Sharp both stepping up to editorial director, Sphere Fiction, and Tig Wallace promoted to publishing director, Sphere Non-Fiction 👇

Reviews:

Joseph Williams on Homework by Geoff Dyer.
Madeline Cash on Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno.
Andrew Lambirth on Leonard McComb.
@paddycash.bsky.social on Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt.

Order here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...

Reviews:

Joseph Williams on Homework by Geoff Dyer (@canongate.co.uk).
Madeline Cash on Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno (@doubledaybooks.bsky.social).
Andrew Lambirth on Leonard McComb.
@paddycash.bsky.social on Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt (@jonathancape.bsky.social).

Teaching a writing workshop tonight for @creativefutureuk.bsky.social on Character. I love this quote from Woolf’s essay Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown: ‘we go down into them as we descend into some enormous cavern. Lights swing about; we hear the boom of the sea; it is all dark, terrible and uncharted.’

Writing Prose (Online) - Creative Future Learn how to write powerful and compelling prose, focussed on plot, character, dialogue and editing.

Looking forward to kicking off this creative writing workshop course with @creativefutureuk.bsky.social tonight: www.creativefuture.org.uk/workshop/wri...

Susanna Clarke returns to world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in new short story

Twenty-one years after the publication of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, bestselling author Susanna Clarke returns with a short story. The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City is set to appear on the @fictionable.bsky.social website on 24th April 2025 👇 #BookSky

Librarians in UK increasingly asked to remove books, as influence of US pressure groups spreads Anecdotal evidence suggests a rise in requests to take books off shelves, particularly LGBTQ+ titles

Librarians pressured to remove books by LGBTQ+ writers. Librarians harrassed at work for putting LGBTQ+ stories on their shelves. This is the UK-not Hungary, not USA. It's here and now. What can you do? Invite LGBTQ+ writers to your schools and libraries.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

On Monday our instagram account was hacked and then deleted. We received a ransom note to recover it; obviously we couldn't and wouldn't pay, and therefore lost thousands of followers. Meta support was useless. But we're BACK with a new account: @littletollerbooks. Can you follow us there and share?

Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Ozymandias