Dr Susan Maxwell
@muinbeoarchives.bsky.social
Writer, artist, smallholder, archivist. Eco-fiction, weird, fantastika/slipstream, literary fiction. Indie-publishing tweets @bibliorefuses.
https://linktr.ee/dr.susan.maxwell
https://linktr.ee/dr.susan.maxwell
Already something to look forward to next year...!
In January we will publish, for the very first time outside of Australia, LANDSCAPE WITH LANDSCAPE by Gerald Murnane.
Cruelly reviewed when first published, this collection of short fiction, Murnane’s first, is now regarded as one of the author’s best works.
www.andotherstories.org/landscape-wi...
Cruelly reviewed when first published, this collection of short fiction, Murnane’s first, is now regarded as one of the author’s best works.
www.andotherstories.org/landscape-wi...
September 2, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Already something to look forward to next year...!
There's something about Autumn that seems to call for academic pursuits, and I have 10 Tuesday evenings accounted for in one fell swoop!
Have you ever wanted to study the Gothic with me?
At a British university but online so it's accessible to you anywhere?
For a fraction of a usual university course cost?
With delicious delicious library access?
Come join me Liverpool uni starting October!
www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...
At a British university but online so it's accessible to you anywhere?
For a fraction of a usual university course cost?
With delicious delicious library access?
Come join me Liverpool uni starting October!
www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...
The Rise of the Gothic: 1764-1831 - Continuing Education - University of Liverpool
www.liverpool.ac.uk
August 28, 2025 at 3:54 PM
There's something about Autumn that seems to call for academic pursuits, and I have 10 Tuesday evenings accounted for in one fell swoop!
Not on social media recently (🌞🌞= busy👩🌾); today's the 10th anniversary of my last day at OPCW. 10 years of the occasionally hair-raising plunge into horticulture that followed is compressed, for your entertainment, into about three minutes. (Not the day job. You know what a desk looks like..)
10th Anniversary
YouTube video by Bibliothèque des Refusés
www.youtube.com
May 22, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Not on social media recently (🌞🌞= busy👩🌾); today's the 10th anniversary of my last day at OPCW. 10 years of the occasionally hair-raising plunge into horticulture that followed is compressed, for your entertainment, into about three minutes. (Not the day job. You know what a desk looks like..)
Good Red Herring still popping up occasionally! Thank you @bookaneer808.bsky.social!
My own choices for Day 27 - a book with a mystery #ReadIrishWomenChallenge25
The Cleaner by Mary Watson
&
Good Red Herring by Susan Maxwell @muinbeoarchives.bsky.social
#mystery #RIWC25 #bookpost #booksky💙📚 #booksellerrecommends
The Cleaner by Mary Watson
&
Good Red Herring by Susan Maxwell @muinbeoarchives.bsky.social
#mystery #RIWC25 #bookpost #booksky💙📚 #booksellerrecommends
April 29, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Good Red Herring still popping up occasionally! Thank you @bookaneer808.bsky.social!
Someone knows all the right things to say....also means I can borrow the loan of The Empusium!
Good morning! Nice to have a bank-holiday start to the week. I finished Olga Tokarczuk's The Empusium (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) yesterday evening - terrific, as expected. Today, I will be combining work and pleasure, editing a WIP by @muinbeoarchives.bsky.social.
April 21, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Someone knows all the right things to say....also means I can borrow the loan of The Empusium!
Coincidentally, the birth and death dates of the outsider artist, Henry Darger, are also 12th & 13th April respectively.
April 18, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Coincidentally, the birth and death dates of the outsider artist, Henry Darger, are also 12th & 13th April respectively.
Publishers reject in different ways (apart from those who opt for lingering silence 😠); I have had some kindly ones, but one that still tickles is one that sounds *hugely* sarcastic but probably wasn't: "It is entirely possible another publisher might be interested". Definite "yeah, right" vibe.
April 18, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Publishers reject in different ways (apart from those who opt for lingering silence 😠); I have had some kindly ones, but one that still tickles is one that sounds *hugely* sarcastic but probably wasn't: "It is entirely possible another publisher might be interested". Definite "yeah, right" vibe.
On a day off, transcribing/finishing up. Found short story notes stuck in the back of a notebook, with this in the margin:
"Aim to do some sketchy sh1t, doo-dah, doo-dah/Hope I get away with it, o-de-do-dah-day". I'm not sure if this was my, or someone else's comment, on current public life, but...
"Aim to do some sketchy sh1t, doo-dah, doo-dah/Hope I get away with it, o-de-do-dah-day". I'm not sure if this was my, or someone else's comment, on current public life, but...
April 18, 2025 at 3:02 PM
On a day off, transcribing/finishing up. Found short story notes stuck in the back of a notebook, with this in the margin:
"Aim to do some sketchy sh1t, doo-dah, doo-dah/Hope I get away with it, o-de-do-dah-day". I'm not sure if this was my, or someone else's comment, on current public life, but...
