Dr. Vik Shirley
@VikShirley
Followers
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Following
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Poet/Writer. Online Ed @SublunaryEds . @DisruptedBlue IndiePressPub @Carcanet @ShearsmanBooks @VanguardRead @BlackHeraldPress @PN_Review . Co-ed @MercuriusMagz1
Edinburgh, Scotland
Joined August 2013
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Last Seen Profiles
Pinned Tweet
Updated pinned tweet time! All my publications to date. Available
@sublunaryeds
@zimZalla
@Haverthorn
@H_G_Press
. If you request Poets enough
@theredceilings
they may do another run. Grotesquerie
@beirbuapress
not currently available, but will be in 2025. More news on that soon!x
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So, anyway, I passed my viva with minor corrections. Time to change my tag to Dr. Vik Shirley! 🥂
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‘Somewhere at the root of this, the crystalline jumble of Rimbaud's Illuminations, like a disordered collection of magic lantern slides, each an "intense & rapid dream,"…is still emitting pulses. If we are absolutely modern…it's because Rimbaud commanded us to be.’—JOHN ASHBERY
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Four Tarkovsky Polaroids for you. I treat you real nice. Don’t forget it.
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Having my morning coffee at sister’s in the David Lynch mug I bought her from his Manchester exhibition. 🖤
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About to mail this to my eight-year old niece.
Leonora Carrington’s The Milk of Dreams (The New York Review Children’s Collection), picked up at Apparition Books in Seattle last week.
Pretty sure this establishes me as Best Auntie Ever.
🥛 🏠 💭 🥛🏠💭🥛🏠💭🥛🏠💭
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Leonora Carrington drawings. In The Debutante and other stories.
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"I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them."
John Ashbery
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One of my all-time fave poem endings.
‘Winter’ by Michael Earl Craig from his first collection Can You Relax in My House
@FenceBooks
.
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The work of Japanese Surrealist collage artist, Toshiko Okanoue (1928-present), who produced most of her work in the 1950s. 🖤🖤🖤
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besides a grunge album, repost a great album released in the 90s
besides a grunge album, repost a great album released in the 90s
(& we can argue about what *grunge* means out back -- i welcome it )
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RIP Lyn Hejinian (1941-2024).
Two from The Unfollowing in The Reality Street Book of Sonnets, edited by Jeff Hilson.
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
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Dipped into Anne Carson’s pamphlet collection, Float, and got snagged on her translations of Émile Nelligan, Canadian symbolist poet, who wrote in French, & who was institutionalised aged 19.
“The poems are black stabs at winter & transcendence.”
Two poems & end note here. 🖤
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John Ashbery with Christmas tree for world peace, you guys. What a stinking year for this messed up planet. Marvel at the baubles and his jumper, and light a motherfucking candle. 🕯️
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These window reflections on a block of flats this morning are a poem.
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“I have always liked people who can't adapt themselves to life pragmatically.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time
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Submitted my PhD on Friday night. Completed in three years. Started in in Bristol, worked on extensively in Birmingham, progressed in London & finished in Edinburgh. Huge thanks to my amazing supervisor,
@LukeKennard
💖 & to my partner
@impcommands
for his support last week. 💖
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What publishers publish small chapbooks of experimental poetry? Like process driven stuff. Under 30 pages.
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Is it even Christmas if nobody’s shared this yet? Simply having an Ashbery Christmas time. 🎶
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“The reason we go to poetry is not for wisdom, but for the dismantling of wisdom”
― Jacques Lacan
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Excited to be heading up Firmament mag online as Digital Editor!
As writer No.3 to be published
@sublunaryeds
back in 2020, entering year 4 of working for the press, I could not be happier moving into this role.
Endless thanks to
@joshuarothes
.
I can’t wait to read your work!
Announcement 🧵!
Submissions are open for the first time for the website! Starting next month, we'll be publishing regularly there, with new work, as well as archival content from the Subluniverse. (Yeah, I said it.)
