SAM BLAKE

Sam Blake, the extremely youthful Ed Newton Rex, and Anna Ganley at a busy drinks reception in the Churchill Room in the House of Commons. Sam has shoulder length red hair, glasses and is wearing black, Ed Newton Rex is in the middle wearing a blue shirt and has dark hair, Anna Ganley is on the right wearing a bright pink dress and navy jacket. She is wearing glasses and has long red hair with a white streak at the front. Anna and Sam are carrying copies of Dr Clementine Colett's investigation into the impact of AI on the novel which was presented at the event. They are all wearing House of Commons bright orange visitor lanyards and badges.

House of Commons All Parties Writers Group winter reception this week & delighted to meet Ed Newton-Rex. The force behind Fairly Trained he's instrumental in showing how the unlawful use of copyrighted material by tech to train AI impacts the creative industries. With Anna Ganley, SoA CEO.

Kieran is on the left of this selfie wearing black tie, he has his hair pulled back in a pony tail and is wearing glasses. Sam Blake is in the middle, she's wearing a black dress and has red wavy shoulder length hair and glasses and Andrea Hayes is on the right, she has long blonde straight hair.

A copy of Your Every Move, Sam Blake's latest book - it has an image of a moody blue sky over a shoreline and a brutalist architecture concrete house with a big glass window on the front. It was in some of the goodie bags.

Highlights included seeing Kieran Marsh, shortlisted for Short Story of the Year and a member if the Writers Ink coaching and mentoring group, and discovering that my next book was in some of the goody bags!

Thrilled that one of my closest friends Andrea Hayes could join me! Taxi strike so we spent 2 hours in traffic getting to the convention centre in Dublin, lots of time to chat! Andrea stands on the left of the photo and has long blonde hair and is wearing a black tulle skirt covered in pearls with a black satin jacket style top. Sam Blake has shoulder length red wavy hair and is wearing a fitted black off the shoulder full length dress with silver boots. Behind them is the An Post Book Awards large green sign.

The table set with the programme for the night in the middle. It has a green cover and 'Stories Make Use Irish' on the cover in white text (Irish is in dark green) To the right of the text is an illustration of the new trophy, a ceramic figure of St Bridget (it's much bigger than an Oscar!)

A selfie with Sinead Moriarty, Sam Blake and Andrea Hayes. Sinead has blonde curly hair and a gorgeous gold sequin sheath dress, Sam has shoulder length red wavy hair and glasses and is wearing a black off the shoulder dress. On the right Andrea Hayes had long blonde straight hair. They are all smiling up at the camera.

Sam Blake on the left with red wavy shoulder length hair and glasses, wearing a black dress. On the right us Andrea Mara who is wearing a bright pink 50s style satin dress with a full skirt. She has her dark curly hair up and is holding the new ceramic trophy.

Bit late with this! Very actually, but a fab night at the An Post Irish Book Awards last night and a brilliant winner for the Crime Novel of the Year, an author you might have heard of: Andrea Mara! The evening opened with former president Michael D Higgins and celebrated some incredible books 🎉💙📚

Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. Bottom half is sea in dots of greens, blues, purples. 2 kayakers, bottom right of center, enter sunlight on water, rendered in added dots of whites and yellows and pale colours, that guides them towards the twin smokestack chimneys which have red and white bands on their top halves and muted grey-green on their lower halves. Across the middle of the painting are bands of pale blue for the distant tree/building line, then the rear of Dun Laoghaire's stone East Pier rendered in mid-blue with some light blue stone work and the odd orange stone, and immediately below it is the band for the pier's protective rip-rap rendered in dark blue with light blue and orange rocky details. The left kayak is light blue and right one is yellow. Both figures have orange life-jackets and orange paddles but other wise they are dark silhouetted against the dappled sunlight on the water. The sky is a painterly yellow. Signed bottom left in red, Liam Daly

Feels like a day for this #painting. "Poolbeg, Kayakers, Sunlight" came out of monthly cycles past Scotsmans Bay where I would invariably stop and enjoy the views across Dublin Bay and wait for kayakers to paddle into my picture. #SpeirGhorm #ArtYear #Scape

❄️❄️❄️

We have #SIGNED copies of SNOWBLIND by #RagnarJonasson @orendabooks.bsky.social
with lovely patterned edges

LUXURY 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
❄️Signed bookplate
❄️Beautiful sprayed edges
❄️Bonus story, Fadeout
❄️New introduction

www.foxlanebooks.co.uk/product-page...

