Katie da Cunha Lewin

I'm so so sorry to hear this

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252:

Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email.

Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

The perfect gift for your bookish friends this Christmas…

‘The Writer’s Room is a delightful book, brimming with warmth and insight.’ Review31

Order from @waterstones.bsky.social here: bit.ly/48NdbN0
@kdclewin.bsky.social #Christmas #literary #creative #ChristmasGifts #Xmas #BooksForChristmas

Anna Aslanyan | On the Picket Line On Monday morning, more than a hundred people formed a picket line outside one of the entrances to the British Library...

‘“People need to pay their bills,” one of the pickets told me. Some are forced to work several jobs. Many talked of the effect of the 2023 cyberattack on their workload.’

Anna Aslanyan on the strike at the British Library, from the blog.

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

My impression is that the most rapid and really brutal university cuts are now revving up. Each of the threefold tumblers of White Paper, Budget and strike ballot failure have turned and made the situation much worse. In some places the cynicism and speed is frightening. (1/2)

It sounds fascinating Anindya! Congratulations

a new monograph by one of our fabulous advisory board ☺️

Ha well I wouldn't want to impose my work on the group!!

The front cover of The Edinburgh Companion to the Millennial Novel

The contents page of The Edinburgh Companion to the Millennial Novel

Very happy to receive my copy of The Edinburgh Companion to the Millennial Novel edited by Loic Bourdeau and @cilloyd.bsky.social. I'm in there talking about (what else) writers and writing work. Great to see the contribution from my @c21literature.bsky.social colleague @heyitsdenisew.bsky.social

Really sorry to hear this. Sending solidarity

Badenoch says the Conservatives would want fewer “low value degrees” and many more apprenticeships. As ever with such announcements I will perhaps take it more seriously when the kids of government ministers and MPs are routinely doing apprenticeships and not degrees.

Reading Rooms at the British Library are closed *all week* because so many of its workers refuse to work for pitiful wages in a contemptuously authoritarian and obliviously managed environment.
We need leaders who get it and are big enough to sort it out!
It’s a mess and a disgrace.
Lift it up!!

Solidarity, once more, with the staff at the British Library. The people who keep it going and who make it what it is should not be on poverty wages and living in fear of abuse from angry users. Something needs to change!

Solidarity, once more, with the staff at the British Library. The people who keep it going and who make it what it is should not be on poverty wages and living in fear of abuse from angry users. Something needs to change!

In yet more devastating news, the VC has confirmed her plans to cut 80% of academic staff from Essex Pathways, our foundation year department. This would effectively close down all our existing foundation year programmes through the back door.

But it's not a done deal yet. Please share urgently.

⏱️FOUR MORE WEEKS to submit your abstract to @darlingorlaith.bsky.social and Fionnula Simpson for their upcoming 8-9 June 'Bad Feelings: Sadness and Gender in Contemporary Culture' conference, a research project funded by the UCD Humanities Institute's Seed Funding Scheme.

Life-Giving, Imaginative and Underfunded: Small Press Publishers in Crisis A recent letter co-written and signed by small press publishers has highlighted the significant pressures they face, threatening them with closure and potentially damaging the literary ecosystem ir…

Up now on @literaryhub.bsky.social; an in-depth interview with small press publishers on what they do and how they do it, how they differ from commercial publishing in content & form, on funding, their impact on literary communities, & some excellent book recommends🎄

lithub.com/life-giving-...

What do we know about University of Essex's Southend campus closure? The university says it will be moving students from its Southend campus to Colchester.

This is disastrous. And the news are mostly hidden- not at all prioritised by the BBC as breaking news across their channels/platforms. I had to dig deep to find this link. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I've also been very surprised (perhaps foolishly) by the complete lack of coverage of enormous announcements like this - but I guess it's following the government's lead?

I’m so sorry to bring your day to a screeching halt but think about if this was your own child. Your little first grader. Just think about it.

Job titles of writer jobs currently advertised on LinkedIn: Conversion Copywriter Trainee; Junior Technical Writer; Freelance AI Insights Writer; Generative AI Prompt Writer; Content Evaluator; Human in the Loop intern; Human Perspective Writer

Hoping to start a new book project on plagiarism and all that that entails - would love to hear from people about interesting cases?! So far, I am really so obsessed by the absolutely fascinating case of Nella Larsen and her supposed plagiarism of a Sheila Kaye-Smith story

But Labour MPs can’t put on hi-vis and a hard hat to visit for a photo opp, so they don’t count this as work and they don’t count these as jobs with saving

Job titles of writer jobs currently advertised on LinkedIn: Conversion Copywriter Trainee; Junior Technical Writer; Freelance AI Insights Writer; Generative AI Prompt Writer; Content Evaluator; Human in the Loop intern; Human Perspective Writer

It's official: 400 redundancies and a campus closure. At-risk staff will get a letter next week. Absolutely no serious consideration of any of the union's counterproposals.

Please share widely.

Second wave of strikes at British Library announced - Research Professional News Union says lack of stable leadership after chief executive’s departure has “undoubtedly undermined staff confidence”

This looks great, and sorry to be a party pooper but I can't help but notice this is at the BL. Workers just announced a new wave of strikes next week: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

Second wave of strikes at British Library announced - Research Professional News Union says lack of stable leadership after chief executive’s departure has “undoubtedly undermined staff confidence”

Breaking: Second wave of strikes at British Library announced

Union says lack of stable leadership after chief executive’s departure has “undoubtedly undermined staff confidence”

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

Yes there are degrees of it certainly - Marvin Gaye seems to be a common target i.e. in that most famous case Blurred Lines. But yes pop music has a sound, a register, with only so much variety!

Oh God, in music it's just a nightmare! That's a brilliant one - tracing those lines of overlap could be fun

The accusation and the fact she never published another piece of work after has created this strange narrative that her promising career was 'spoiled' by her actions, that she could have gone on to even greater things - though in my mind she produced two pretty perfect novels