Our dear
@VikShirley
will be at the helm as Digital Editor.
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Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959-1979, published by Primary Information.
Pictured: Tomoso Binga, Liliana Landi, Liliane Lijn & Ana Hatherly.
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Two books I have stolen from my boyfriend past and present.
Boyfriend likely to remain present boyfriend due, in part, to excellent taste in books.
@CBeditions
@Dalkey_Archive
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2022 update! More witchcraft at my end, I’m afraid. I now have 4 books available.
Corpses
@sublunaryeds
The Continued Closure of the Blue Door
@Haverthorn
Disrupted Blue & other poems on Polaroid
@H_G_Press
Grotesquerie for the Apocalypse
@beirbuapress
Links on website. x
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“She hated the way he repeated himself / along long corridors like a bad hotel carpet”
Carpet by Ali Lewis in Hotel 🏨
@VervePoetryPres
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Typical.
In Figures for an Apocalypse by Edward Mullany.🐰☠️
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“These moribund miniatures take the boundary between life and death as their playground, capturing the triviality and quotidian horror of being human.”
My chapbook, Corpses, published today
@sublunaryeds
.
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“If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it is not.”
― John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings
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My mum died age 52 in 2003. In 2020 I made Disrupted Blue & other poems on Polaroid, using discarded photos she took travelling round Europe in 1970s. The photo-poems’ text was built from lyrics of one of her fave albums, Joni Mitchell’s Blue.💙
@H_G_Press
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As if by some act of evil sorcery, I now have 3 books:
my lil book of black miniatures, Corpses
@sublunaryeds
,
my collection, The Continued Closure of the Blue Door
@Haverthorn
,
& my photo-poetry book, Disrupted Blue & other poems on Polaroid
@H_G_Press
.
Links on my website.x
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“(you guessed it)” 😂
I think about this poem by Zach Schomburg more than is normal.
@BlackOceanOrg
🗡 ⚔️
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My book, Grotesquerie for the Apocalypse
@beirbuapress
, is here! Published and available today. Many thanks to editor
@MoloneyKing
and to
@stevenjfowler
@zimZalla
and
@LukeKennard
for the blurbs.
💕🖤💕🖤💕🖤💕🖤💕
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Have become fascinated w/ top right hand corner of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights recently. One for
@Oniropolis
?
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My mum died aged 52 over 20 years ago. In Disrupted Blue & other poems on Polaroid
@H_G_Press
, I worked w/photos she took travelling around Europe & Canada in 1970s & disrupted lyrics of her favourite LP, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, to make poems. That’s my mum on the cover. 💙
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Immersed in Selected Works of Yi Sang
@WavePoetry
. Korean poet, lived under Japanese occupation. Died very young. Influenced by European Modernism/Dada/Surrealism. This book is an absolute treasure trove, ft. translations by
@daybreakjung
@sawakonakayasu
@DonMeeChoi
@JoyelleMcS
.
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A box of Blue just got here, upstaging all other things in my world, rn.
There were printing probs & things were delayed, but so happy that it is now out in the world.
It is a deeply personal book, as photos I worked with were taken by my mother who died in 2003.
@H_G_Press
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It’s a coming! 🖤
Further out:
August:
THE GRASP OF THINGS, poems by Aishwarya Iyer
September:
INDETERMINATE INFLORESCENCE, an aphoristic lecture on poetry by Lee Seong-bok (tr.
@AntonHur
)
October:
NOTES FROM THE UNDERWORLD, grotesque miniatures by
@VikShirley
w/ illustrations by
@joshuarothes
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I’m going to start offering advice on poetry (also v.short fiction) manuscripts, full-length collections or pamphlets, also on bunches of 5 poems+, from September. I’m an editor, Poetry School tutor & have also taught at unis. Bio on website. Contact me for rates.RTs appreciated!
