Commonplaces

Card from the autumn "suit" of the Astronomia playing card deck, 1829.

Featuring 3 other seasonal suits the pack was used to play two games — Conjunction and Combination — which were trumps-based, similar to Whist. More images of the cards here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/a... #autumn

Danielle Emerson :: “For the common sunflowers along the Upper Fruitland, NM ditch” – ALOCASIA a journal of queer plant-based writing

"How do I write a poem about resilience—
how many times will I be asked to write a poem,
a song, a prayer, a sermon,
a land acknowledgment, an obituary—
about resilience?"

—Danielle Emerson

alocasia.org/2025/08/15/d...

Loved doing this recently, looking forward to more opportunities to #commonplace

Most recently, we ran a workshop with participants at the @qubhistory.bsky.social Centre for Public History annual conference. Here are some of the results. Thanks @emmajmca.bsky.social, @alexjioannou.bsky.social and others for sharing your work.

As we tunnel into autumn, time to take stock. We have held two lovely workshops this year and talked to over 30 keen commonplacers, which has given us confidence in this method of marshalling fragments of paper in fragments of time. @katecaoimhearthur.bsky.social @lizajthompson.bsky.social

"Commonplacing" at Queen's University Belfast with @leoniehannan.bsky.social. Allowing for more connections and reflection during the the Public Histories Annual Conference!

@commonplaces.bsky.social

Worth the Climb: Self-Editing Secrets That Actually Work By Allison K Williams Perhaps you’re staring at your manuscript, thinking, This is either brilliant or a dumpster fire, and I genuinely cannot tell which. Congratulations! You’ve reached the sacred…

A plan for knocking your sprawling manuscript into shape - @allisonkwilliams.bsky.social & @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/05/16/s... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #writingtips #memoir #storytelling #skywriters

We are delighted to announce the shortlisted authors for The Authors with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses (ADCI) Prize, sponsored by Arts Council England, ALCS, Professional Writing Academy and Drusilla Harvey Memorial Fund

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Join Our Independent Press Directory - The Broken Spine At The Broken Spine, collaboration and community have always been at the heart of what we do. We believe in uplifting fellow independent presses, writers, and

📢 Independent presses! Amplify your submission calls monthly through our directory. A small admin fee (£3) supports our community hub. Get featured here:
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@imaginebelfast.bsky.social event 'Making Meaning through the Miscellaneous' with @lizajthompson.bsky.social and @leoniehannan.bsky.social is starting in just a few minutes @crescentarts.bsky.social... Can't wait to meet our participants! #ImagineBelfast

Making Meaning through the Miscellaneous - Imagine! Belfast Join us and create your own commonplace book using a selection of textual and visual materials and ephemera.

Getting prepared for our @imaginebelfast.bsky.social workshop this Sunday at the Crescent Arts with @leoniehannan.bsky.social and @lizajthompson.bsky.social (imaginebelfast.com/event/making...) - get ready for basic books and big ideas! #ImagineBelfast

In celebration of International Women's Day, Imagine! is proud to feature events that highlight women's voices and experiences. Join us from 24-30 March to celebrate and support women's contributions to society. Explore the full festival lineup: IMAGINEBELFAST.COM
#ImagineBelfast #IWD2025

Inua Ellams will be appearing as part of this year's Imagine Festival with his solo show Search Party, at the Crescent Arts Centre on Friday 28 March. Don't miss out! Get your tickets at imaginebelfast.com/event/inua-e...

John Gallagher · What a spalage! Mis languages est bons With contemporary English including more than eighty thousand terms of French origin, Georges Clemenceau might have had...

‘Having a linguistic superpower on the doorstep helped to form a uniquely English set of linguistic neuroses, but over the last century the situation has reversed.’

@earlymodernjohn.bsky.social on the influence of French on medieval English: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Making Meaning through the Miscellaneous - Imagine! Belfast Join us and create your own commonplace book using a selection of textual and visual materials and ephemera.

