Paul W B Marsden
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Paul W B Marsden
@paulwbmarsden.bsky.social
Author of award winning George Orwell novel, ‘Darkness in 1984.’ Dad to 3.
Standing up to fascism, billionaires & mad dog MAGA-ites.
Champion for a sustainable way of life, embracing diversity & respecting Nature.
Former UK Member of Parliament
Reposted by Paul W B Marsden
Childhood adventures, aged 6, to Mr Scully’s Sweetshop in my hometown of Frodsham in 1974.

Liquorice sticks, Love Hearts, candied mice, gobstoppers, flying saucers and Black Jacks.

#PaulWBMarsden #Sweets #1970’s

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Sweet adventures in 1974
My mum and dad didn’t have much money when I was growing up in the late sixties and seventies.
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October 17, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Paul W B Marsden
A Journal Is the Only Memory You Can Control

Writing to release, stimulate and record your feelings

#Journalling #Writing

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Your Future Self Is Begging You to Keep a Journal
Thanks to @Seastar I noted down why I keep a journal.
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October 19, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Paul W B Marsden
On Substack I kept pumping content out and… nothing much happened.
The breakthrough wasn’t “more posts” — it was turning up with intent.
Result: from 42 → 170 subscribers in 4 weeks — a 400% increase.
No tricks.
Just consistent, human connection.

open.substack.com/pub/paulwbma...
Show Up, Don’t Shout — The 2-Hour Routine That Grew My Substack 400% in 4 Weeks
I am a historical fiction author of books—George Orwell novel, Darkness in 1984, and Ernest Hemingway novel, Making A Moveable Feast—all based on true events.
open.substack.com
October 22, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Paul W B Marsden
In a busy café last year, an elderly lady and her white terrier made me feel so good about writing.

Writing gives you a sense of control in life.

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When the World Tilts: Use Writing as Your Compass in Uncertain Times
What if the very act of writing were not escape but actually orientation in your life?
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Fighting fires, saving lives.
But still they deported a family man who had landscape business, paid taxes & was a credit to his community.
ICE surrounded on duty firefighters to arrest him - even though fire still raged. Scum.
#Cruz-Estrada
#ICE
#Justice

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
US firefighter detained on the job speaks out after deportation: ‘I feel betrayed’
Exclusive: Border patrol arrested José Bertin Cruz-Estrada while he was battling a wildfire in Washington. He is now in Mexico, separated from his family in Oregon
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 6:24 PM
In a busy café last year, an elderly lady and her white terrier made me feel so good about writing.

Writing gives you a sense of control in life.

open.substack.com/pub/paulwbma...
When the World Tilts: Use Writing as Your Compass in Uncertain Times
What if the very act of writing were not escape but actually orientation in your life?
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Paul W B Marsden
After 23 days on the frontline, a Ukrainian soldier sent his wife sunflowers from the Donetsk region🌻
True love overcomes distance and other challenges
💙💛
👇
November 3, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Obama on the stump brings a calm, reasonable dialogue back to America, with a touch of grace and humour.

Trump governs by “fear and force,”… “even if they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

youtu.be/4n57lnDwOmo?...
Former President Obama worries about direction of country, Trump administration
YouTube video by LOCAL 12
youtu.be
November 2, 2025 at 7:55 AM
The moment Every Writer Both Dreads—and Dreams of!

First serious book review of my George Orwell novel, Darkness was in 1984.

Discover my good news and take heart if you are publishing your first book.

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✍️The Moment Every Writer Both Dreads—and Dreams Of! First book review for my George Orwell novel, Darkness in 1984
Every writer waits, fearful and hopeful, for that first serious book review.
open.substack.com
November 1, 2025 at 1:19 PM
What if John Keats didn’t die in Rome in 1821, but travelled to Greece and, in good health, wrote new sonnets?

Here are my imagined The Greek Sonnets.

My humble birthday present to John Keats on 31 October - 230th anniversary of his birth!

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✍️ The Lost Greek Sonnets of John Keats
My Humble to You of an Offering of Beauty Reborn.
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October 31, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Happy Birthday John Keats!

Born 230 years ago today.

He changed poetry forever with his emotional honesty and love of Beauty.

Keats argued that life’s suffering and experience are necessary because they form our soul.

