Katie McDermott

Remember when we hounded & harassed kids who put books online for public educational access?

Or the music geeks we threw in jail for sharing mp3s?

It’s all just “oopsie” now?

His product can only ever be profitable if we continue to allow him to steal the commons & sell it back to us.

Introduced the three-year-old to 'My Neighbor Totoro' today. She loved it, but especially the soot gremlins or "spud gremlins" as she kept calling them. Studio Ghibli, but for culchie kids 😅

This is what the phrase “wiping them off the face of the Earth” actually looks like. Devastating aerial footage of the literal annihilation of #Gaza by Israel, truly one of the worst war crimes of the last century.

Today we are launching the Irish KidLit for Palestine Fundraiser in support of Medical Aid for Palestinians (@medicalaidpal.bsky.social‬)

Running from 4th August to 17th August 2025.

You can check out the fundraiser at www.ruthennis.com/irish-kidlit-for-palestine

@sineadohart.bsky.social

July reading wrap up

This is the thing about self-pub and now even trad-pub (if things go that way.) I have five kids. I have some chronic illnesses. The time I do have at my disposal should be for the writing portion of the gig. If I have to try and go viral on TikTok? If I have to have an aesthetic on Instagram? Oof.

Modern life: trying to consume just enough news and social media to stay informed but not so much that you become paranoid or mentally unwell.

"There is no case since WW2 of starvation that has been so minutely designed and controlled"

Famine expert Alex de Waal on Israel deliberately starving an entire civilian population

I don't think people in power really get how broken all those images of children with bits blown off them has made us.

The social contract is broken. Things cannot go on as they are. We cannot witness the forced starvation of millions, documented before our eyes and continue.

A laptop open on Scrivener, set to dark mode, with a half eaten scone and jam on a plate in front of it

Back to work after a week off sick, let's see if I can write anything coherent

(The ladies in church Street cafe Kingscourt coming through with the cure for me)

Friendly reminder📚

Applications for the in-person Six-Month Fiction Workshop are open until 5pm (Irish time) Tuesday July 22 ⏰

This is our first fully in-person workshop since the pandemic.

📸Patrick Fleming, Summer School 2025
@irishwriterscentre.bsky.social

🔗 stingingfly.org/6-month-work...

An ink drawing on cartridge paper. Signed in ‘Tom Gauld Title: How to focus on writing your book There follow eleven tiny images telling a story. The captions read: Turn your devices off (a writer with a phone and laptop. The screens are dark). Put them in a drawer. Lock the drawer. Throw away the key. Leave the house. Do not look back. Keep to backroads and hedgerows. Feel your old life slip away. (the writer has shed his clothes) Sleep by day. Forage in the evening. Write by the light of the moon When you have a passable first draft, commit a minor crime and use your phone call to contact your agent. (the naked writer is in a prison holding a phone while an unamused police officer looks on).

'How to focus on writing your book' original drawing. This and a few other artworks are now up at www.tomgauld.com/art-for-sale

A sunny day in the park. People jog, walk their dogs and sit in the shade of the trees. A woman sits on a bench and says: “It's my perfect job, really! Their owners are busy people who love them but don't have time to give the attention they need. Nobody likes to think of them just lying around the house all alone. So I pick them up bright and early and we spend the whole day in the park. I read a few chapters of each and drop them home with a short precis of what happened. Everyone's happy!” She is reading a book and has a pile of six more beside her.

My cartoon for this weekend’s @theguardian.com books.

I am sick at the minute and every time I say something my 3 year old doesn't like (such as 'no, you can't have ice cream for breakfast') she gets all serious and says 'but mommy, you're sick. Don't talk or you'll hurt your voice more'.
Kids are too clever these days...

Incredibly important report on AI training & copyright released today by the European Commission. It gets lots right, slamming the idea that creators should be required to opt-out of having their works used for free by AI companies.

It says:

- Generative AI must be based on opt-in consent

🧵 1/n

3 crochet dolls of the characters Luigi, Princess Peach and Mario from the super Mario Brothers games

My 3-year-old is obsessed with the super Mario movie. I can't wait until she's old enough to introduce her to the games, but for now these crochet dolls I made will have to do

(All three patterns are from www.ravelry.com/designers/es...)

June reading wrap up

A square white plate with bacon, scrambled eggs and toasted home made brown bread. On the table behind them is a laptop and an earphone case.

I love working from home, working from home (i.e. a cafe nearby) is great.

(FYI, church street Cafe in kingscourt, staffed by absolute legends and very reasonably priced)

Great article from @stingingfly.bsky.social about the financial precarity of a career in writing. I need to send it to all my family members who think I'm hiding secret millions somewhere. stingingfly.org/2025/06/25/t...

Greta Thunberg Sails For Gaza: A Theban Play We are the TikTok Chorus commentators on atrocities We ooh and aah pretend not to have seen the nightmare coming We offer assessment of likely consequences but think it best we do not get involved don’t help to gather up the bodies (Ooh at least not all of them) dress children’s wounds (Aah so many of them) distribute bread (Aah there are impossible numbers of mouths to feed) We will not build funeral pyres (Ooh better to stay within the law which has forbidden this) And we leave these actions (which are at best. performative) to the girl Antigone Who places herself (Aah her principles) beyond all city walls refuses to confine herself to signing petitions or letters to the editor (Who does she think she is? We ask ourselves) Antigone stands at the prow of the boat (Ooh those ritual offerings) walks clear-eyed at the head of the line of all those who question the things we are told waits on the bloodied stage of battle (demands the body demands the right of trees to grow) returns the glare of the status quo with a single word No (As if somehow she knows better)

A redraft of this one today. @johnadlam.bsky.social

Irish author Donal Ryan wins Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for novel Heart, Be at Peace Tipperary writer says win ‘very unexpected’ for novel that explores the 21st century problems of a small, tight-knit community in Ireland

Irish author Donal Ryan wins Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for novel Heart, Be at Peace. Tipperary writer says win ‘very unexpected’ for novel that explores the 21st century problems of a small, tight-knit community in Ireland

www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

It is an obscenity that this has happened and continues to happen. Starvation as a weapon of war, and murdering people queueing for food! Obscene and savage, and continuing with the collusion of countries like the UK and US.

If you are a writer that does not enjoy writing, as @samthielman.com suggested, don't write. I love writing. Every time I write I feel alive, it is how I found who I was as a person. To rob yourself of this is cowardly

Just out! Our peer-reviewed critique of the Cass Review has been published by BMC Medical Research Methodology. Please read and share. We show that the Cass Review is fatally flawed and should not be the basis for policy or practice in transgender healthcare.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Well said, it's a scheme that can help thousands and is needed more than ever!

Quote from Yael van der Wouden: “…every single trans person who’s fought for healthcare, who changed the system, the law, societal standards, themselves, I stand on their shoulders.”

Yael van der Wouden, who won last night’s @womensprize.bsky.social for Fiction, said she was intersex in her speech and had only got the right treatment because of “every trans person who’s fought for healthcare.” Say it again: Transphobia. Hurts. Everyone.

Trojan work Claire, a very important thread

Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need - scoop.me In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Why? The country applies the "Housing First" concept agains homelessness.

“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”

It costs less to house people.