Róisín Ní Neachtain

Prominent Scottish Jews issue plea over reaction to Manchester attack As Jews we absolutely reject the weaponisation of the Manchester attack to suppress protests against the genocide in Gaza

As Jews we beg you: do not let the Manchester attack be weaponised

I was humbled to be invited to sign this letter as a strong ally of the Scottish Universities Jewish Staff Network and thank all colleagues here for their tireless commitment to peace
www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/2552...

Also mine

A cartoon depicts a man and a woman walking side by side on a street. The woman wears a stylish dress and holds a purse, while the man is in a suit. The caption reads, "My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”

Current mood

Chaos rollercoaster of life. Mother just out of hospital. Life being upended on horizon.

Will definitely (not tonight though) x thanks! Hope you’re ok!!! would love to hear about book progress

💖💖💖😭😭😭🫣 that means so much to me!!!!! Thank you Rose xx

Two years after 7 October and the kidnap of my parents, hate is in fashion. For all our sakes, we need compassion | Sharone Lifschitz So many were killed – yet on her release, my mother said ‘shalom’ to her captors. Let’s learn from that moment of grace, says Sharone Lifschitz, London-based film-maker and academic

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thank you!

🖤🖤🖤

Endpapers from a book The Twilight Zone 13 New Stories from the Supernatural Especially Written for Young People which has creepy monk-like hooded figures drawn in black and grey intermingled with purple skeletons against a grey and purple background and in the bottom left corner a black and white photo of an white man, probably in his 60s or 70s, balding with round spectacles which looks as if it has been torn from a photograph and stuck in

Lovely endpapers from The Twilight Zone, 13 New Stories from the Supernatural, Especially Written for Young People by Ron Serling, from 1963.
Unwieldy title, but each of the 13 stories begins with one of these extraordinary, atmospheric mixed media illustrations by Earl E. Mayan

Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?

Virginia Woolf

A California Quail with the short head feather rising straight up over a white outlined black face and barely distinguishable red cap. The thin grey body has white streaks down its sides. The bare branches of a sagebrush hold the bird up over the landscape so he can keep an eye out.

This very handsome California Quail was perched right beside the road, so of course I took his picture. 🪶

This scene looks attractive, until you realise that only a single thing – a wild sessile oak to the rear – is native here.

It's fake 'nature', and virtually worthless to wildlife.

🖤

Thank you!

Small treasures …

I could scale the blue air,
I could plough the high hills,
Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,
To heal your many ills!
…
My fond Rosaleen!
Would give me life and soul anew,
A second life, a soul anew,
My dark Rosaleen!

James Clarence Mangan

Join us at our Festival Hub on Sun 9 Nov as we celebrate the life and legacy of Seán Rocks 🎟️ bit.ly/3IIFSC1

Close-up portrait in profile of a metallic blue-bronze-purple bird with a bright yellow eye and large, pointy downward curved beak. The background is soft focus green leaves against a blue wall.

Common grackle presents a gorgeous profile
#birds 🌿

Good morning with this hopeful poem by Jean Valentine!

A Bone Standing up

A bone standing up
she worked for words
worf by word
up Mt. Fear

😭😭😭💖💖💖💖 you’ve always been so kind Martina, you might be the first poet I met in real life after I started writing and you are so supportive and kind to every writer on here!!! I am always incredibly grateful. Writing and art can be so lonely.

This is very, very good! New Claire-Louise Bennett novel, BIG KISS, BYE-BYE, published by @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social later this week.
You can also find CLB in Tolka Issues Two and Seven . . .

Thank you!!! ☺️

Nobel peace prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group Nihon Hidankyo receives accolade for campaign to rid world of nuclear weapons by ‘describing the indescribable’

The quiet power of never forgetting.

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/o...

Also how gorgeous is the blurb!!!

“With tonal shifts from the intimate to the political, it interrogates violence-both systemic and personal-while also attending to beauty, memory, and resistance. The language is exacting and hallucinatory, shaping a poetics of survival that refuses silence”

Thank you!!

Thank you!! ☺️

Thank you so much ❤️

I have it included in the acknowledgements but I am also deeply grateful for the kindness of Ciarán O’Rourke& also to Seán Hewitt and the Red Line festival because I was really at rock bottom, starting my life from scratch& winning second place at for the poetry comp changed my life,gave me courage

Thank you so much!!

To @leeannequinn.bsky.social for her careful and generous reading and the gorgeous blurb too.

It is such an extraordinary gift when the writers you look up to agree to help and write a blurb for your first book.