Aidan Ghyll

Monochrome photo of Victoria with a wide smile, with the words: "Black History Month is a vital time for reflection, recognition, and renewal. To truly honour Black history and Black futures, we must embrace culturally responsive pedagogy in our teaching - Professor Victoria Showunmi Vice Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Chair of Athena Swan IOExBHM2025".

Monochrome photo of Victoria with a wide smile, with the words: "Decolonising research is not simply about inclusion; it is about transformation. Black History Month is not just about the past - it is about our future. Professor Victoria Showunmi Vice Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Chair of Athena Swan IOExBHM2025".

"It is a time to engage with literature written by scholars of colour–voices that are too often marginalised in mainstream academic discourse. It is also a time to challenge the dominant narratives that shape our curricula, our research frameworks, and our institutional cultures" uclioe.info/bhm2025

The national curriculum should respond to the climate and nature crisis, emphasises a new policy proposal by UCL academics from @ucl-cccse.bsky.social

www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2025/...

Excited to complete first chapter of second book in the series. All the hard world-building in the first book is paying off!

Draft blurb for my novel, The Phantom Flame: In the mighty city of Cant, high above the drowned fenlands of a broken Albion, servant girl Chas Berryman inherits an ancient stone of power. She and her friends are swept into a world of spies, rebels and junk-pirates. And the mysterious Grey Heron.

First felt like a writer at age 11, when I won this prize at school for a description of a coral reef in Malaysia where I lived then. The choice of book indicates also an abiding interest in horror, later to be my PhD subject!

Animal Farm at 80: why the animals really matter in Orwell’s parable about communism Orwell wrote his short, shocking novel at a time when it was considered scientifically inadmissible for animals to be granted thoughts or even feelings.

Animal Farm at 80 - exposé not so much of communism as of tyrannical populism - never more relevant. theconversation.com/animal-farm-...

That’s what I call pressure.

I’ve drawn maps in my novel. Big fan of literary maps - Ransome, Tolkien, Stevenson, Lewis. Fascinating project @lancasteruni.bsky.social on Chronotopic Cartographies. Here are my maps of the future (2154) city of Cant.

I’m drawing the characters in my novel. I’m not intending it to be illustrated, apart from cover art. It’s more like casting them for a film adaptation. Thinking of authors who draw … Mervyn Peake’s haunting sketches; Lewis Carroll’s unfunny drawings of Alice; St-Exupery’s naive watercolours…

It’s very weird to have taught literature my whole life and now be writing it. Can’t find the right metaphor … anyway, maybe I’m getting used to it.

Join us next year 31st July - 7 August 2026.
A limited number of season tickets are now on sale (online only) at 2025 Super Early bird rates. This is the lowest these tickets will be. sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/tickets/

I reckon an academic book is 80% writing, 20% editing. I’m coming to realise that a novel is the complete inverse.

Enjoying the (admittedly interminable) process of self-editing my novel. Completely different from academic books I’ve written. Continuities, false notes, tone and texture. Unpicking and restitching bits in a tapestry. “Polissez-le sans cesse et le répolissez” - Boileau nailed it.

Fascinating discovery of letter by the young ST Coleridge. We sometimes forget that the greatest writers were prone to self-doubt.

This week we caught up with the wonderful @jackieoates.bsky.social to explore her fascinating new show she’s bringing to Sidmouth this summer and hear about some of her favourite Sidmouth moments…

Read the full piece here: sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/q-a-with-jac...

Looking forward to our five events @sidmouthfolkfest.bsky.social - three Northumbrian workshops, a concert and a talk on children’s folklore! Come and unleash your inner Northumbrian!

There’s a novel or two in this, for sure.

Cold Blows The Wind / Granny's Attic - Granny's Attic Cold Blows The Wind, released 16th May 2025 on Grimdon Records Also available as a download on Bandcamp

The new Granny’s Attic album Could Blows The Wind is out now!

www.grannysattic.org.uk/product/cold...

Children's Festival 2025
1-8 Aug 2025

As the summer term winds down and thoughts start to turn to how to fill those long summer days. Don't worry parents, grandparents and carers ....we've got you covered!

sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/childrens-fe...

Come and join us!

Just added a trio of gig reviews to our live section. www.fatea-records.co.uk/magazine/live/
@followers #Buy In Advance

We can never have too much monster theory. And all cultures need monsters to reify their deepest fears about themselves.

@sharpweb.org #SHARP25

Special offer on all titles in the Cambridge University Press & Assessment Elements in Publishing and Book Culture series to celebrate next week's SHARP conference! 20% off! See lnkd.in/e8DyPynu

Lost track of how many times I read this to teenagers in a former life as English teacher. And of course watched the fabulous film, one of the greatest adaptations ever made.

Whose idiotic idea was it to rename the lovely Russell Hotel the “Fitzroy”? TS Eliot must be turning in his grave …

My favourite bookshelf at home. Endless inspiration.

This was a titanic achievement in the landscape of children’s and YA literature. Hats off.

I’m well used to writing and self-editing academic books (under a different name), but self-editing the draft of my first novel is a whole other order of detail. But very enjoyable!

A photo of the author Philip Pullman looking through a small pair of binoculars. Overlaid text reads: Philip Pullman’s writing essentials: ✅ Flasks of water in case I get thirsty ✅ Gigantic collection of every motif in every folk story in the world ✅ Pair of binoculars

Portrait of Philip Pulmman wearing a blue shirt and frameless spectacles, looking directly at the camera. Underneath, in white text a quote from him reads: 'The book I’m writing...The third part of the Book of Dust involves long journeys in a world which is not ours, but very like ours...I’ve got this map of the world and Lyra has moved from Oxford and she’s now in the Caspian sea. She’s moving a little further East, which she’ll have to do in the next 60 pages...’

Portrait photograph of Philip Pullman in front of bookshelves holding lots of books and a stereo. He's holding a book and text overlaid on top of the photograph reads: '‘One of the places of course, you have to be introduced to [in Oxford] is the Bodleian Libraries. So I went and got my Bodleian ticket and solemnly swore not to bring fire or flame into the building... I used the Radcliffe Camera because you could just walk in, find a book, and sit and read’

A final photograph of Philip Pullman, back in his attic writing room. He sits in front of a map of Oxford, blue tacked to the slanted ceiling behind and above his head. Text reads: 'When I came to writing His Dark Materials, my first resource was the Bodleian Libraries. I looked up books on early ballooning, on the Arctic, on everything I wanted to read. It’s wonderful. You just go in, you look it up, you find it, you put in your slip to order it, and you go back and it’s there and you can read it. Absolutely extraordinary.

Recently #PhilipPullman teased the release of the next book in his #BookofDust series.

We spoke to him about his writing process whilst he was working on this very novel. Watch the full thing and glean some hints about what's next for Lyra on our YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wln6...

YouTube video by Kids’ Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen Rhythm of Life | Michael Rosen Poetry Workshop

www.youtube.com/watch?v=abD0...

THE INSTITUTE premieres this Sunday on MGM+. Cool kids, kidnapped and fighting against a nasty government cabal. It's really good.