Philip Womack

As we children's authors approach peak School Visit Season (World Book Day tomorrow), let us remember Alison Uttley, who once, at an event, charged through a mob of children, wielding her duck-handled umbrella, until she was asked to leave.

Never a big Narnia guy but this 6 seconds typifies everything I love about British television.

YouTube video by Frederick Atkinson Shakespeare's Identity (Part 1)

I made a series of videos with Frederick Atkinson about William Shakespear: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAVj...

422 years ago, Hamlet was entered in the Stationers Register by printer James Roberts.

No, Shakespeare wasn’t a black woman. Why is this madness still being promoted? Shakespeare denial theories fail on two levels, the evidentiary and the practical

My piece on the latest Shakespeare nonsense www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

One final valedictory TV column, with some blunt advice for parents This week, Victoria is not watching anything

This is @vcorenmitchell.bsky.social's final column for the Telegraph - I will miss them! - but what a stonker, I agree with every word. www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/victori...

Everything got worse. QED.

William Shakespeare, gent. [Shakespeare in context] Identity and coats of arms

I wrote about Shakespeare's coat of arms: philipwomack.substack.com/p/william-sh...

Ivy Compton-Burnett: The Last and the First Power and money, money and power

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

On Reading Habits [Essay] Nobody reads enough

philipwomack.substack.com/p/on-reading...

Out now! Literary Review's December 2025 / January 2026 issue, featuring

Peter Marshall on Holbein
Sophie Oliver on Margaret Atwood
Joanna Kavenna on Camus's notebooks
@edwardshawcross.bsky.social on Mexico
@dorianlynskey.bsky.social on George Orwell

and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

At least you're not saying "Happy Twixtmas" *shudders*

Ha! Could have used this in my article on hyphens

Well said! I went to a talk recently which talked about writers becoming "the human in between two AIs". I very strongly objected.

At its heart, it feels like a symptom of an industry that has insisted on the idea of personal material as intellectual property; that a book is only its blurb, that it can only do one thing, that it can be reduced to KPIs, that there's no value in prose style, no value in the very act of writing.

This concept that an idea is all that matters – that writing is secondary, is an afterthought, is best outsourced to a machine – I can't get my head around it.

What do we think writing IS? What is an author? Why bother, if you don't want to write, if you are not challenged and exhausted and exhilarated and electrocuted in the doing of it?

Some of my editorial work comes via Reedsy. Over the past year it's become completely overrun by people (I can't call them authors) who are asking for editorial help on manuscripts that have been generated by #AI. Often, what they want is for someone to make the text sound more human.

Thank you!

Classics Teachers! If you'd like to book a creative writing workshop for your students, aged 8-13, based on Greek myth, and combine it with an author visit, then do get in touch! My book, #thearrowofapollo is newly republished by Wilton Square Books, and is a great introduction to myth.

Excellent stuff!

Philip Womack - Don’t Look Now Philip Womack: Don’t Look Now - Seven new books for younger readers

Here's my latest children's book round up for Literary Review, featuring Katya Balen, @emcarrollauthor.bsky.social @pennychrimes.bsky.social @pgbellwriter.bsky.social @mazevansauthor.bsky.social @curtisjobling.bsky.social @finbarhawkins.bsky.social literaryreview.co.uk/dont-look-no...

Elfking by Susan Price [Children's Books] Violence, Christianity and paganism

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

How the hyphen turned political When Buckingham Palace announced that its errant prince, Andrew, would be known as boring old Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, some surprise arose at the initial omission of the hyphen from his surname.…

Some hyphens surprise – have you looked recently at the title page of Moby-Dick?

✍️ Philip Womack
www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-...

Road sign for 'Skirmish Paintball'

How delightfully quaint some of these old Devon village names are, their etymologies lost in the mists of time.

On reading, re-reading, and re-re-reading [Essay] What does it mean to read a book?

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

I loved doing this interview for Mathew

Thomas Laqueur · A Different Life: Can cellos remember? Cellists and violinists in particular are haunted by the musicians who played their instruments before them and those...

‘Only in a very few cases has the journey back to sound that Kennedy writes about in relation to Hermann’s cello been possible. Most of these stories end in silence and rupture.’

Thomas Laqueur on Kate Kennedy’s ‘Cello’ and the instruments stolen by the Nazis: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Philip Womack - Beyond the Hundred Acre Wood Philip Womack: Beyond the Hundred Acre Wood - Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A Biography of A A Milne and Winnie-the-Pooh by Gyles Brandreth; The Men Who Created Winnie-the-Pooh: The Lives of A A Milne ...

My review of two books about Winnie-the-Pooh, A A Milne, and E H Shepard literaryreview.co.uk/beyond-the-h...

I very much enjoyed Chris Laoutaris' account of the making of the First Folio.