Philip Womack

Good to hear!

Thank you!

Page from Potter's Peter Rabbit - sparrows implore Peter to exert himself

Cheers to @philipwomack.bsky.social for his @thespectator1828.bsky.social article imploring Writers and Editors to challenge young readers with more exciting language, like Joan Aiken! Babies love Beatrix Potter for odd words that they can remember and repeat...
www.pressreader.com/uk/the-spect...

Oh sorry. A joke! Too early in the morning.

Woah. Is it a scam?

The harrowing true story behind Barry Lyndon Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film Barry Lyndon has just been re-released. But William Thackeray’s novel – and the events that inspired it – are often neglected.

My piece on the real story behind Barry Lyndon www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

The Arrow of Apollo, and the fall of Unbound Nearly ten years ago, now, I had an idea for a novel.

This is a great insight into the soberingly awful experience of publishing with Unbound/Boundless, specifically from someone who has published loads elsewhere through big traditional houses and big indies alike – thank you @philipwomack.bsky.social! philipwomack.substack.com/p/the-arrow-...

Thanks Kat!

Interview: Philip Womack, author Renowned journalist and author Philip Womack talks to us about his process, the business and developing your voice, book after book.

An interview with the Never Press: zine.theneverpress.com/interview-ph...

I think most likely he was dazzled by the players he saw in Stratford, and then went to London via one of his Stratford connections.

I think there are some very plausible theories. Viz., he was apprenticed to a theatre.

A novel of bankers, billionaires, logging and eco-minded sabotage Towards the end of Ferdinand Mount’s latest novel, The Pentecost Papers, a plutocrat talks of the English penchant for “children’s books and secret

My review of Ferdinand Mount's new novel, THE PENTECOST PAPERS: www.the-tls.com/literature/f...

Tor: Part One A young boy sits alone in a tower.

A short story exclusive to subscribers on my Substack: philipwomack.substack.com/p/tor-part-one

Seven decades on, Iris Murdoch’s debut still dazzles A madcap plot, philosophical shenanigans and raucous scenes — Under the Net, published in 1954, must have shone brightly through the postwar gloom

www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

A meeting of misfits: Seascraper, by Benjamin Wood, reviewed The sea, as you might expect, looms large in Benjamin Wood’s finely tuned novella Seascraper. Thomas Flett – one of the most touching protagonists I’ve encountered in recent years – is barely out of h...

www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-me...

Adam Mars-Jones · Selective Luddism: On Alan Garner Children’s books revisited in later life may disappoint, but they are immune to the embarrassment associated with...

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Ivy Compton-Burnett: Parents and Children Parents and Children (1941) by Ivy Compton-Burnett was recommended to me as the “gateway” into this most mysterious and addictive of authors, since it is comic and, as far as C-B goes, doesn’t contain...

open.substack.com/pub/philipwo...

Shakespeare in Context: Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy Thomas Kyd wasn’t even considered the author of The Spanish Tragedy until the late 18th century, when Thomas Hawkins picked up on a reference by Thomas Heywood to ‘M.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Philip Womack - Here There Be Gorgons Philip Womack: Here There Be Gorgons - Five books for younger readers

My Summer Children's Book Round Up for @litreview.bsky.social featuring new books by @cressidacowell.bsky.social Luke Palmer @andyshepherdwriter.bsky.social Bryony Pearce and Luke Marchant literaryreview.co.uk/here-there-b...

Intelligence, artificial (or otherwise) Womack's Wanderings is a reader-supported publication.

open.substack.com/pub/philipwo...

Great launch last night for @cressidacowell.bsky.social's new book, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON SCHOOL. Here we are with @pierstorday.bsky.social

Looks lovely - do make sure I get sent a copy!

I saw the Whishaw production! Excellent.

A photograph of a play in performance. Head and shoulders, on the right a young man with dark hair wearing a black jacket, points with his left hand forward and out of frame; he looks distressed. He has his right arm around a woman with long blonde hair; she is looking where he is pointing as if she can't see anything.

A black and white still from a film. A young man wearing an elaborately embroidered doublet is lying with his head in the lap of an older woman, wearing an elaborate satin dressing gown. Her hair is partly loose; he has his arm around her knees, she has her arm around his shoulders. They both look exhausted.

Hamlet: Night, mother! [lugs guts]
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
2 final images of the closet scene: Ben Whishaw, so very young, with Imogen Stubbs, Old Vic, 2004; Laurence Olivier and Eileen Herlie in 1948, the film version which did so much to cement an 'oedipal' reading of the scene...

I do not want AI in Slack. I do not want AI in Google. I do not want AI on Facebook. I do not want AI in documents or spreadsheets. I do not want AI in Adobe Acrobat. I do not want AI in Zoom. I do not want AI on news sites. I do not want AI in the patient portal for my doctor's office. I do not wan

I’m pseudy and proud On semicolons, satire and the fine art of playful literary excess – or why I didn’t deserve to end up in Private Eye.

I wrote about Pseuds Corner: www.spectator.co.uk/article/im-p...

I enjoyed Park Honan's biography of Christopher Marlowe: an intriguing, unusual approach, using the evidence to create a bold and glittering picture of an intelligent, bold and glamorous playwright. There's lots of insight into the plays, too.

I'd always understood it as dat pl of tyrannus - for tyrants! Dative of disadvantage?

An image from an early printed play text, text as per the beginning of the linked blog post. There is an x written in ink above 'blunt' and in the right hand margin x bloat has been written in ink.

A still from a film. A young man looking dishevelled, wearing a white shirt with the collar open and an undone black tie, is sitting in front of an ornate gilded dressing table with a mirror. There is a smashed full length mirror in the background. He looks stunned.

Hamlet: don't let your 'husband' seduce you with his old tricks! YUCK!
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
The text has been corrected in Milton's copy of the 1623 folio (Free Library, Philadelphia); all editors accept 'bloat'. Also, David Tennant in the film of the 2008 RSC Hamlet, DRAINED.

Made it into @privateeyenews.bsky.social Pseuds Corner!