"Aim to do some sketchy sh1t, doo-dah, doo-dah/Hope I get away with it, o-de-do-dah-day". I'm not sure if this was my, or someone else's comment, on current public life, but...
Meant to mark 12th & 13th April: death & birth dates respectively of Josephine Baker & Samuel Beckett. Both born 1906, long-term residents of France, awarded the Croix de Guerre, and (the real biggie) characters in a short story I've just written. #AmWriting #Beckett #Baker #SpeculativeFiction
April 18, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Meant to mark 12th & 13th April: death & birth dates respectively of Josephine Baker & Samuel Beckett. Both born 1906, long-term residents of France, awarded the Croix de Guerre, and (the real biggie) characters in a short story I've just written. #AmWriting #Beckett #Baker #SpeculativeFiction
Am having great fun reading these epistolatory stories, written as (so far) transcript of 911 call, text msg, email, a journal (with framing letter), missing person documentation, concurrent letters (w/struck-out text), 8th century 'writings', and docs released under FOI. #AmReading #GothicArchives
April 14, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Am having great fun reading these epistolatory stories, written as (so far) transcript of 911 call, text msg, email, a journal (with framing letter), missing person documentation, concurrent letters (w/struck-out text), 8th century 'writings', and docs released under FOI. #AmReading #GothicArchives
We have abruptly returned to a more usual April: after a month (more?) of sun and virtually no rain, we've just had a short shower of...hail. But with rainbow.
April 13, 2025 at 3:52 PM
We have abruptly returned to a more usual April: after a month (more?) of sun and virtually no rain, we've just had a short shower of...hail. But with rainbow.
Latest book acquisition: Beckett's The Unnamable, purchased in @booksupstairs.bsky.social and read Eimear McBride's foreword in their café, snickering aloud at her description of Beckett's prose as having been "stripped to the bone and the bone itself boiled white."
April 13, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Latest book acquisition: Beckett's The Unnamable, purchased in @booksupstairs.bsky.social and read Eimear McBride's foreword in their café, snickering aloud at her description of Beckett's prose as having been "stripped to the bone and the bone itself boiled white."
It's cold, windy, and rainy here today, and I have laughed inordinately at this.
March 29, 2025 at 5:29 PM
It's cold, windy, and rainy here today, and I have laughed inordinately at this.
Congratulations to all!
Congratulations to the authors of the 2025 Bristol Short Story Prize longlist!
Now live on our website: bit.ly/4bNzJi5
Now live on our website: bit.ly/4bNzJi5
a man and a woman are dancing in a room with their hands in the air .
ALT: a man and a woman are dancing in a room with their hands in the air .
media.tenor.com
March 22, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Congratulations to all!
Book post is always good, but Contributor's Copy Book Post is particularly good. Literature, The Gothic and the Reconstruction of History: The Past as Nightmare; ed. D. Renshaw & N. Cocks, Reading University, pub. Routledge. Ch. 9 (archives, M.R. & Henry James) by the blurry figure in the photo.
March 18, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Book post is always good, but Contributor's Copy Book Post is particularly good. Literature, The Gothic and the Reconstruction of History: The Past as Nightmare; ed. D. Renshaw & N. Cocks, Reading University, pub. Routledge. Ch. 9 (archives, M.R. & Henry James) by the blurry figure in the photo.
Being on leave, splitting the day between horticulture and creativity, is just so...well, *me*. I can't think how the Good Fairy of Private Incomes managed to miss so ideal a recipient...Sleeping on the job, probably. Out partying with the Tooth Fairy.
#WritingLife
#WritingLife
March 18, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Being on leave, splitting the day between horticulture and creativity, is just so...well, *me*. I can't think how the Good Fairy of Private Incomes managed to miss so ideal a recipient...Sleeping on the job, probably. Out partying with the Tooth Fairy.
#WritingLife
#WritingLife
And usually good to authors. I was ordering a book over the phone once, and heard the bookseller shout at a customer "Hey, X - you can tell your partner we just sold another one!" That's a creative ecosystem for you...!
Totally endorse. Word of mouth recs and hand-selling from dedicated booksellers are the lifeblood for small presses and writers at my level of the game. Both awards GS was listed for were chosen by booksellers and that's the ultimate seal of approval for me. No one knows the game better than them.
The indie booksellers sell books on better terms that ultimately support the wider industry. It's like selling a house for people to live in versus stripping it for parts, copper, etc, and leaving nothing habitable.
March 18, 2025 at 11:03 AM
And usually good to authors. I was ordering a book over the phone once, and heard the bookseller shout at a customer "Hey, X - you can tell your partner we just sold another one!" That's a creative ecosystem for you...!
Yet more! Never be stuck for a bookshop.
Vibes & Scribes (Cork), O’Mahony’s (Limerick), Charlie Byrne’s (Galway), The Book Centre (Waterford)…
March 18, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Yet more! Never be stuck for a bookshop.
