Fiona Mossman

Sounds like you might've got a lot out of a History of the Book course or degree! I like literary theory as much as the next gal but switching out and looking at the book as a human-made object and part of our communication cycles was really interesting during my post-grad 😄

Rare Merlin and King Arthur text found hidden in binding of medieval book The ‘extremely significant' text was hidden for centuries.

I love that the Zoology department was integral to finding text about Merlin that was otherwise invisible to the human eye.

I wrote a rather long post on FB about taking part in poetry writing classes, or rather a lack of money and time to do so regularly, and I recommended two courses I've found so far that help with all these issues in their own ways. Featuring @marjorielotfi.bsky.social and @helenboden.bsky.social.

One week left: submissions close midnight 30th September

There's one week left for writers in the North of England to send us their stories!

We're looking for folklore-inspired tales to publish in our first anthology.

It's been a real treat to read all the submissions so far, but we'd love to squeeze a few more in 🙏

carnyxpress.co.uk/submissions

Photo of blue, purple and pink hydrangeas

Photo of the anthology 'Bi All Accounts'

Hydrangeas are such a bisexual bush: whether they appear blue, pink, or purple depends upon the environment they're in, but they are capable of all of these colours regardless of how they are perceived.

Today I'm thrilled to have a poem out in 'Bi All Accounts' claiming the hydrangea #bivisibility

YouTube video by The Nation Ursula K. Le Guin: Listening to the Unheard Voices

"A future where I can live"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_vz...

You are a violent and irrepressible miracle. The vacuum of cosmos and the stars burning in it are afraid of you. Given enough time you would wipe us all out and replace us with nothing -- just by accident.

Pls Share 👉🏽sign up via Eventbrite to join our FREE webinar on 30.09.25 @ 6.30pm supported by @sgsah.bsky.social with @sorchadallas.bsky.social @rodgeglass.bsky.social & Lucy Lauder - launching a new resource on memoir & biography writing as a tool for research and self-led creative projects 👇🏽

Only what is mortal bears life. Only in death is there rebirth. The Balance is not a stillness. it is a movement--an eternal becoming.

What Authors Need to Know About the $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement  - The Authors Guild Today, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle claims that it downloaded pirated books to train its AI systems—the largest U.S. copyright settlement in history. The parties in Bartz v Anthropic...

Anthropic has agreed to pay affected authors a record $1.5 billion in a settlement, following its use of pirated books to train its AI. We'll share more details with members in the coming days.

Stoked to be on this longlist! Congrats to my fellow poets 🦊

Philip Larkin said "What will survive of us is love," but research based on previous collapsing civilizations suggests it's more likely to be inorganic items that can be buried, burned, or struck without significant degradation. Likely what will survive of us is ceramic toilets.

I haven't posted by #Litmag starter pack in awhile. Find some you love and share this post. Sooner litmags see Bluesky as a viable option, sooner they leave X/Twitter.

go.bsky.app/7cWNC2j

Zine-putting-together I should say. All credit for the making of goes to Tiny Wren Lit & the wonderful poets!

Love it when @cuttinghail.bsky.social gets published in Tiny Wren Lit because it means I get to do a little zine making. The design on these is just gorgeous 🥰

In the foreground is a book called 'We Are All Ghosts in the Forest' by Lorraine Wilson. Behind it on the sofa is a curled up grey cat with one paw outstretched.

This book is brilliant: the premise (it's a post-internet world and we're haunted by the ghosts of our data) delivers on multiple levels, the characters are full of soul and the story is full of heart, the writing is so gut-punching I lost count of how many times I teared up. Plus, fab ghost cat 🖤

Five Spanish Women SpecFic Writers You Should Know - Reactor An introduction to some essential women writers from Spain

Let Marian Womack introduce you to a new wave of Spanish writers in speculative fiction.

Aww 🥰 what a precious boy!

Birds are dinosaurs who shrugged off a couple apocalypses. Some eat bone marrow. Some drink nectar. They outswim fish in the sea. They smile politely at gravity’s demands. ‬

‪I am grateful to see them. I am grateful to feed them. I am grateful to know them.‬

Aphrodite Aphrodite, the mesmerizing Greek goddess of beauty, love, and passion, continues to fascinate. Born of sea foam, her tale is as profound as the ocean

'Someone will remember us' in the Aphrodite anthology from Flame Tree Press is my timey-wimey queer take on Aphrodite and Sappho by way of Hades, death, memory, the end of the world and desire's relationship with the future www.flametreepublishing.com/aphrodite-is...

2025 Winners FICTION About Charlie by JM Langan Bruise by Adrian Markle Hope Never Knew Horizon by Douglas Bruton Kitten Heels by Maureen Cullen The Manhattan Deception by Simon Leighton-Porter The Thickness of...

Thrilled to share the news that THE UTOPIA OF US has been shortlisted for the The International Rubery Book Award! Many congratulations to all the authors who, collectively, made this such a fantastic anthology, and huge thanks to editor Teika Marija Smits for bringing them all together!

There are loads of us that feel we can’t face doing the EHRC consultation, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a voice.
What the GLP has done is brilliant.
You can write as much or as little as you want, but you get your say!!!
So let’s not give the EHRC the excuse that we did not engage!

Summer Holiday by Alma Tipton. Abstract painting which suggests a beach from above. Blue cresting white washes up the canvas towards a sandy above that's dotted with bright colour. Might be parasols or seashells, might be sweeties, bubbles or balloons, but probably magic.

'The briefest and slipperiest of the seasons, the one that won't be held to account - because summer won't be held at all, except in bits, fragments, moments, flashes of memory of so-called or imagined perfect summers, summers that never existed.'

Ali Smith, Summer

🎨 Alma Tipton

#BookwormSat

Particular shout-out to those rejections that nurtured and inspired me - yes, it does work that way sometimes, I promise!

Also thanks to my wonderful partner for baking 🎂

NB: These rejections have been mostly for short stories, with the odd poem or award thrown in

A countertop with three cakes on it, in the shape of 100.

I'm celebrating 100 writing rejections 🥳

It marks three years of treating my writing more seriously and also more playfully, of sending it out into the world for other people to judge and yet holding myself to nobody's standards but my own. It's perseverance and confidence and joy.

Planet ahoy! It is far away. There's a being there that's like a finch, except for its brown feathers. It's a nice planet.

6 New Sci-Fi & Fantasy Short Story Collections to Devour in 2025 These are the most exciting new sci-fi and fantasy collections of 2025, from bone gallows to praying mantis dating lives.

My latest Book Riot post is live, in which I spotlight 2025 SFF collections and anthologies! Featuring work written or edited by Gina Chung, @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social, @leemandelo.bsky.social, @premeemohamed.com, @nnedi.bsky.social, and @kristinaten.bsky.social!

bookriot.com/new-sff-coll...

'What the birds are saying' by Fiona Mossman Flash Fiction

Honoured to have a flash piece out in the lovely @inkfishmagazine.bsky.social. Thank you for giving a home to my little ode to languages and belongings that stretch beyond humanity inkfishmag.com/what-the-bir...

Wikipedia definition of "idiot plot": In literary criticism, an idiot plot is one which is "kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot",[1]: 26  and where the story would quickly end, or possibly not even happen, if this were not the case.

A photo of a grey cat grappling with a purple feathery cat toy

Happy Pride from me & my cat!