My goodness is that a road or a river bed?!

Did you know that we’re one of the few organisations to award grants to writers for works-in-progress? Daniel Rachel received an Authors' Foundation grant from us to help fund research for his work-in-progress, This Ain't Rock and Roll, which has now been published by White Rabbit Books.

Lol!! Xx

Delicious images of Edinburgh from Tom Duffin

Edinburgh O'Clock - 3 minutes to every hour. - we run fast so you don't miss your train.

A new hourly image to brighten your day taken in #Scotland very often #Edinburgh and shared with love by Tom Duffin

@tomduffinphotos.bsky.social.

Please repost with your own caption.

Fabulous story 👏👏👏

A daily dose of vitamin c. One of the three limited edition prints available in my print shop. #oilpainting #art

😂😂👏

Every so often it’s useful to answer some of the questions I get asked on here.

1. Yes they are.
2. Not the whole message, obviously.
3. In the garage, mainly.
4. No, it wouldn’t be practical. Sorry.
5. Purely random.

Cheers, T.

It is a little later than I'd intended but here's our "usual" start to #SundayMorning. This is "Sunday Morning, Farringdon Road" by Cecil Osborne from 1929. It is in the collection at Brighton & Hove Museums. Cecil lived almost opposite at 221 Farringdon Road Buildings #CecilOsborne #EastLondonGroup

Tent Campers
10”x10” Oil on cradled wood panel
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Available

If you can access BBC iPlayer, I recommend watching the Val McDermid In Her Own Words documentary as soon as you possibly can. However well you think you know Val and her work, you will learn things that astonish you.

Had that last weekend! Headache, sweats and chills? Horrid

Thanks so much Jules!

Image of Sam Blake's The Killing Sense with its Parisian cover standing upright in a dark street. Above it are a series of five star reviews that say 'gripping from beginning to end', 'riveting', 'Couldn't put it down', 'heart pounding page turner' and 'absolutely fantastic'. The An Post Book Awards shortlist rondel is next to the cover.

Voting closes for the An Post Irish Book Awards tomorrow! 💙📚 If u've enjoyed my books, The Killing Sense is shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year. You can vote at www.irishbookawards.ie/vote - you don't have to vote in every category, but u *can* vote from anywhere!
Thank you, thank you 🙏🙏❤️

Mirrors! Love that juxtaposition of colour too, thank you for sharing!

Many of David Tindle's paintings possess what might be called a quiet profundity. For the art critic Brian Sewell, Tindle was: 'a painter in that quietly Romantic tradition of British art ... concerned with everyday, intimate, domestic subjects.'

Marbles is a big girl now y'all

#cats #kittens #blackcat

Table is set! Find me at #ThoughtBubble! I have stuff!

Blue lemons. My print shop is now open for the next 72 hours with 3 limited edition prints. I only open my print shop once a year. #oilpainting #art

After what has been quite a busy & stressful week here (one way or the other), another #SaturdayMorning has crept up on me quite unexpectedly so here's our weekly antidote to stress &, hopefully, a restful week-end for us all: this is "Interior" by Brynhild Parker from 1930. #BrynhildParker

Oh that's lovely!

Poppies blooming in November? Why our seasons are falling apart Butterflies still on the wing, late blooms and confused wildlife are the latest signs that Britain’s seasons are slipping out of sync as the climate warms

Butterflies still on the wing, late blooms and confused wildlife are the latest signs that Britain’s seasons are slipping out of sync as the climate warms

Hold up

Every ending is a new beginning, if only we have the courage to embrace it- Marina Lewycka

Who would like to buy a book today?

via @faberbooks.bsky.social
Christine Falls by John Banville is the One Dublin One Book choice for 2026,