Joyce Butler
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joycebwriter.bsky.social
Joyce Butler
@joycebwriter.bsky.social
Married Mam. Writer. Poet. Author. Historical fiction. Contributor - Irish Times, Poetry as Commemoration, The Galway Review. From Waterford, Ireland. www.joycebwriter.com
Pinned
Delighted to get a place on this series of @thegallerypress.bsky.social poetry Workshops with the brilliant Grace Wilentz. 🙏🏻
Reposted by Joyce Butler
It’s unfathomable. I think about it day and night
I'm writing about the Palestine Action hunger strikers at the moment, any of whom could die at any moment, and the astonishing media and government silence surrounding them. The Establishment seems to have become even crueller than when Thatcher was PM.
January 5, 2026 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
“The most urgent political problems are ecological: how we share the planet with the plants and the other animals. My nature writing is my most political… describing the world in a meticulous way is a consecration and a stay against damaging dogmatism”
The radical nature of ecopoetry during this time of ecocide and and climate crisis -

Longley’s having “to contend with these poems ‘about landscape, flowers and animals’ being ‘dismissed as escapist’”

Ciarán Carson’s “perjorative description of his ‘wee poems about swans and primroses’”
January 3, 2026 at 7:31 PM
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I am reading the entire “I, bird” sequence tonight - which is really just about grieving a family I will never have
I have watched a documentary about Michael Longley and can't stop thinking about his collection of eggshells and how, at times, he takes the swan's eggshell out and just holds it with both hands.

I write. I, bird, write.
January 2, 2026 at 7:18 PM
This is completely accurate.
January 1, 2026 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
I realise that this is, undoubtedly, the worst time of the year to hold a launch. Everybody I know is away on holidays, for example. Hoping to hold an in person launch when @poetryireland.bsky.social reopens its doors later in the year.
Registration for the online launch is here on Eventbrite - link below

www.brokensleepbooks.com/events
January 1, 2026 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
These are tender, lyrical poems. Ní Neachtain has a unique way of seeing the world - a mesmerising way of showing it to us. A gifted and welcome voice.
— Martina Dalton (who is one my favourite people and one of the most talented writers of my acquaintance 💖💖💖💖)
January 1, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
In a combination of prose and free-form poems, I, bird destabilises reality, conjuring aspects of David Lynch and Marina Abramović. This is a collection for our times - 'genocide is being perpetrated in a foreign land ... Now is the time for the 'Screaming Tree' ('The White Room').
- Amanda Bell
January 1, 2026 at 12:40 PM
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Registration for the online launch is here on Eventbrite - link below

www.brokensleepbooks.com/events
January 1, 2026 at 11:31 AM
@mabreen.bsky.social Happy New Year to the best Line Manager I ever had xx 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙏🏻
December 31, 2025 at 10:14 PM
2026 🙏🏻
December 31, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
and the soil comes up to lacerate
my name and footprint
and says come now, unloved one,
I will unwrite your language
and give your remembrance to my mantle
kiss your veins to my roots

(From my first collection published last year)
December 31, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
A newborn baby surviving in terribly tough circumstances. Please help if you can. ❤️ 🙏
"In her first week of life, baby Ella is facing storms and cold in a torn tent.
My daughters don’t know what safety feels like…
Please help us give them a better start this new year.
gofund.me/8bc2934b
December 31, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Please send good wishes that my second novel will be picked up by a Literary Agent and a publisher. It’s currently out for submission 😱
December 31, 2025 at 8:24 PM
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Officially book publication day so am back, however briefly - a family member is very unwell at the moment and I am naturally very distraught, it feels wrong to celebrate anything.

but just wanted to thank all the people who have supported me since I started, who have bought the book etc…
December 31, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
Almost 400 deer culled at Killarney National Park
Almost 400 deer culled at Killarney National Park
Local councillor raises issue of deer on roads and areas well outside the park’s boundaries
www.irishtimes.com
December 29, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
It's been a rough year for Europe's fish stocks.

The cause? Massive overfishing.

Nature can bounce back. In the EU, we have legislative tools to make that happen, like the EU Common Fisheries Policy. But we need more urgency in the implementation.

Please share this post 🔁
December 29, 2025 at 9:03 AM
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The book will be out on 31st -
“These are extraordinary poems by a necessary new voice: simultaneously surreal, poised, playful, harrowing.”
December 28, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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Coming Soon! ✨ NEW YEAR'S EVE WITH MIKE & NOEL AND FRIENDS! 31st Dec 10:35pm! Join the best New Year's Eve Party this year with hosts #NoelCroninBEM & @MikeReadUK The greatest ever star-studded end of year party! #TPTVsubtitles
December 22, 2025 at 7:45 PM
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Cannot wait to hear these stories!!!!
If all you want for Christmas is new short stories from @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social Mark Haddon and (ahem) me

Then check out The Essay on Radio 3 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week

Three stories of winter journeys inspired by Schubert's Winterreisen www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Winterreisen, Winter Machine by Jo Lloyd
A new short story by Jo Lloyd about a winter journey at Christmas, inspired by Schubert.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 22, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Get it before it’s gone!!
My debut WW2 novel, Love Will Have Its Way, would make a great Christmas present. Set in #waterford, Ireland, Cornwall and Kent. Available in The Book Centre, Waterford and through my website www.joycebwriter.com
December 18, 2025 at 1:57 PM
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SPOTLIGHT #poetry book, Blackbird Singing at Dusk by @wendypratt.bsky.social , an illuminating, lyrical exploration of place, nature, rural working-class lives, ancestors & history.
'This book will absorb your heart, mind & soul' - @janeburn.bsky.social

In our sale, £7.99
ninearchespress.com/shop
December 17, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
34- There is no better chronicler of the Anthropocene, of human relationships with the natural world they seem hell-bent on destroying, and of the glimmers of hope that it doens’t have to be this way, than @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social #BookSky💙📚 #BooksOf2025
December 10, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Wow. What a cover!
December 10, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Joyce Butler
Stoked to have a #ShortStory 🌀Night Of The Big Wind🌀 in #TheClimateIssue of @stingingfly.bsky.social Huge thanks to Editor Lisa McInerney. I'm also super grateful to @artscouncilireland.bsky.social for a 2025 Literature Bursary Award. I'll be reading this story at #DoolinWritersWeekend in January.
November 12, 2025 at 12:55 PM