@lizajthompson.bsky.social and @leoniehannan.bsky.social can't wait to share #commonplace books with you at Crescent Arts, 30 March! Get your tickets here: imaginebelfast.com/event/making...

Look at what has landed in Belfast - the wait is almost over!
This week, we unveil the programme for our 2025 edition - 7 days and over 120 events to help you make sense of a crazy world. #ImagineBelfast

Katherine Rundell · Why children’s books? Children’s books, to a great extent because they are written for those who cannot participate in the market, can offer...

‘It’s in the technology of writing that we’ve preserved our boldest, most original thought, our best jokes and most generous comfort. To fail to do everything we can to help children hear that song is a cruelty.’

Katherine Rundell on children’s literature
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Hello Bluesky! 📢The Imagine Festival is BACK! 🎉 Get ready for a week of talks, inspiring performances, and thought-provoking discussions from 24-30 March. Follow us here for the latest updates on our 2025 events. Let's imagine a better future, together! #ImagineBelfast #Imagine25

So, today went well - many small, simply constructed booklets were produced. Next time we'll be hearing from @lizajthompson.bsky.social about different ways of understanding this fragmentary form.

Jorie Graham · Poem: ‘The Falling’

the
ideas – so jagged &

hard to make out, fall – until
it’s just voices, two
voices, you’d think you
cld see them so

sharp is their
muttering, so eager their
articulation of right of
wrong

‘The Falling’, a poem by @joriegraham.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Getting ready to practice our commonplace book-making skills ahead of our #ImagineBelfast festival workshop @ Crescent Arts at the end of March. Check out the programme: imaginebelfast.com/about-the-fe...

Hands placing a black and white photograph of a man in a suit on a table, surrounded by original letters, other photographs and a hand coloured drawing of a venus fly trap plant.

Hands placing an original handwritten letter on a table, surrounded by black and white photographs and other letters

We’re prepping our next exhibition about Cornish gardens & gardening - ‘What will summer bring?’. Includes items from the collections, like work by artists inspired by gardens, stories of plant hunters & designs from an early landscape gardener! Opens 25 January! kresenkernow.org/event/what-w...

Esther Chadwick · At the British Museum: ‘what have we here?’ Hew Locke asks us to consider imperial power as a grim yet alluring excess of the symbolic, not just as the exercise of...

‘Locke’s show arrives at a cultural moment very different from 1985 or 2011. Where Paolozzi and Perry celebrated magic and the mystical, Locke seeks to demystify.’

Esther Chadwick on a response to empire at the British Museum: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The photo shows a wooden model of a cow giving birth accompanied by two men. One man calms the cow while the other ensures a proper delivery. The calf emerges from his mother, licking the hand of the man.

Models of everyday life were deposited in #Egyptian tombs. They were supposed to support the deceased in the afterlife. One of the most charming examples is the model of a #cow giving birth.
Carved in wood, painted.
Probably from Meir, #Egypt, dating c. 2040-1985 BC

📷 @romtoronto.bsky.social

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Love stitch repairs in manuscripts. This is one of ours from the 1560s, although not nearly as impressive as @uoyborthwick.bsky.social

Lavinia Greenlaw · Poem: ‘Outside the Work’

When I say I remember nothing I mean
what being nothing is:
within density, without form.

My mind has de-scripted what happened.
I was forced off the road.
It is unwritten down.

‘Outside the Work’, a poem by Lavinia Greenlaw: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Just like its subject, the Morgan Library's exhibition on Belle da Costa Greene is fascinating, beautiful, and complexly tinted with both pain and hope. Highly recommend! www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/...

Cold Weather Protocol - The Forge Literary Magazine Cold Weather Protocol, a short fiction by Erin Striff

Our story of the week is Cold Weather Protocol, by Erin Striff. @erinstriff.bsky.social

forgelitmag.com/2024/12/16/c...

Cover page decorated in red ink and gilt.

#UCDAdventCalendar2024
Theme: manuscript, text, typography
16. UCD Special Collections

A dazzling cover page from an edition of 'A Celtic Christmas' (1902).