11 January 2024 - paperback All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything **Sunday Times Literary Book of the Year 2023** **Waterstones Best Books of 2023** 'a kind of masterclass on the short story' - D.Telegraph

'I, so wary of traps, So skilful to outwit Springes and pitfalls set Am caught now, perhaps' Sylvia Townsend Warner asleep with Thomas the cat, caught by her lover Valentine Ackland. From 'The True Voice of the Heart', now at @ReadingSylvia @UCLpress

On Dickens's overpowering charisma, for @Lit_Review:

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby - review by Claire Harman via @Lit_Review 'The hidden treasure within this story [is] the powerful, barely expressed knowledge of each other’s characters that both the Misses Austen took to their graves.'

@NewWritingNorth @DCMS @ace_national @NorthumbriaUni @NewcastleCC @NorthEast_CA @KiMcGuinness @HachetteUK @CreativeCentNCL Wonderful news. Many congratulations!

@sunduss_h Julie Christie, very.

My review of the new edition of Emily Dickinson's Letters, for the Christmas Literary Review: @Lit_Review @DickinsonMuseum @emilydicknsnbot

@polblonde Congratulations! Another terrific and very well-deserved review.

Rather extraordinary news: Sylvia Townsend Warner is going to have a statue in Dorchester. On a bench, with a cat. Permission has been granted, but the campaign needs support. Here's its charming little film (complete with an animated cigarette):

@ailsacox Thank you!

Another chance to catch this hour-long edition of Open Book on Katherine Mansfield, recorded last year in celebration of her centenary. Thanks to Chris Power @chris_power , and fellow contributors Lucy Caldwell @beingvarious and Chris Mourant @CMourant

Chawton House Library is a magical place. If you've got a minute to add your name to this nomination list, please do! @ChawtonHouse

@LearNonsense @Lit_Review My pleasure! And that's wonderful cover art by Chris Riddell.

For the @royallitfund on ' My True Genre'. '[Writing poems] has given me the most satisfaction and has bothered the reading public least. Nobody has to like them, they don’t have to be good, they don’t have to be frequent. It's perfect.'

RT @wmarybeard: There are just a few tickets left for the TLS Ackerley Prize ceremony in London on 25 July. £5 for wine, music plus the cer…

The shortlist is published today! Congratulations to all three authors @Mo_Charlesworth @KatyaTaylor @PlutoPress @TheTLS Winner announced on 25 July

It was a great honour to be part of the unveiling today of the new plaque to @IrisMurdoch in Cornwall Gdns. Wonderful speeches from Anne Rowe, @miles_leeson, @sophiehannahCB1 (whose pics these are) and @AnnetteBadland1, seen here pulling the cord.

'the possibility and the risk of imagining what others see and feel, through which we just about manage to live together'; Tessa Hadley's pin-sharp analysis of the genius of Alice Munro in @stingingfly:

Valentine Ackland was born on this day, 20 May, in 1906. This sombre poem is from the end of a posthumous collection published in 1978. Hardly anyone read VA or knew about her in her lifetime, but the sentiment here is timeless: @DorsetMuseum @ReadingSylvia

Very pleased to have received this deeply appreciative profile from @PalatinateUK and @catrnz_