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My advance copies of 'The Continued Closure of the Blue Door'
@Haverthorn
have arrived & preorders are now open! Many thanks to Tom Jenks
@zimZalla
,
@LukeKennard
&
@colinjherd
for their lovely words on the book & to
@badbadpoet
for the stunning artwork:
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Late night Ashbery poem for the last day of November. The finest of all the months. Goodbye my love. Until next year. 🍂
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It is an honour & a privilege to share the work of
@PoetKimHyesoon
today in Surreal-Absurd
@Mercuriusmagaz1
, with a selection of poems from her collection I’m OK, I’m Pig!
@BloodaxeBooks
translated by
@DonMeeChoi
. Enjoy!🖤🌈
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In the summer of 1907, in a letter to his wife from Paris, …Rainer Maria Rilke meditates on three branches of heather placed in a blue velvet-lined pencil box before him on his desk… “One lives so badly, because one always comes into the present unfinished, unable, distracted."
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Happy birthday, Philip Glass. 86 today. Love this. Him on Beckett, who was one of the biggest influences on his work.
“To me … he represented the quintessential postmodernist. He took away the meaning of a work and made it meaningful.”
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Firmament online is here, you guys! So excited to be launching this today! Expect more wondrous literary golden nuggets delivered to your timeline from this day forward. It’s an utter joy to kick off with
@JoyelleMcS
,
@kyrasimone11
& Wolfgang Hilbig, translated by
@unpaginated
!✨
Today, we launch a refreshed online publishing presence! Under the editorial auspices of
@VikShirley
, we'll be bringing you new writing multiple times a week. We begin today work from Wolfgang Hilbig (tr.
@unpaginated
),
@JoyelleMcS
, and
@kyrasimone11
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Have had some poems translated into Slovakian and Czech. This makes me happy.
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David Lynch giving us all an excuse to up our coffee and sugar intake.
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16:45, Birmingham, England. Dark and blustery. Just the way I like it.
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Wow. Blown away by the first story (opening page pictured) in this collection!
#trainreading
#surrealabsurd
💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
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Recent-ish arrivals, which should keep me out of trouble for the foreseeable! 🥳 📚
@TearsInTheFence
@sawakonakayasu
@steelincisors
@natascha_bruce
@f_sd
@Confingo
@haulpawkins
@prototypepubs
@niewview
@JordanDavisPoet
@stephensunderla
@RoughTradeBooks
@Omnidawn
@FitzcarraldoEds
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The more I read this poem by
@msamykey
in the new Poetry Review, the more I adore it. ❤️
@PoetrySociety
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Happy New Year, all.
I've been quiet on here last few days due to mental health crash, triggered by couple of things + general stuff.
I'm fine & luckily have support bubble bud, so not entirely isolated, but think worth mentioning these things so others know they're not alone
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RIP Bernadette Mayer. 🖤
‘Before Sextet’ from The Penguin Book of Oulipo, edited by Philip Terry.
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.
@SmallPublishers
book haul! Mistook London Gothic for Manchester Uncanny
@nicholasroyle
@Confingo
! MU now on Xmas list!
@stevenjfowler
@badbettypress
@ggaffa
@timglaset
@EquusPress
@uglyducklingprs
@AnsgarAllen
@MinxMarple
@partisanhotel
@SharonKivland
@LouisArmxnd
@LesFugitives
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Just a reminder that pre-orders for my Notes from the Underworld
@sublunaryeds
, w/illustrations
@joshuarothes
, are open. Corpses
@sublunaryeds
still available in meantime, as are Continued Closure
@Haverthorn
& Disrupted Blue
@H_G_Press
. More news on
@zimZalla
publication soon!🖤
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“Diseases of puppets are tiny, thread-like, with soft funereal furcoats and big ears. And small claw-like feet.”
Miroslav Holub translated by Ewald Osers.
