Sheila Pinder

It's #buyastrangerabook day, and @loreleiking.bsky.social is offering to buy somebody a copy of Nobody's Child Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

"In memory of Virginia Giuffre, who suffered so much and who showed such courage"

If you'd like it, get in touch.

UK only.

Convo last week --

Them: It's hard to talk about this stuff ("AI") without using anthropomorphizing language
Me: It's really not, actually

Some further reflections >>

Lovely to see!

"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

- Nietzsche

I actually think that it's a safeguarding risk to encourage children to conceptualise AI as 'a tutor', as though it's real and a possible substitute for their teacher. We've already seen the serious harm AI can do when people use it to 'have conversations' and start to believe what it tells them.

I'm here for this...

Thanks for forwarding.

The Anxious Generation Jonathan Haidt has spent his career speaking truth and wisdom in some of the most difficult spaces – communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the m...

The Anxious Generation share.google/9iLu6OeIwyET...
By Jonathat Haidt is an excellent read in context of this kind of discussion. The opening pages really focus attention on the perils of non-regulation

This needs fixing.

Cover of AL Kennedy's Alive in the Merciful Country depicts a sunrise (or sunset) sky in apricot hues. Bottom left of the cover is a dome (possibly St Paul's?) And flying birds are silhouettes against the sky).

Train reading (en route to a funeral). Given my mood and the state of the world, I needed something with a thread of hope.
Will report back.

They are edible artworks!

Dappled white clouds making a variety of patterns over a blue sky. In the foreground is a rose garden with apricot coloured roses and a metal obelisk. In the mid distance towers a large ash tree.

And it's worth it for the extraordinarily beautiful moments, like this one last summer.

Thanks for asking, Don. No, although we're in an elevated and exposed position, the house is a converted stone-built, slate roofed barn. It's very sturdy, so so far, so good. It's the garden that suffers. I know I'm a bit mad to even attempt the gardening I do here. But I can't resist trying.

It was Doug Armato (who I think you would know) posting pictures of the amazing baking that goes on in their cabin that first switched me from Dutch Apple Cake to French. It's now my goto recipe!

A mixture of apples laid out on the counter tops. In the foreground is a browny-green russet variety. Others are a variety of shades of red and green.

Today, I will mostly be baking French apple cake.
#StormAmy
Had to pick fruit slightly before full ripeness: the wind took down one of the upright posts on the espalier frame. Thought we were going to lose three trees to being uprooted, so had to take the weight off.

Take note

Blimey

TWO MONTHS TO GO 🎉

From household names to debut authors and spoken word artists we look forward to welcoming you to this celebration of Scotland’s writers in the heart of London.

📅 26th-30th November 2025
📖 See you there!
🎟️ Tickets: standrewsbookfestival.org/events

100% identify with this

Have an idea you would like to develop into an academic book?

Applications to the Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship are open until Oct. 1st to Black, Asian or Ethnically Diverse early career scholars (UK only).

More info: https://bit.ly/4mHlgcn

My best classroom day ever was when my Mum (age 12 in 1945 when play first performed) visited my class with photos of her Mum (age 12 when the play was written).
It was a magical afternoon with them asking her about her childhood in WWII and her Mum's in tge early 1900s

Of all the set texts, this is the one I hope doesn't leave the curriculum: the teenagers I taught were living in difficult circumstances... and the themes really resonated with them

Try being called Sheila

Conference organizers: If you want people who work outside of academia (or financially secure company), to give a talk at your conference bc you value their expertise, it's unreasonable to make them pay for registration. Artists/Nonprofit folks do not have the funding to pay you to share expertise.

Really interesting and thought-provoking, on ma y levels @kristiedegaris.bsky.social thank you for taking the time to write it, and for sharing it here.

I used to have an Adana press. NO idea where it went...

I get the message "Something has gone terribly wrong"

A dose of weird Substack existential angst, perhaps?

I'll try again when I'm not on the train.

You need some spray mount / cow gum & some roteing pens.

Is the link broken, @kristiedegaris.bsky.social ?