VPFJ is seeking to expand its pool of expert reviewers.
Send an email to VPFJournal@gmail.com with subject "VPFJ Reviewer Database" including:
- A short CV (or link to institutional profile) and ORCID.
- Preferred email address for contact.
- Up to 10 research keywords
- Any recent publications
The day may come when I watch the extended editions over the long Easter weekend without crying in every single one and being a blubbering mess by the end of Return of the King, but it is not this day!
(But seriously. What a way to spend the long weekend.)
Fab day @ the VPFA Sensation Fiction & the Health Humanities study day yesterday. As ever, wonderful to catch up with everyone, make new connections, & be immersed in so much interesting research. Thank you @braddonite.bsky.social for putting together such a great day & programme! @vpfa.bsky.social
Happy 3-year anniversary to my first ever publication: 'The Neo-Victorian Corset'. It has a very special place in my heart and marked the start of the next stage in my career, even if I remain slightly sad I couldn't come up with a zestier title... doi.org/10.3366/vic....
In a new article, Toni Beardmore from our Department of Geography and Earth Sciences discusses how ‘Banter’ about where you’re from or how you speak is harder to define than racism or sexism, but it is damaging.
🖱️ tinyurl.com/5n7p4dr8
#SocialJustice
I went to a VPFA 'Turning your thesis into a monograph' workshop in 2022. After completing my PhD, I thought I'd maybe mine my thesis for a couple of articles and leave it at that. I left the workshop motivated, re-inspired, and my monograph is now in production 👀
So: sign up!
@vpfa.bsky.social
Join the VPFA for a workshop on publishing Victorian Popular Fiction!
✅ Turning your thesis into a monograph.
✅ Writing a winning book proposal.
✅ Insights from the VPFJ editorial committee.
✅ Handling peer review & rejection
📅 26th February at 6pm
🔗 See your emails for the registration link!
Thirteen books, flanked by a plant, a brass Labrador, and an orange pot: Hera, by Jennifer Saint; The 12 Days of Xmas, by Susan Stokes-Chapman; The Siren of Sussex, by Mimi Matthews; Palestine +100, ed. by Basma Ghalayini; Babel, by R.F. Kiang; Welcome to the Hyuanam-Dong Bookshop, by Hwang Boreum; Witsh, by Mari Ellis Dunning; Rivals, by Jilly Cooper; Enter Ghost, by Isabella Hammad; Sunrise on the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins. Laying on top: Ghosted, by Alice Vernon; Pixel Flesh, by Ellen Atlanta; Teta, Mother, and Me, by Jean Said Makdisi.
My top 10 fiction reads of the year, with 3 NF honourable mentions. At least 2 made me cry, & I was able to help launch another 2 here in Aber.
Hear me out re: Rivals. Bonkbuster is may be, but it's also a biting social commentary with a fascinatingly observational narrative voice. I was a big fan.
Christopher Columbus! I've written a new blog post for @vpfa.bsky.social, this time on the Christmassiness of Little Women adaptations...
It was much harder than anticipated. I changed the ranking many times. I began to question everything. I still am...
victorianpopularfiction.org/christmas-wo...
Ghosted is in Bloomsbury's Christmas sale and the hardback is currently £14 until 7th December. It even includes a recipe for ectoplasm you can shoot from your nose - a reliable way to get out of any complicated post-Christmas-dinner board game.
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ghosted-9...
Please give Emma's wonderful blog post about Guillermo del Torro's Frankenstein a read. Let us know your thoughts, did you enjoy the film? What did you like and dislike? Even if it deviated from the book, did it, as Emma says, still keep its 'soul'?
I had some thoughts (and many emotions) about the new Frankenstein film, so wrote this review for the VPFA Blog @vpfa.bsky.social
Philomena Cunk memes: a major part of the review, or a side thought? You'll have to read it to find out...
victorianpopularfiction.org/frankenstein...
Search result for 'lord byron' showing John Polidori's 'The Vampyre; a Tale' as the top result
I never expected Project Gutenberg to be the deliverer of such a thrill. Lord Byron would be *fuming*...
Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein is amazing. What a spectacular film, and adaptation. A work of art. Costumes: amazing. Visuals: stunning. Heart and soul of the book? Firmly in place. My emotions? All over the place. So many tears. Exquisite stuff, cannot recommend highly enough.
A pleasure & a privilege to have helped my good friend @mariellisdunning.bsky.social launch her debut novel WITSH last week in the Drwm @librarywales.bsky.social, mere hours after Aber was announced as Wales's first UNESCO City of Literature!
Missed out? ⬇️
youtu.be/Xa8P98gUQoQ?...
Really looking forward to this evening's launch at @librarywales.bsky.social 📚✨
Tickets have flown & while I'm a tad nervous to be addressing The Drwm after attending so many events there, I can't wait to chat about Welsh witshes, spells, superstition, religion & misogyny.
tinyurl.com/37ddc4fn
Agree with the Jane Eyre suggestions - but would also suggest The Woman in White, particularly in terms of the relationship between it and neo-Vic fiction in a generic/literary sense (see Cox 2019, for example)?
📖 A haunting novel inspired by the largely unknown history of Welsh witchcraft has been published by one of our lecturers.
🖱️ tinyurl.com/3nhm5fyc
@mariellisdunning.bsky.social
#novel #history #wales #witchcraft
👻 Writing in The Conversation, Dr Alice Vernon from the Department of English & Creative Writing discusses how our hunt for ghosts reveals more about the living than the dead.
🖱 tinyurl.com/yhrk9av7
@alicevernon10.bsky.social
#ghosts #ghosthunting #supernatural
This was a super encouraging read - I am *so* excited about this adaptation!
Kemi Badenoch wants to end ‘rip-off degrees’ – but I wouldn’t have created Horrid Henry without mine | Francesca Simon
And after that, I'm hot-footing it down the hill to Waterstones, trying to avoid being waylaid by ghosts with unfinished business at crossroads, to chat to @alicevernon10.bsky.social about her new book, GHOSTED. Will I be able to sleep afterwards? Who knows...
www.waterstones.com/events/alice...
I'm very much looking forward to my busy Halloween night this year. First up, chatting to @mariellisdunning.bsky.social at the National Library of Wales about her haunting debut novel, WITSH, set in C16th Wales during the Welsh witch trials...
www.ticketsource.co.uk/llgcnlw/evt-...
I'm doing a book launch for Ghosted at Waterstones Aberystwyth on Halloween night at 7pm. It's going to be a spooky evening!
Info and tickets: www.waterstones.com/events/alice...
What a joy it was getting this page ready to go! All the thanks to @helenaesser.bsky.social for the material!
Here we'll have reflections, contemplations, speculations and more (all of a Victorian/neo-Victorian nature, of course).
Interested in contributing? Follow the link below & get in touch!
There are, I think, few things as humbling as the automatic captions to a lecture that reveal just how often you say 'Um'...
Oh, and Panopto has spoken: my name is now, apparently, Emma Holloway...
Want to try something new? I'm running #Writing Women again through Aberystwyth Uni's Lifelong Learning.
✶ Online course
✶ Self-paced
✶ One to one feedback
✶ Expert guidance
Here's the link to my course, & there are heaps of others to choose from too!
www.aber.ac.uk/en/lifelong-...
#WritingSky
Happy publication day to Ghosted! This book was so much fun to research and write, and I can't wait to go on a ghost hunt again.
Thank you to everyone who's ordered a copy! I hope you enjoy reading it...with all the lights on, obviously. 👻
(Note: video plays crackling static sound)
Reflections on leaving salaried academia: lessons I've learned.
profandrewking.me.uk/2025/08/31/r...
I'll be running Writing Women again in the new semester through Aberystwyth University's Lifelong Learning.
✶ Online course
✶ Self-paced
✶ One to one feedback
✶ Expert guidance
Here's the link to my course, but there are heaps of others to choose from too!
www.aber.ac.uk/en/lifelong-...