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David Foster Wallace nailing the fact that the “narrative movement” in David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress is “spiral.” Yes! I’m also digging “stream of conscious utterance” as “mode of presentation.”
Footnote in afterword of Wittgenstein’s Mistress
@Dalkey_Archive
.
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Me at 20. On stage at Moles in Bath here, with my first band. Actually, I think more like 23, but it’s as close as I can get. Whatever the specifics, that is one moody face. Perhaps something to do with my nothing-more-than-adequate musicianship. 😂
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A sunny send off. Goodbye Seattle! 👋
Yours truly and
@joshuarothes
on our way to the airport earlier.
Me and my billion books flying back to Edinburgh via Heathrow in a couple of hours.
It’s been a blast
@sublunaryeds
#awp
📚🥳📚🥳📚🥳📚🥳📚🥳📚🥳📚🥳
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Out today
@H_G_Press
, my photo-poetry book, Disrupted Blue and other poems on Polaroid. Many thanks to
@HeyAstranaut
,
@stevenjfowler
and Darran Anderson
@Oniropolis
for the blurbs, and to
@joshuarothes
&
@haulpawkins
for cover art.
💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙
"I want to shout at readers GET THIS BOOK, this is the work that needs doing"
@stevenjfowler
We publish Disrupted Blue & other poems on Polaroid by
@VikShirley
today! As a beautiful premium colour
#photopoetry
hardback - grab a copy here
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My Notes from the Underworld
w/illustrations
@joshuarothes
out 2day! The underworld as you’ve never seen it, a kind of complex more like a rundown “Vegas hotel named The Underworld than the place itself”, shows our pettiness, disappointments & failures follow us beyond the grave.
Out today—and shipping imminently, with copies on the doorstep!—Vik Shirley's (
@VikShirley
) cthonic sequel to Corpses, NOTES FROM THE UNDERWORLD, illustrated by
@joshuarothes
.
64 pages, full color throughout, snag your copy here:
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“Poseidon sat at his desk, going over the accounts. The administration of all the waters gave him endless work.”
A very short fiction by Franz Kafka, translated by Tania and James Stern.
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“You thought you could ride a bicycle / but, turns out those weren’t bikes / they were extremely bony horses.”
@CarolineBirdUK
from ‘The Air Year’
@Carcanet
🚲 🐎🚲🐎🚲🐎🚲🐎🚲
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New specs / bird’s nest hair / poet at work / West Germany shirt Italia 90
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Just a working-class poet, who works hard af, off out for a dance with some lovely poet friends. Have a good night everyone. 🪩🪩🪩xx
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Alex Katz, Frank O'Hara (1959) in John Ashbery Reported Sightings: Art Chronicles 1957-1987.
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“I’d like to accept your offer of medication.”
So good. So dark.
One of the blurbs in the front describes as “Samuel Beckett had he written the script for Alien.”
Spot on.
@LolliEditions
#OlgaRavn
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Have been working my way through
@CBeditions
back catalogue and what a pleasure that is. I read Kristóf’s The Notebook in a single volume at an earlier date, but am going to reread that and bosh the rest of the trilogy in one swoop over Christmas. What an extraordinary writer. 🖤
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It was an honour to host today’s Surreal Conversations
@PTBOpoetry
with
@VCapildeo
@LukeKennard
& to delve into their surreal worlds & poems in the Anatomy Theatre (my kind of venue 🖤)
@Summerhallery
with lovely, attentive & engaged audience. Very special event to be part of. ☺️
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Had really ace time at
@SmallPublishers
running stall for
@sublunaryeds
.
Thanks to those who dropped by to buy & say hello.
Lovely to meet so many readers, publishers, writers & poets.
Pic: cards for books that still hadn’t arrived 30 mins before fair opened!
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Have been notified that my PhD thesis, The Nervous Tic: Dark Humour and the Surreal in Poetry
@unibirmingham
, is now available online!
#AcademicTwitter
News on where the creative part of the PhD is being published soon…
…and news on my pamphlet Some Deer also to come!
