Jaishree Misra

It's a feeding frenzy here in Delhi (not just the critters, mind) ...

Hilary Mantel was my mentor. Here are seven things she taught me about writing – and life In 2007, after my manuscript had been rejected for the 44th time, a colleague offered to introduce me to a published novelist. It turned out to be Mantel – and I was fortunate enough to soak up her wi...

I wrote this feature in the Guardian a few weeks ago:

'Hilary Mantel was my mentor. Here are seven things she taught me about writing – and life'

by Katie Ward

www.theguardian.com/books/2024/s...

Work with us - Royal Society of Literature Literature for Everyone The RSL team is led by an ethos of respect and compassion for each other and the communities we work with, and these values are reflected in everything we do. We believe litera...

Applications for 2025 Illustrator in Residence now open at The RSL for twelve months to explore the relationship between literature and illustration. This is a paid residency of £5,000 from springtime 2025 until springtime 2026.

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Hey #2025, I rather like the way you've started!
Goa 🌴☀️🌊 in the company of family & 165 of our Vahani scholarship students is about as fabulous as it gets. If you can keep this wonderfulness up, I'd be ever so grateful. Peace & joy for the whole 🌎 would be pretty good too.

1/7 This is the key development in the culture war over the history of Empire that I’d anticipate in 2025:

We can all resist fascism.

Finishing your #novel? Some thoughts:
- take out your beloved 1st chapter and see what happens?
- read dialogue out loud. Would you want to act that part?
- cut it until it bleeds
- less is always more- fiction works as much by what is not said
-no such thing as a minor character
#writingcommunity

When Librarians have a great sense of humour 😂

Orkney Library & Archive. Massive balls in the foreground.

BookyMcBookface the Mobile Library driving along the road between the Stenness and Harray lochs

For anyone that doesn't know us, we are Orkney Library & Archive and we've been supplying books to the people of #Orkney since 1683 which makes us one of the oldest libraries in Scotland. We also have a Mobile Library called #BookyMcBookface and we have some REALLY big balls.

Nice to meet you. 👋

I just watched this stunning film at Cine Lumiere's film festival in London. Would've loved to ask Payal Kapadia how she understood the Malayali psyche so well while creating Prabha's character. I'm Mallu myself and know a hundred Prabhas.

The Staircase of Knowledge at the University of Balamand in Lebanon, with the Epic of Gilgamesh as the first step.

Image from www.futilitycloset.com/2018/05/20/s...

x.com/exobjects/st...

Front cover of 'The Seventh Son', the new book by Sebastian Faulks, showing an unidentifiable young man standing in a wet cave while looking out at the sea.

Strange, beautiful new book by Sebastian Faulks ... Something of a departure from his usual territory of historical fiction, this time set in the near future. Creepy but utterly credible and very sad, given all it (rightly) says about our species.

How utterly stunning! Wish you were a neighbour so I could cadge some seeds off you 🧑‍🏭🌼🌸🌻🪻🏵️

I’ve joined Bluesky and it feels like a breath of fresh air – in some ways… | John Naughton The flourishing new platform may be like Twitter once was. The problem is the limited algorithmic scope of all social media

"I stopped using Twitter when Musk bought it, tried Mastodon (and was unimpressed) and only recently joined Bluesky."

Thank you so much! I don't think she has zinnias. Because of the poor timing of my visits, the seeds need to be hardy enough to survive one blazing summer & a humid monsoon before they are planted pre-winter. 😅

Agree!

I was led to your handle by somebody re-posting this 👇
Looking for advice on what flowering seeds to take from England to Delhi for my 92yo ma-in-law who loves her garden. Tried tulip bulbs last year but they got sodden in the monsoon rains.

On re-reading, I think she may be referring to the earth. Mysterious & lovely. 🌺

This is so beautiful, the picture, the accompanying words, the sentiment .. thank you.

Did Arundhati write this about her mother? Because mine immediately sprang to mind when I read these words.

One of my books was banned by an Indian state government! Hope that counts?

For anyone rushing to buy it for Christmas - it's a fictionalised biography of Rani Lakshmibai who died at 30 on the battlefield, fighting the British in the 1857 uprising. Spell-binding, I promise!

Edinburgh Young adult Fiction Prize — Scottish Arts Trust For writers and illustrators of novels and graphic novels created for readers aged 12 years and older. All genres including humour, romance, drama, horror, queer, contemporary, realist, speculative f...

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Discoveries 2025 Calling all unpublished women writers! The Women’s Prize Trust, Audible, the Curtis Brown literary agency and Curtis Brown Creative have partnered to run the Discoveries novel-writing development prog...

The Discoveries writing development programme and prize for unpublished women writers in the UK accepts novels in any genre of adult fiction, with entrants invited to submit the first 10,000 words of their novel and a synopsis

Working-class Writing: Why your voice needs to be heard - Women's Prize Join 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction chair of judges and writer Kit de Waal and 2025 Discoveries judge and novelist Dreda Say Mitchell for this online event exploring the challenges […]

This Thursday online 7-8 pm GMT

273. Discover how Empire shaped the British countryside with historian Corinne Fowler The Plodcast · Episode

Saturday listening? Countryfile "Plodcast" with Fergus Collins. Much deeper conversation than usual.
open.spotify.com/episode/351q...

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if all you accomplish this weekend is reading a riveting novel cover-to-cover whilst drinking multiple kettles of tea and consuming a scandalous amount of croissants, then you will have accomplished more than enough.

This should be good!

This is how all posts from Down Under look to us @debbienorthway.bsky.social

Seeing how well you mastered the Other Place, I'll await your tips here. I don't know if hashtags work in the same way, for one. Doesn't seem that easy to tag others too. Still, very nice to not do darshan to Musk every morning.