Thank you!

Thank you - and to you too!

Thrilled - and slightly stunned - to have made the CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition 2026 longlist! Congrats to all the longlisted storytellers 🗡️🎉🖊️

Published Doesn’t Mean Paid. I want to talk about money. (Ugh, I know. How crass.) Specifically, how much money authors make, or more accurately, don’t. I signed my publishing deal in 2023. My advance was £2,500. That’s it. I w...

Publishing looks glossy from the outside. Inside? It’s built on unpaid labour.

My first book is out this year.
Here’s what I actually got paid, what my contract says, & why most authors can’t afford to do this twice.

kristie-de-garis.ghost.io/published-do...

#Publishing #Books #Author #Writer

Every month is women's history month on #womensart1 ! 💙

Running Orders BY LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA They call us now, before they drop the bombs. The phone rings and someone who knows my first name calls and says in perfect Arabic "This is David." And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass-shattering symphonies still smashing around in my head I think, Do I know any Davids in Gaza? They call us now to say Run. You have 58 seconds from the end of this message. Your house is next. They think of it as some kind of war-time courtesy. It doesn't matter that there is nowhere to run to. It means nothing that the borders are closed and your papers are worthless and mark you only for a life sentence in this prison by the sea and the alleyways are narrow

and there are more human lives packed one against the other more than any other place on earth Just run. We aren't trying to kill you. It doesn't matter that you can't call us back to tell us the people we claim to want aren't in your house that there's no one here except you and your children who were cheering for Argentina sharing the last loaf of bread for this week counting candles left in case the power goes out. It doesn't matter that you have children. You live in the wrong place and now is your chance to run to nowhere. It doesn't matter that 58 seconds isn't long enough to find your wedding album or your son's favorite blanket or your daughter's almost completed college application or your shoes or to gather everyone in the house. It doesn't matter what you had planned. It doesn't matter who you are. Prove you're human. Prove you stand on two legs. Run.

As Israel brutally attacks Gaza again, I am reminded of this devastating poem by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.

“It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
Prove you're human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.”

At the moment, I’m regrettably not having champagne and croissants in a quaint château in the French countryside, so no, I’m afraid your email did not “find me well.”

Monthly reminder: Many people have a book in them, but it takes a special kind of freak to leave the Land of Laziness, cross the Plains of Procrastination and Insecurity Mountain, find the Blade of No One Made You Do This, and use it to cut your chest open and yank that book out.

🇺🇦💙💛

From The Encyclopedia of Alternative Facts Frankenstein was the monster’s name.   There’s no such thing as climate change.   A solero is a type of hat.   The planet is not round but flat.      Six is the legal drinking age.   Women get paid an equal wage.   Elvis once sang in Take That.   The planet is not round but flat.      Achilles had a dodgy knee.   Terror comes from refugees.   Insomnia affects most cats.   The planet is not round but flat.      The president’s above the law. Russia did not start the war. It’s impossible to change a fact.   The planet is not round but flat.   Brian Bilston

Here’s a poem called ‘From The Encyclopedia of Alternative Facts’.

All I want is a cottage in the Scottish Highlands, a freshly-fallen snow, a crackling fire, a riveting mystery novel, a kettle on the stove, and a healthy supply of emotional support scones.

people tell you the best thing about having written a book is getting to call yourself a published author or sharing your vision with the world but really the best thing about having written a book is that you don't have to write it anymore

This was the year that was not the year   This was the year that was not the year  I repaired the bathroom tap  and emptied out the kitchen drawer  of a lifetime’s worth of crap.    This was the year that was not the year in which I launched a new career.  A West End hit eluded me  and so did Time Person of the Year.    This was the year that was not the year  I became a household name.  Action figures were not sold of me.  I wasn’t made a dame.    This was the year that was not the year I spent less time on my phone.  Nights of passion did not happen  in boutique hotels in Rome.    This was the year that was the year  I didn't get that much done – much the same as the year before,  much like the one to come.  Brian Bilston

Here’s a poem called ‘This was the year that was not the year’.

It is Dec 22 and I have been remiss in not yet posting any bizarre Victorian Christmas cards, so…

Here’s a reminder to make sure you remember to give the gift of a severed head with embedded cleaver this Yuletide.