🖤🦌
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Pic of my mum age 21. Her mum was half Italian, fam from Bedonia, N. Italy. Mum died in 2003 at 52. In my forthcoming
@H_G_Press
pamphlet I work with Polaroids she took of structures when she travelled, & lyrics of her fave LP Joni Mitchell’s Blue.
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Woohoo!! Now that’s what I call supplies. Just broke open this box of delights, which arrived yesterday. Not quite sure where to start!!
@sublunaryeds
❤️❤️❤️
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Such a strong issue of Firmament
@jess_sequeira
@sublunaryeds
.
Thomas Bernhard fans will be interested in Johann Nestroy (1801-1862) tr.
@KristoforMinta
. Short extract here. Nestroy Viennese writer considered spiritual precursor to Bernhard.
Kivland & Khir/Mazwin also pictured.
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My physical copy of this beauty is finally here! Lee Seong-bok, translated by
@AntonHur
@sublunaryeds
. Poetry lectures as micro-poems. 470 aphorisms on poetry collected by the students of Lee Seong-bok, one of South Korea’s most preeminent living poets.🩵
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Been out catching clouds and playing with them again. ☁️☁️☁️
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It’s that time! Pre-orders for Notes from the Underworld are open!
Now available for pre-order,
@VikShirley
's NOTES FROM THE UNDERWORLD, the cthonic sequel to CORPSES that follows the unfortunate souls of Hades through the mundanities and minor indignities of the afterlife. Illustrated by
@joshuarothes
. Out Halloween!
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Reading new poems in Glasgow tonight, w/
@undigest
,
@_FredCarter
& Mendoza! (Will also inc. a few from
@beirbuapress
@Haverthorn
@sublunaryeds
@theredceilings
bks.) This gig marks end of a ridiculously busy period for me. Nice to finish w/such fab event
@mariaxrose
@colinjherd
. 💜
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Last night I met one of my fave lyricists of all time, Stuart Murdoch
@nee_massey
of Belle & Sebastian
@bellesglasgow
, who was reading from his book-in-progress
@PTBOpoetry
. To chat with someone whose words & humour have given me so much joy & pleasure over the years was AMAZING!
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Me auditioning for the next David Lynch film or Twin Peaks series 4.
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In addition to my publicity work
@ShearsmanBooks
& Associate Ed/Publicity role
@sublunaryeds
, I’m delighted to announce that I’ll now be assisting
@CBeditions
w/publicity too. V.grateful for these opportunities w/such fantastic presses. Huge thanks to eds, Tony, Josh, & Charles.
Ducks in a row: CB editions September newsletter, archived on Sonofabook blog:
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A selection of my work, from Corpses
@sublunaryeds
and The Continued Closure of the Blue Door
@Haverthorn
, is now up
@Mercuriusmagaz1
, as next installment of Poetry of Life, a celebration of the surreal and absurd. Many thanks to
@postpran
for publishing.
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Spoiler alert: having academic qualifications doesn't stop you being a total idiot.
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Just a quick Valentines reminder that we are open for submissions
#Firmament
online
@sublunaryeds
.
Lotta ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for the submissions we’ve received so far!
Keep ‘em coming!
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Beir Bua is closing, so my chapbook, Grotesquerie for the Apocalypse will only be available until 30th June. Chances are its contents will pop up in my next collection, but the intro essay won’t, and this is last chance to grab it as a stand-alone piece.
The press will be closing down by end of June 2023. The books will no longer be for sale on the site or lulu.
I am so happy I was a part of this community. And feel that these books are an important part of the Pandemic archive.
Maybe one day I will reopen...who knows.
Bye x
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I adore the short stories of Katherine Mansfield, who was born this day 1888, & would highly recommend her Selected. Also love that hers is the only writing that Virginia Woolf was ever jealous of. Here’s a prose poem of hers from The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem
@jntod
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