Emily Midorikawa

You're so right. I lost count of how many people gave me such discouraging advice on this. Thank you for writing this essay!

Motherhood can nourish your writing (and so can any huge life experience)

'Motherhood has opened up a new seam of creativity for me. It’s given me access to new feelings and to new ideas. I did not switch off my brain when I became a mother.' Couldn't agree more, @samanthaellis.bsky.social. Loved this honest & inspiring essay: tinyurl.com/y889he4c

This was wonderful! Thanks so much for thinking to share it with me. I loved the idea of a book as a door, not a mirror. And yes, this video made so many good points about Austen.

Guest Review: ENCOUNTERS WITH JANE AUSTEN edited by Cheryl Robson Sophia Rose reviews a multi-author anthology curated by Cheryl Robson, including work from heavy hitters like Bridgerton author Julia Quinn, actor and writer Talulah Riley, bestselling authors Charlie...

Nice to read this review by Sophia Rose of the forthcoming @aurorametro.bsky.social anthology Encounters with Jane Austen. My Secret Sisterhood coauthor, Emma Claire Sweeney, & I were pleased to be contributors - & to see our essay given a particular mention here. www.thequillink.com/post/guest-r...

What Would You Do If War Began Tomorrow? by Eugenia Webster

I wrote the introduction for the 1st issue of Bluebell literary mag (submissions for the 2nd issue are open now). This essay by Eugenia Webster is one of the pieces that has really stayed with me. I look forward to issue 2: open.substack.com/pub/bluebell...

LUCY CAVENDISH FICTION PRIZE 2026 Now open for entries!

Always happy to share news about the fantastic Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize! Deadline: 7 Jan, 2026. @lucycavcoll.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/lcfictio...

I thought this essay by @ypathak.bsky.social on motherhood, food & love was wonderful. And I personally related to this bit: 'every time I put a spoonful of food into one of my babies’ mouths, my mouth opened unconsciously, as though I was taking a ghost-bite for every bite they ate'.

'But Winnie decided that "no woman (it is not my business to consider a man’s life) has any excuse for living a life that is not worth living".' A sad & ultimately inspiring essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social on 19th-century women's education, female solidarity & the importance of good teachers.

'For most of my students, the benchmark of whether they fall in love with a work of literature is if they can ‘relate’ to it ... I often suggest that they should go to fiction for the opposite reasons: that it opens up new fields of experience, new worlds, new cultures.' Via @judecook.bsky.social.

'It must have appeared to the young Virginia Stephen as if they were worlds apart; while she was stuck at home with her father and her tedious domestic duties, ‘Miss Harrison’ was a brilliant Cambridge scholar who was already famous for her lectures.' Interesting essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social.

Wonderful essay by Susie Boyt on Barbara Pym's beautiful, yet quietly devastating, late-career novel The Sweet Dove Died, which Boyt argues may have remained unpublished for so long 'not because it was too quaint but because it was too uncomfortable'. It's a real favourite of mine.

Ruby Hamilton · Things go kerflooey: David Lynch’s Gee-Wizardry For years, his biography on press releases was just four words long: ‘Eagle scout, Missoula, Montana.’ David Lynch...

‘For years, his biography on press releases was just four words long: “Eagle scout, Missoula, Montana.” David Lynch wasn’t just American, but freakishly American, and like any good scout was both pathologically self-assured and incurably naive.’

Ruby Hamilton on Lynch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

And I very much look forward to reading Ghosted. Great to connect with you on here. All the best with everything.

'The Victorians had turned death into something of a pageant...The Great War, however, turned death into something sudden, cruel and unknowable.' Having written about Victorian Spiritualism in my last book, Out of the Shadows, I found this idea, & @alicevernon10.bsky.social's essay, so interesting.

Paris In the Blood How To Research a Novel

Morning reading. I love the way that this essay by @judecook.bsky.social captures the essence of a place, & intertwines the author's personal memories with his literary work. It also made me miss Paris. 'Paris in the Blood': open.substack.com/pub/judecook...

Emily Itami: “I don’t know how else to be – I cannot exist any other way” The author on being one of the crowd, interrogating mixed identity and language as the root of thought

'Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word? "Home. Both places are home."' So much chimed with me in this interview with Emily Itami, author of Kakigori Summer: mixedmessages.substack.com/p/emily-itam...

