Polly Atkin

MI6 insiders slam Palestine Action ban as 'distraction' from real counter-terrorism It seems everyone with any expertise on terrorism, including MI6, was against the Palestine Action ban - yet Labour proceeded anyway

MI6 insiders slam Palestine Action ban as 'distraction' from real counter-terrorism

It seems everyone with any expertise on terrorism, including MI6, was against the Palestine Action ban - yet Labour proceeded anyway
www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025...

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

This is extremely important!

When I was too busy with work, I did not read recreationally.
When I was too busy with work, I did not read to build my professional skills.
When I was too busy with work, there was no time, energy, or interest in reading.

I read for work.

Very excited Into Being is launched today

We are thrilled to be able to reveal this year's T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist!
Our judges have chosen ten books "of great range, suggestiveness and power; from Entebbe to Manitoba... there is something here for everyone."

Find out more now: tseliot.com/prize/news/

Some people in Scotland will never get gender clinic appointment on 224-year waitlist Revealed waiting times of all GICs in UK: Most Trans+ people in the UK will wait more than a third of their adult life to get an appointment, and some will never receive care

“This new data confirms what we already knew: there is a trans+ healthcare crisis in the UK. But the actual numbers are stark. The system of NHS gender clinics, which is failing to give people an appointment in their entire lifetime, is limiting the number of people who can transition.”

Appalling.

One of my biggest struggles being chronically ill is trying to handle that feeling of rushing through time, because I have so little of it to do the things I want. My daily hours are a fraction of an abled person’s, so it’s always a game of prioritizing essentials, then trying to squeeze in fun.

st oswalds church tower grasmere with yellow orange maple leaves in front of it, jackdaw resting on perch on tower above window

lovely! leaves here turning now and looking lovely - hope the forecast sun arrives later in week to light it all up.

truth! and so sorry!

Join us tomorrow evening at our Ambleside campus for this free talk by the brilliant @pollyrowena.bsky.social. Details and booking link can be found below 🍃📚

Tomorrow evening! Come along to uni if Cumbria at Ambleside and here me talk Dorothy, owls and more …

Just caught them. Sitting with the door onto the garden open. Slightly breezy but sunny. Then my ear tuned in to a familiar sound. (Actually it was Tilly who tuned in first.) And there they were, overhead. Couldn’t see a thing as the light reflected on my phone screen but it seems we got a glimpse.

A lot of my memories of early school injustices at v strict school around teachers not believing me when I told them something and punishing me for something else etc. mean something different if they couldn't understand a word I was saying 😬🤦

Weird thing for me was that I was talking away to everyone, must have known I wasn't using the same words [remember being v adamant I wouldn't use the 'wrong' ones they tried to make me in speech therapy] but also no memory of being aware that's why people weren't responding to me in expected ways!

Two weeks in a row I've forgotten to go to online poetry launches in the evening, despite knowing they were happening all day. I've just got confused by the dark, lost track of time, and forgotten entirely. ARGH.

And we will round the month off a Cumbrian bonanza, with Rory Stewart and James Rebanks in conversation about Rory's new book #Middleland. Tues 28th Oct, 7pm, Westmorland Hall, Kendal Leisure Centre. Make sure you add book at checkout to ensure a signed copy. betterboxoffice.co.uk/westmorland-...

poster for talk, with picture of Prof Sam Rayner on left, black and white picture of Dillon's bookshop on right, and bookcover for Women Booksellers of the twentieth century in the centre. Below it reads: Sam Read Bookseller presents a talk by Prof. Sam Rayner on bookselling history. 'Hidden in the bookshelves: women booksellers'. Grasmere village hall, wed 8 oct 2025, 7.30pm. Free entry. All welcome.

Then ahead of #BookshopDay on Saturday, we have a visit this week from @profbookshops.bsky.social, who will be giving a talk on Women Booksellers in the Twentieth Century in Grasmere village hall on Weds 8th Oct, 7.30pm. #Booksky #BookshopLife #BookTalk

We've got some busy event times this month, and this coming week. First, we'll be selling early copies of the paperback of @pollyrowena.bsky.social's #TheCompanyOfOwls at a talk on '‘Companions of nature: sickbed consolations & mimic hootings', Uni of Cumbria, Ambleside, Tue 7th Oct, 6.30pm.

Become more feral with each passing decade

I think the way I think, and I write to reflect that. Polly Atkin's (neurodivergent) notes on writing.

Did a little interview for @elspethwrites.bsky.social about writing and neurodivergence.

"I think the way I think, and I write to reflect that."

Life is too short for uncomfortable shoes

‘My poems are part of my flesh’: Palestinian poet Batool Abu Akleen on life in Gaza At just 20, the poet is one of the most vivid witnesses to the conflict. She talks about dreams of Oxford, the deaths of friends and how tragedy has shaped the person she has become

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Published today after 2years of work behind the scenes by us at WHN/DELPHI Executive team : Our Global Expert DELPHI Consensus document on Long Covid. 179 Experts from 28 countries around the Globe Participated. Please share. Happy Easter!

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

I want to live in this video. 😍📚🌧️

#Booksky

On Tuesday! In Ambleside! Come along if you can - #NatureWriting #DorothyWordsworth #TheCompanyOfOwls #DisabilityHistory

Join us on our Ambleside campus next Tuesday evening for this free talk with the brilliant @pollyrowena.bsky.social. All welcome - details and booking link can be found below 🍃📚🦉

I was hoping to be driving to Haworth this afternoon for #TheBookOfBogs launch. I can't find any sensible info about the roads/storm damage etc.. I don't want to get there and not make it back. Is anyone else travelling for it? Is anyone at the lunch now? What are the roads like in Calderdale?

Doesn't this just prove that Chat GTP is useless as a research tool and just creates an information loop?

😷 Amazing @specsaversuk.bsky.social ! Booked an at home eye test - requested to be told if anyone was symptomatic.

A lovely lady said the opticians carry masks & OFFERED that they mask!

In shock!
Respect • Protection • Validation
It's not that hard!

Never knowingly without typo(s)