Ali Mercer

I was taught to always avoid the Oxford comma by Mrs Nelson, my year 4 primary school teacher and a formidable dominatrix.

But seriously, I love the Oxford Comma. So I made a starter pack of other serial comma aficionados. And I'll keep adding to it as I find more members of Team Oxford Comma . . .

🙂 It was not bad, but I did not get a whole lot of reading/writing done! However, today is another day! x

It is actually quite close to where I live in Abingdon, Oxfordshire - on a much nicer day than today though!

Having filled one starter pack for book lovers with animals, I've started another of book publishers. If you are a publisher or have a favourite publisher that you think should be included, please let me know. Re posts would be awesome! 💙
go.bsky.app/HHdzkXR

Looking to connect with the bookish community? 📚 I’ve put together a starter pack of authors, bloggers, bookstores, librarians, reviewers, & all-around great people!
It’s not exhaustive—so many amazing folks on BlueSky. Drop your recs for who else should be included! #BookSky 💙📚

go.bsky.app/KQrxmsW

*Useful Starter Pack Alert*

don't really know what I'm doing on here and might now be spamming you madly, but anyway, would love to be added and thank youuuuu xx

thank you for doing this! I've followed everyone - would be very grateful if you could add me x

got a Louis MacNeice situation out there I see, what have you got to lose by admitting that the last line of that poem underlies yr entire persistent episteme

today I have been sitting next to a radiator and a window in the sun, which is going down now, and I am soaking in the very last of its lemon-yellow glow and it feels like such luxury.

ordering new slippers, I can't help but be faintly conscious of the probability that my children will tease me for them. Hum ho middle age

started reading Small Things Like These and oh boy, it's good (as good as everyone says)

Broad Street in Oxford, with golden sunlight brightening the tips of the buildings and a few streaks of blue sky showing through the clouds

a lull in the storm in #Oxford earlier today... in the morning, groups on walking tours huddled under the frontage of the Weston Library for shelter from the rain. Not that many takers out and about for the sequin jackets and shiny red ouchy-looking high heels left over from Christmas...

planning to make bubble and squeak for the first time ever. I think everybody else will probably refuse to eat it.

Vaguely reminded of Douglas Adams' 3 stages of civilisation... what shall we eat, how shall we eat, where should we have lunch. Now: what to do, or not do, with old brussels sprouts?

4.19 start this am. 🥴 (my son is excited... he's not usually such an early riser...)

slightly tired-looking woman (me!) in front of a meadow with the Thames (running high) on the right, and Abingdon bridge just visible on the horizon, with a cloudy sky tinged yellow, as the sun is about to set

Muddy walk therapy! My son has been poorly but is better now, so off we went for a walk beside the swollen Thames. (Me looking slightly more knackered than usual.)

boy standing on a sloping shingle beach in a dark coat, with his back to the camera, looking out at the horizon - a calm sea and a wind-whipped cloudy blue sky

‘the lapsing, unsoilable, whispering sea’… which is the last line of an Oliver St John Gogarty poem in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse, an anthology that my aunt gave me for my 16th birthday (cover tattered now.) Anyway, it came back to me on the beach in Kent with my son at the weekend.

We are so close to 1000 followers on here, please repost to help us get over the line by nightfall.

'Literary podcast that gives old life to new books WLTM anyone who hangs around in secondhand bookshops hoping to score.'

have sampled many and various mince pies, and now it's time to celebrate the small manky citrus fruits of Yuletide

screenshot of A Child's Goodbye in the Amazon UK Kindle mystery, thriller and suspense literary fiction chart - at 92 this morning. Other books nearby in the chart include Blood Meridian, The Alchemist and Brighton Rock. I love an Amazon sub-chart...

thanks to the magic of digital publishing and algorithms and readers and reviewers, A Child's Goodbye is on a bit of a roll and back in the top 100 in Amazon UK's Kindle mystery, thriller and suspense literary fiction chart geni.us/B0BQ7P48B1so... thank you to everyone who's supported it :-)

book cover for A Child's Goodbye, showing a woman hugging a boy in front of a sunset over water

The Children in Read @childreninread.bsky.social signed book auction in aid of BBC Children in Need is now open!

My latest, A Child's Goodbye, is lot 62: www.jumblebee.co.uk/auction/deta... (UK only)

aaaargghhh! Excruciating. Rotten for him. Miserable for you. When what should be a happy time turns into an ordeal all round. Have been there! xx

my son when he was younger at Christmas - you can see his back, he's wearing his purple school jumper, and the room is dark and he's sitting in front of the Christmas tree, admiring the lights. He's autistic and has a learning disability.

just to show I'm not a total Scrooge, here's my son enjoying the lights on the Christmas tree back in the day.

Remembering, with a slight shiver, the Christmas when my son was 3, on the waiting list for an autism diagnosis but as yet not officially diagnosed. There were meltdowns. Being with family got hard. (It got better later. There were social stories, relaxed panto, etc.)

totally down with the spirit of the new M&S Christmas ad. Christmas is about having the nicest time possible consistent with cutting as many corners as possible. (Also, as I discovered last year, about Die Hard.) And is best approached with low expectations.

Image taken from the Parasol Project's Facebook page announcing the National Lottery funding they've just received - more than £215k over three years - which will enable them to continue to provide community facing activities and volunteering projects, with pictures of people involved in Parasol with the cheque for the award

Very happy about this wonderful news - #Oxford-based inclusive charity the Parasol Project, which runs a holiday club for disabled and disadvantaged young people that my teenage son goes to, has been awarded £215k Lottery funding over next three years. Here's their website www.parasolproject.org

(even though Jean said success had come too late, after the impoverished Devon bungalow phase of her life, being supported by George Melly and his wife Diana among others. I might be misremembering about Jean, but I'd like to think it was true.)

was just remembering how when Mary Wesley published her run of bestsellers later in life (after years of financial ups and downs) she decided to indulge her fondness for cashmere jumpers. Have a feeling Jean Rhys might have done the same thing after Wide Sargasso Sea came out...

I have news. I’ve now a member of the Society of Authors management committee. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete their ballot forms and voted for me and extra thanks to Dorothy Koomson & Patricia Marques for nominating me and congratulations to my fellow successful candidates 🎉