The Book Edit Writers' Prize — The Book Edit The Book Edit Writers' Prize for unpublished, unagented novelists from communities currently under-represented in British publishing.

Entries are open for The Book Edit Writers' Prize 2025 judged by @janiceokoh.bsky.social (deadline 13 October). More details here: www.thebookedit.co.uk/writers-prize

I now really look forward to reading Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon, which I have just ordered.

On Bringing the Novels of Mizuki Tsujimura to English Readers As a literary translator who was born in Tokyo, raised in Los Angeles, and now ping-pongs between the two cities, I often find myself describing books (that I neither wrote nor translated) to reade…

'As a teenager who once ached for stories of young people like me, my oft-stung adult heart fills to think that we can now share Tsujimura’s tales with the people we’ve grown up with, grown up around, and grown apart from.' Wonderful LitHub essay by @yukitejima.bsky.social tinyurl.com/mwv7f6dm

Libraries to fall in love with And lots of other good things coming up

Back at my desk today after a summer break & catching up with reading. And what a joyful & inspiring post to get me back into the swing of things: 'Libraries to fall in love with' by @akennedysmith.bsky.social. open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...

An Inventor Ahead of Her Time Leona W. Chalmers creates a sustainable, effective period product solution.

From @oliviacampbell.bsky.social's always interesting Substack - an essay focusing on inventor Leona W. Chalmers and a history of period protection products (a real window into past women's lives) open.substack.com/pub/oliviaca...

Writers! Note that AI translation (under the guise of "global access") is being seen/used as the weak point to get AI into publishing (possible bc Eng lang publishing is weak on translation). Stand with translators & for more human translation, fairly paid!

VANISHING WORLD by Sayaka Murata Ginny Tapley Takemori Trans Read by Nancy Wu | Audiobook Review | AudioFile Magazine AudioFile Audiobook Review: Nancy Wu narrates a story of an alternate reality in Japan in which children are created artificially, not by intercourse. Wu brings a measured clarit

Great review of Nancy Wu’s narration of Vanishing World, clearly pointing out the ways in which she brings her humanity and skill to the job. A timely reminder why we shouldn’t let AI replace human narrators!

Thanks @akennedysmith.bsky.social! It was an honour to see my book Out of the Shadows featured in your excellent Substack newsletter. It's great to see Emma Hardinge Britten - famed orator & spirit medium - getting more of the interest she deserves.

Love and good London novel, and there are some great recommendations in this interesting piece by @jacquiwine.bsky.social.

Jane Harrison was also a notable Town figure in #Cambridge - she was in the first cohort of new women magistrates to serve the Borough (with Florence Ada Keynes, Clara Rackham, & Leah Manning IIRC) in 1920 following a change in the law removing the ban on women magistrates.

What a fantastic portrait of the amazing Jane Ellen Harrison. I have written about her early career, when she collaborated with Oscar Wilde among others. oscarwildesociety.co.uk/publications...

Bluebell Issue No.1 Comes Out + Book Launch @ UEA We are so excited to announce that the very first issue of Bluebell has come out! Here are some of the pictures for our friends who have been waiting for months: And we are happy to announce tha...

I wrote the preface for the first issue of new literary mag Bluebell - out now - & was delighted to discover so many interesting new voices in its pages. I look forward to many future issues. www.bluebellmag.com/bluebell-iss...

Cambridge Notebook #16 Summer heat, cool nonfiction and the legendary Jane Ellen Harrison

Lots of great cultural recommendations, plus an interesting profile of classical scholar Jane Ellen Harrison, in @akennedysmith.bsky.social's latest Substack: Cambridge Notebook #16 open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...

Jessica Berger Gross on the Special Euphoria of Debuting as a Novelist in Her 50s Five years ago, when I mentioned the idea for my novel Hazel Says No over avocado toast to my now editor John Glynn, he said, “I love it! And you’ll be a debut!” I practically spit out …

'Here’s what I wish I knew all those years ago. It can be better to take decades to get published.' Such a heartening piece on learning from experience & writing what pleases you by @jessicabergergross.bsky.social, author of fiction debut Hazel Says No. @literaryhub.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/snrwtbf7