Tony Williams

Open letter on the future of small press publishing in the UK The industry must work together to ensure the longevity of the UK’s independent presses.

The future of UK Independent presses hang by a thread. Supporting the sector is vital: this is where ALL the bravery lies. The big houses are risk averse, but copycat small press successes to revitalise their lists. Small presses are the motor!
www.thebookseller.com/comment/open...

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Donate to Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026, organized by Christopher Hamilton-Emery New books and reprints arrive daily at Salty Towers – and we'… Christopher Hamilton-Emery needs your support for Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026

Please consider supporting indie publishing by contributing to this fundraiser for @saltpublishing.com You can of course also support Salt by buying a book or two - I particularly recommend Cole the Magnificent, Hawthorn City, Nutcase, etc...
gofund.me/0fe44ad35

It's the details that really make it - packed like a sandbag; a carvery on the Sunday...

Getting to Know Your Body If your eyeballs move, this means that you're thinking, or about to start thinking. If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeballs still.

Lydia Davis, from the Collected Stories

(I nearly elided the middle bit but then clocked the irony 🤦‍♂️)

'this unpopular art which cannot be turned into
background noise for study
or hung as a status trophy by rising executives,
cannot be "done" like Venice
or abridged like Tolstoy, but stubbornly still insists upon
being read or ignored'

First stanza of The Viaduct: As a child I would cross with my father's brother, and in summer weather we would walk into loss.

Pamphlet titled Summers Are Other

I'm very much enjoying Andrew Neilson's pamphlet Summers Are Other from Rack Press, particularly the lovely lyric 'The Viaduct'
@badlilies.bsky.social

Beer mat saying, Ind Coope's Story of Beer: Tegestology

Ind Coope's Story of Testicles

The ruthless economic muscle of Big Short

Anonymous bluesky post criticising someone for masking up

The irony is lost on this anonymous bluesky user

I carried the Watergate

I mean, Lukacs would say that the realistic novel is about economic conditions by definition

Bilbo's offered a wage to go with the dwarves, but the reason he goes is that he quite fancies being a gentleman adventurer

Characters having to worry about money (or not) would be one way of differentiating between realism and fantasy. E.g. Frodo is Mr Frodo and can swan off to Mordor without giving notice

No wonder the political class despise and undervalue teachers, if this is what they think teaching is. No wonder their view of education is so reductive and instrumental.

Cherry plums

Cherry plums

People need to complain about this crap if we want it to stop www.bbc.co.uk/contact/comp...

I keep expecting Bruno Cremer to walk into shot

An orange cocktail

I call it an OranGINa

Newspaper headline: Freddo bar creator would be 'rolling in his grave' at its price today, daughter says

That's like a cross between turning in his grave and rolling in the aisles - he's fuming, but he's also amused, because he knows how inflation works.

A classic of the genre*

*the genre = M John Harrison novels

Lecturer - Creative Writing - Poetry (Part-time) at Bath Spa University Recruiting now: Lecturer - Creative Writing - Poetry (Part-time) on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

Lecturer in Creative Writing (poetry) at Bath Spa, 0.6 FTE
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOB269/l...

Lecturer in Creative Writing at University of Bristol Apply now for the Lecturer in Creative Writing role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.

Lecturer in Creative Writing (fiction) at Bristol, 0.5 FTE
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOF238/l...

Yes, and I imagine it's also why they say I am silent but deadly

The correct spelling of my name is actually Tawny Owliams

Don't you find though that the shape of the coat-hanger really affects how the garment hangs?

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

You seem to have mistyped 'Life: A User's Manual, by Georges Perec'

(Which is odd as Rushdie said, with some justification, that it's a book characterised by the absence of love)