...and excellent Sheelagh na Gig (Cloughjordan), Halfway Up The Stairs (Greystones, esp. for children's), & The Winding Stair (an actual Bookshop on the Quays); all deliver, all have v. informed staff who *love* books, & W Stair & Books U have food.
@sheelaghnagig.bsky.social #BookshopsRock
@sheelaghnagig.bsky.social #BookshopsRock
Reminder: Kennys Bookshop delivers for free in Ireland. Easons have free delivery over 10 euros (and also sell toys and games and stationary). Lots of lovely booksellers in the actual stores too, like Books Upstairs, Gutter Bookshop, Hodges Figgis.
Ecommerce giant Amazon goes live with dedicated Irish store
March 18, 2025 at 9:02 AM
...and excellent Sheelagh na Gig (Cloughjordan), Halfway Up The Stairs (Greystones, esp. for children's), & The Winding Stair (an actual Bookshop on the Quays); all deliver, all have v. informed staff who *love* books, & W Stair & Books U have food.
@sheelaghnagig.bsky.social #BookshopsRock
@sheelaghnagig.bsky.social #BookshopsRock
Who better to depict one of the national saints than a national treasure born on this day in 1889? #HarryClarke #StainedGlass
St. Patrick Preaching to his Disciples by Harry Clarke | Daily Dose of
A background history on "St. Patrick Preaching to his Disciples" by the Irish artist, Harry Clarke,
www.myddoa.com
March 17, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Who better to depict one of the national saints than a national treasure born on this day in 1889? #HarryClarke #StainedGlass
St Patrick's Day seems an apposite one on which to discover (from James Joyce, as faithfully recorded in The Dalkey Archive) that the Holy Ghost is "merely an exudation of God the Father", the disappointment to the Holy Ghost Fathers having been acknowledged.
#TheDalkeyArchive #FlannOBrien
#TheDalkeyArchive #FlannOBrien
March 17, 2025 at 2:12 PM
St Patrick's Day seems an apposite one on which to discover (from James Joyce, as faithfully recorded in The Dalkey Archive) that the Holy Ghost is "merely an exudation of God the Father", the disappointment to the Holy Ghost Fathers having been acknowledged.
#TheDalkeyArchive #FlannOBrien
#TheDalkeyArchive #FlannOBrien
Good weekend so far: 1200 more words in my novella during a @britfantasysoc.bsky.social writing sprint yesterday, and 10 li'l tomato seedlings have germinated. Only 52 more to go. (Tomatoes. 52 more tomato plants. Quite a lot more words). Tomato pics from about 3 yrs ago.
#AmWriting #Horticulture
#AmWriting #Horticulture
March 16, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Good weekend so far: 1200 more words in my novella during a @britfantasysoc.bsky.social writing sprint yesterday, and 10 li'l tomato seedlings have germinated. Only 52 more to go. (Tomatoes. 52 more tomato plants. Quite a lot more words). Tomato pics from about 3 yrs ago.
#AmWriting #Horticulture
#AmWriting #Horticulture
It's not exactly June bustin' out all over, but very Spring-like here today in County Soggy, and an astonishing 2 weeks with no rain.
#Springtime #GoHorticulturalists
#Springtime #GoHorticulturalists
March 15, 2025 at 11:52 AM
It's not exactly June bustin' out all over, but very Spring-like here today in County Soggy, and an astonishing 2 weeks with no rain.
#Springtime #GoHorticulturalists
#Springtime #GoHorticulturalists
"Apples", (Emilia Hart Of the Flesh anthology): from ordinary life to odd to food-as-revenge (echoes of Stella Duffy's "Martha Grace"). Well done, sometimes funny (marriage recalled as "less a partnership than a process of mutual infantalisation"), but harsh on the lads.
#AmReading #ShortStories
#AmReading #ShortStories
Of the Flesh: 18 Stories of Modern Horror - The Borough Press
'Outstandingly weird and memorable' GUARDIAN'Deliciously creepy' NEW SCIENTISTFear never dies…
www.boroughpress.co.uk
March 12, 2025 at 6:58 PM
"Apples", (Emilia Hart Of the Flesh anthology): from ordinary life to odd to food-as-revenge (echoes of Stella Duffy's "Martha Grace"). Well done, sometimes funny (marriage recalled as "less a partnership than a process of mutual infantalisation"), but harsh on the lads.
#AmReading #ShortStories
#AmReading #ShortStories
A moment's thought for The Dalkey Archive's Mick Shaghnessy; his speculations and questions "made his head feel like a hive full of bees", a sensation with which I am familiar, and for which I don't even have the excuse of St Augustine, Joyce or De Selby.
March 11, 2025 at 8:50 PM
A moment's thought for The Dalkey Archive's Mick Shaghnessy; his speculations and questions "made his head feel like a hive full of bees", a sensation with which I am familiar, and for which I don't even have the excuse of St Augustine, Joyce or De Selby.