Latest @theguardian.com cartoon
#GisèlePelicot

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Hello lovely Bluesky followers. To say thank you for following us & for being part of the Bookshop.org community, we're pleased to offer you an extra 10% off your books with code BSKY10, valid 18-19 December 🎄

📚 Every sale supports indie bookshops.
📚 Free upgrade to 1st class shipping on 2nd class

The Caveman’s Lament   me think about her when sun rises me think about her when sun sets me say to her how much me love her she tell me love invent not yet   me make cave all warm and cosy me lie bearskin on cave floor me play song of love on bone flute she choose cave of Tim next door   me no more go out hunt mammoth me throw spear too short or long me sit in cave me paint her picture  she say me got perspective wrong   me cook meal to show me love her — diplodocus with fried beans — she say food anachronistic me not know what this means   stone age mighty hard for lovers yet rub two flints look what you get small sparks lead to big inferno but she say love invent not yet homo unrequitus

Today’s poem is considered to be the world’s oldest surviving love poem, written 1.5 million years ago by one of our earliest ancestors, homo unrequitus. It’s called ‘The Caveman’s Lament’.

#Indieauthor #writingcommunity #amwritingfantasy #amwriting #writersky

“Well, that was awkward”

- Me, after 93% of my social interactions.

It’s 1st of December. Mull everything. Mull the wine, mull the cider, mull your tea, mull the tap water, mull the cat, mull the carpet, mull the chairs. Mull it all! Get your hair cut in a mullet. Mull the Kintyre. Mull the halls with boughs of holly. Get everything mulled. FULL MULL AHEAD!

Title: The John Le Carré Advent Calendar - Available in all good bookshops. Description - December 1st to 23rd: open the door to watch Gerorge Smiley reluctantly uncover a conspiracy as he wanders around the damp, dilapidated London of the seventies. (images of six of the doors, showing a stick figure os Smiley going about his business in shades of browny-gray) December 24th: Having solved the mystery and written his resignation letter, Smiley eats Christmas dinner alone. (image of Smiley at a table with a letter, unappetising portion of food and glass of wine, in browny-gray)

The John Le Carré Advent Calendar - My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com Books. (with apologies to @realjohnlecarre.bsky.social and @harkaway.bsky.social)

Pedents   Foot soldiers in the War on Error, They’re here to save us from ourselves, With Fowler’s Modern English Usage (first edition, nineteen twelve).   They scrutinise each word we write For typos, gaffes, et cetera, Correcting all our dumb mistakes To make our grammar betterer.   They sigh and tut and tell us off For the rules we have forsaken And chart this nation’s steep decline By the care we should of taken.   Custodians of the King’s English, They merely serve to keep it pure And restrict, they hope, the ignorant To three mistakes or less.   In doing so, they hold no fear they will deprive a thing of life: for it’s not important what is said, what matters is that its right. Brian Bilston

Today’s poem is dedicated to all those who have taken it upon themselves to correct the grammar or spelling in my poems over the last few weeks.

It’s called ‘Pedents’.

Best. News. Ever. 🦋 just got even better!

Painting of an interior with a central figure of a white girl standing with arms in the air, stretching, facing right with a large arched sunny window behind her, to the right is a table with a jug and dish, to the left is a section of a bed with sheets in disarray

Morning, 1954,
by Tetyana Yablonska, Ukrainian painter from Kyiv

Colour photograph featuring four women surrounding the head end of an elephant, the figures wear bright coloured saris, three stand and one sits nect to a bucket on the ground under the elephant's trunk, the amimal faces outwards and wears a crocheted covering with a pattern of squares within squared and red crocheted leg coverings

Local women crochet/knit sweaters to shield recovering, rescued elephants from the night cold, Elephant Conservation Care Center, Northern India, 2017

First rule of Gaslight Club:
Let’s not talk about Gaslight Club. You’ll only get upset again.

Bit of a reverse Black Friday tip. Go buy a book from an independent bookshop. While the richest companies in the world have another bonanza, put a smile on the face of a struggling writer and bookseller. Thank you x

The Waterstones #BookOfTheYear winners are here!

A sensation with booksellers and readers from day one, it could only be BUTTER by Asako Yuzuki 🐄

And Children’s Book of the Year is I AM REBEL by Ross Montgomery, an unforgettable canine adventure 🐕

📚 www.waterstones.com/category/cul...

Lines Written While Waiting for a Train at a Provincial Railway Station   If I could have my time over, I would do it all differently and not treat each precious moment with such disregard and flippancy.   I would use my time effectively, I would think ahead and plan. I would reserve my stores of energy, and take charge when I can.   But it’s too late in the journey for regret, too late to repent – because there’s not a plug socket in sight, and my battery’s on one per ce

Today’s poem is called ‘Lines Written While Waiting for a Train at a Provincial Railway Station’.

Pictorial textile artwork featuring a view of a gently rippled sea with a section of brown rocky land to the right, the water reflects sunlight from a rising sun on the horizon, all under a pale blue sky

Alison Holt, contemporary textile artist who creates machine and hand embroidered land and seascapes