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✍️ John Keats birthday: Few Lives End so Soon — and yet Echo so Long.
Happy Birthday!
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October 31, 2025 at 8:37 AM
2080:

If you finds this place when I’m gone, I want them to know we tried again.
That one of us, at least, remembered.
We were never meant to rule the earth.
We were meant to tend it.

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✍️ 2080: The Garden at the End of the World
Devon, UK — Sunday, 17 May 2080, 10:45am
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October 30, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Tomorrow is John Keats’ birthday.

Celebrate Beauty’s resistance!

#JohnKeats #Endymion #Romanticism #PaulWBMarsden

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Countdown - Tomorrow is John Keats’ birthday! - 31 October
Thursday, 30 October (Birthday Eve)
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October 30, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Over the past few weeks, thousands of readers have joined my Historical Fiction Masterclass for novelists — a six-part exploration of how to make the past speak again.

Here’s the full series.

#HistoricalFiction #WritingTips #PaulWBMarsden

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✍️ The Historical Fiction Masterclass 2025 — A Journey Through Time and Craft
Every great historical novel begins not with a plot — but with an act of resurrection.
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October 29, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Denis Diderot was imprisoned in Vincennes in 1749 but the tyrant king could not stop his free thoughts.

A lesson for us with the monster, Trump.

“They may chain me, but they cannot prevent my thoughts from travelling.”

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#Diderot #FreedomOfSpeech #WritersInPrison
✍️ The Philosopher in the Prison Cell
Vincennes Fortress — Monday, 31 July 1749
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October 29, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Countdown to Keats’ birthday!

2 days to go.

For him, imagination and affection were sacred in ways of perceiving truth deeper than logic or creed.

His moral vision still humbles ours.

#JohnKeats #KeatsLetters #Romanticism

open.substack.com/pub/paulwbma...
Countdown - 2 days to John Keats’ birthday - 31 October
✍️ Wednesday, 29 October
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October 29, 2025 at 8:35 AM
✍️ The Night Rousseau Walked Out
Paris — Tuesday night, 8 June 1762, 9pm
His book—Émile—had been condemned and burned.
So Jean-Jacques Rousseau did what few writers have ever dared:
he left Paris on foot, under cover of darkness
#JeanJacquesRousseau #Philosophy

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Paul W. B. Marsden (@paulwbmarsden)
✍️ The Night Rousseau Walked Out Paris — Tuesday night, 8 June 1762, 9pm A warrant for Rousseau’s arrest lay on a magistrate’s desk. His book—Émile—had been condemned and burned. So Jean-Jacques R...
substack.com
October 28, 2025 at 9:13 PM
3 Days to Keats’ Birthday!

The poetry of Earth is never dead
“Keats knew what the climate movement keeps relearning.”
“The poetry of Earth is never dead.”
— “On the Grasshopper and Cricket” (1816)
#JohnKeats #Romanticism #PaulWBMarsden

open.substack.com/pub/paulwbma...
Countdown - 3 days to John Keats’ birthday - 31 October
Tuesday, 28 October
open.substack.com
October 28, 2025 at 10:45 AM
I moved to Wales as an Englishman only to find I am Welsh!

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✍️ My Great-Great-Grandfather Walked These Same Ancient Paths — And I Never Knew It!
✍️ My Great-Great-Grandfather Walked These Same Ancient Paths — And I Never Knew It!
open.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Why John Keats still steadies us when the world feels uncertain.

Countdown - 5 days to his birthday on 31 October

#JohnKeats #RomanticPoetry #WhenIHaveFears
#PaulWBMarsden

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Countdown - 5 days to John Keats birthday - 31 October
When I have fears that I may cease to be
open.substack.com
October 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Reposted by Paul W B Marsden
“Dwi’n fachgen tŷ cyngor, ac yn falch o alw fan hyn yn adref”

Mae’r fuddugoliaeth hon yn rhoi momentwm enfawr i Blaid Cymru i gyflawni’r newid cadarnhaol mae pobl yn chwilio amdano fis Mai nesaf.

Bydd Lindsay Whittle a Phlaid Cymru yn gweithio’n ddiflino dros gymunedau Caerffili, a Chymru gyfan.
October 24, 2025 at 9:58 AM