Catherine Spooner
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catherinespooner.bsky.social
Catherine Spooner
@catherinespooner.bsky.social

Academic and creative writer | Professor of Literature and Culture, Lancaster University | all things Gothic | fashion | folk horror | she/her

Art 39%
Sociology 17%

Lancaster’s first LGBTQ+ bookstore opened today on the charter market and look what I got! Brand new books by @louisewelsh00.bsky.social and @inkyrosey.bsky.social

Reposted by Catherine Spooner

One of the projects you can support on Smelt is a new sitcom by me. It's called The Least Bad Of All Possible Worlds and it's about refugees from parallel universes trying to integrate into society in Morecambe. You can pledge to fund it here: if you fund it, we make it! mirlo.space/leadmojo/rel...

How I’m walking out of 2025

‘And oh, she was so pretty and so sweet, I could not choose but go.'

Please someone remake It’s a Wonderful Life but from the POV of Violet narrating her adventures in Pottersville.
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵

Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Reposted by Catherine Spooner

People say AI is a magic shortcut to creativity & success. I’ll tell you the real secret and it’s voraciously reading, being interested in everything, being diligent in the pursuit of learning, paying attention to the interior lives of others & keeping a heart open to the world.

Thanks Elen! It’s great isn’t it?!

Just officially launched this wonderful @sidekickbooks.bsky.social anthology which I contributed to... it's perfectly stocking-sized, just right for the vampire lover in your life! sidekickbooks.com/booklab/book...
Ten Poets Spend the Night in a Vampire's Castle - Sidekick Books
An anthology of vampire poetry, featuring erotic writing, horror, romantasy and paranormal romance.
sidekickbooks.com
Seals singing in a sea cave

#Orkney 🦭🎧
When people say that Wuthering Heights doesn't have anything to do with race or that no film has engaged with race, what they mean is that for them Romani people do not count and they also haven't been paying attention. I'm going to share a little material from a recent talk. Content note: racism 1/

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

I contributed to this one… guess what I chose?

Reposted by Catherine Spooner

From gruesome portraits to creepy critters, these are the paintings that have stayed with our experts long after their first glimpse.
The painting that haunts me – seven experts share their favourite scary artwork
From gruesome portraits to creepy critters, these are the paintings that have stayed with our experts long after their first glimpse.
tcnv.link

Reposted by Catherine Spooner

Reposted by Catherine Spooner

How to Hibernate.

Scanned by us from the 1952 book Animal Fair, by the Provensens.

It’s time.
So I've been reading the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper. There's some good things in there. But when it comes to universities there's very little to cheer. The situation is very tough and will get worse. The last chance to preserve what we've got has passed. Let me explain why. (1/?)

´It’s not about knowing. It’s about being present.´ Devastating essay on the power of gaps, errors, mishearing in the way we teach.

Reposted by Catherine Spooner

This beautiful, honest, tender essay is the best rebuttal of AI infected teaching and learning, by Sean Cho A. The happy accident of the seminar - best when it's a bit of a mess.
therumpus.net/2025/10/02/h...
Human Error Is the Point: On Teaching College During the Rise of AI - The Rumpus
My syllabus is a mess of half-remembered intentions. I re-use icebreakers that I know don’t work. I forget to grade the first assignment until Week Four. I write emails that begin with “So sorry for t...
therumpus.net
Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Free Gothic event alert! Panel discussion on Gothic Italy, in person at Goldsmiths or hybrid, Tuesday 7 October: bads.gold.ac.uk/gothic-italy
2025: Gothic Italy — BADS
BADS Jeudis 2025
bads.gold.ac.uk
My new novel, The Heist Of Hollow London, is published TODAY. The hardback may not be out in the UK yet - it's listed for the end of October here - but the ebook is certainly available now. Here are some links but please feel free to buy wherever you can find it: amzn.to/3IOGJRw
The Heist of Hollow London
The Heist of Hollow London eBook : Robson, Eddie: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
amzn.to
I am genuinely baffled and distressed as to why the UK government is intent on destroying UK's genuinely world-leading universities, who bring £265 billion into the economy and support more than 250,000 jobs.

This tax will kill us.

www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...
Student visas crackdown and new levies to cause ‘£1.8bn loss’ to UK economy
The Government has proposed a 6 per cent tax on international student tuition fees and a reduction in graduate visas
www.standard.co.uk

Reposted by Catherine Spooner

ANIMAL GHOSTS (1980): Spooky short story anthology centred around, well... animal ghosts. The cover is particularly striking - those animals are freaking out, man!

🦇🎶It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
Heads up @igagoths.bsky.social - delighted to announce the CFP for IGA 2026: 'Gothic Selves/Artificial Others' hosted at the University of Hull 28-31 July! hullgothic.wordpress.com
Gothic Selves/Artificial Others
18th Biennual Conference of the International Gothic Association: 28-31 July, 2026. Hull, UK
hullgothic.wordpress.com

Wrong emoji! 😢

😥