Ann Kennedy Smith

My second Substack anniversary... ...and other reasons to celebrate

I've been writing about books, authors and the Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society for two years now on Substack. If you fancy joining the (virtual) tour, there's a special offer this week.

Out of the shadows: why Avril Coleridge-Taylor deserves to be heard The daughter of the British composer Samuel made controversial choices that took her on a different path to her father’s activism. Ahead of the premiere recording of her piano concerto, its soloist lo...

Why does Avril Coleridge-Taylor deserve to be heard? Samantha Ege writes about her experience playing the Piano Concerto, out today on @resonus.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...

Lovely short thread (with a v good piece at the end). I think Ruth's point at the end is entirely right. Also I think shows that 'being an effective minister' is a skillset in itself. Castle was not a transport wonk or labour market wonk or a welfare wonk, yet she was v effective in all three roles.

You can preorder As If the US version now. Out in June 2026 with FSG us.macmillan.com/books/978037...

Francophones, looking for a translation of 'Souillard' – the late medieval name of a Very Good Dog. It clearly has 'dirty' or 'grubby' connotations, but how best to translate it? Google focuses its modern meaning of a sink plug-hole but I don't think that was meant in the C15! Please RT!

Last year, I found an old love letter between the yellowing pages of a second hand book, and asked Bluesky whether you had found similar. I was inundated with responses (see 🧵 below)! My essay has just been published in @slightlyfoxed.bsky.social ! Thank you so much everyone who replied and helped

Oh, that's lovely Sarah! Can't wait to read it.

Don’t invest in AI, invest in the future of the book

The industry is not supporting small-press publishers enough, not because it ought to, but because small-press publishing is the future of book production in this country, says Lucy Mercer in our recent Comment piece 👇 #BookSky

Another plug for my BookWeek Scotland event on Friday, talking about Nan Shepherd's Aberdeen contemporaries and pals. (My name is Timothy Baker, not Barker, and it's Lyn, not Lynn, Irvine, but so it goes...) www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-week-sc...

You just need to submit a proposal for the @bars.bsky.social conference before 30 Nov and write a *short* application note to apply for the bursary.
Of you're a historian, filmmaker, lawyer, architect, consultant, teacher, librarian - or anything else - share your new #romanticism insights with us!

This week Wednesday at Birkbeck, right in the heart of Bloomsbury: join us for thought-provoking talk by the brilliant Julia Laite on the history of Newfoundland, home of one of the British Empire’s most remote settlements where one of its most complete genocides took place. Free but pls register

If you're in Cambridge in the next few weeks, I can highly recommend this exhibition and it's FREE. Don't miss it.

#GoodNews #WomensHistory

Agreed!

Red and white printed square handkerchief, designed to make you think you are looking at an untidy heap of printed papers: a playing card, a receipt, portrait engravings, a play, sheet music, positioned every which way.

Look at this excellent handkerchief from 1769 at the V & A museum: a showcase for #18thc practices of remediation. Made to imitate a quodlibet/medley print, a genre that itself aims to simulate, in a trompe l'oeil idiom, a scatter of small printed papers.
Imagine blowing your nose on that!
#scraps

My second Substack anniversary... ...and other reasons to celebrate

I'm celebrating two years of writing on Substack. Less serious than it looks.

My favourite year for oppressed literary masculinity was 2023 when the number of women on the Booker shortlist was smaller than the number of men named Paul

A woman’s hand resting on a man’s hand against a cream blanket. Both are wearing wedding rings.

Yesterday, three years and one day after our first date, I officially became Mrs @andrewmale.bsky.social in a day overflowing with love and joy. We could not be happier.

Wonderful news. Many congratulations to you both.

Alice Wong, ‘luminary’ writer and disability rights activist, dies aged 51 Daughter of immigrants advocated for people with disabilities to have full autonomy over their lives

'...in times of frustration or exhaustion I tap into my memories of injustice. I remind myself of why I am doing what I am doing and this sustains me. Anger transforms into a battery charger that gives me a boost when it’s sorely needed.'

#AliceWong

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The shocking but little-known consequences of the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. Important thread by @misssarahwise.bsky.social

Amy Levy, 'Straw in the Street'. I have started reading her poems since the announcement about Cambridge University Library acquiring her archive. I struggle to find ways through Victorian poetry -- these seem to me very good indeed / #Booksky #C19 #AmyLevy

Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion by Michelle Dean – review Dean’s group biography of female writers who dared speak their mind is a great and worthy project

'Sharp women everywhere, I tell you: be pointy and proud.' One of my favourite Rachel Cooke reviews (there are so many to choose from). She was especially good at writing about group biography, having written one herself (Her Brilliant Career). What a fantastic critic she was, a one-off.

Such sad news. She really was the best thing about the Observer, a joy to read.

So sorry to hear this. She was the best literary critic I've ever read, an absolute inspiration.

Remembering Rachel Cooke | The Observer

Terrible news: Rachel Cooke has died. She was 56.
When I was lucky enough to commission her at The Observer, I wanted her to write everything. She was seriously witty and crystalline in her argument when being serious, which she was on a dazzling range of topics. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

What a horrible shock. Superb tribute from @timadamswrites.bsky.social

Writing Against Silence: Susanna Crossman and the Radical Honesty of "The Orange Notebooks" When Susanna Crossman speaks about her new novel The Orange Notebooks, she talks about process, practice, and experimentation—terms that suggest not a tidy narrative but a living, breathing act of cre...

The excellent Jonathan Crain interviewed me about my novel The Orange Notebooks (@pressassembly.bsky.social & @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social). We talked about reclaiming the lost language of mourning, my hospital work, bees, the colour orange, lost libraries & more.
substack.com/home/post/p-...

It's such fantastic news that poet, writer and journalist Amy Levy's archive has been acquired by Cambridge University Library @theul.bsky.social. I wrote about her time as a student at Newnham College Cambridge here:
akennedysmith.substack.com/p/written-wi...

"An innovative exploration of the roles of women working in policing and private agencies."

The #WolfsonHistoryPrize judges on why they have shortlisted 'The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective' by Sara Lodge (@victoriandetective.bsky.social) for the 2025 Wolfson History Prize.