Richard Beard
richbeard.bsky.social
Richard Beard
@richbeard.bsky.social
Writer of novels and memoirs, including The Universal Turing Machine. https://universalturingmachine.co.uk/
Reposted by Richard Beard
Just downloaded a video-making app, so here’s my first effort with it…
November 13, 2025 at 5:43 AM
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Get your tickets in advance for 'The Lure of Class' on November 10th (once again at London's Cockpit Theatre) here: tickets.thecockpit.org.uk/sales/shows/...
October 14, 2025 at 8:52 AM
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RIP to David Bellos, a great translator, teacher, scholar and popularizer. Here's a charming little essay about what he learned from his landmark translation of Georges Perec's 'Life: A User's Manual'. online.wsj.com/article/SB10...
October 27, 2025 at 4:38 PM
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Aside of course from his masterly Perec translations, what a marvellous biography this was. RIP David Bellos.
October 27, 2025 at 4:13 PM
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1920s vampiric shenanigans, if you're on the lookout for halloween reading: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/hoke...
Hokey Pokey
Check out Hokey Pokey - <p><b>‘Begins as a compelling psychological mystery [and] turns to the supernatural... A well-plotted, original, nightmare blend of madness and monsters.’ <i>Guardian</i></b><b...
uk.bookshop.org
October 26, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Thanks Katie. Everyone welcome.
#WolseyWriters Callout for memoirs for The Universal Turing Machine "a new platform for #memoir, a mass participation project intended to become a unique storehouse of authentic non-AI generated human experience". First Deadline 31/01/2026 www.universalturingmachine.org

#writingcommunity #booksky
UTM Guide
www.universalturingmachine.org
October 25, 2025 at 2:38 PM
This will be really good.
October 9, 2025 at 10:05 AM
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Publishing today!

Memoirist and teacher @lilydunn.bsky.social shares the secrets of writing a new, transformative kind of memoir. Inspired by her own experience, as well as interviews with fellow memoirists, she shows how you can turn writing memoir into a journey of discovery. ✍🏼 #booksky
October 7, 2025 at 8:30 AM
This was a brilliant event and some special editions of The Breaking Wave by @mrmarchant.bsky.social are still available. Follow the link, catch the wave.
Seven days later
Last Sunday’s event in Presteigne’s Assembly Rooms was the first time in almost three months that I was allowed out from hospital.
imarchant.substack.com
September 29, 2025 at 10:22 AM
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INTO BEING: A reading list

We asked author @lilydunn.bsky.social to compile a list of books by the authors she interviewed for her new book, 'Into being'.

Full list on our Blog now, and you can also shop the full list on @gloucesterroadbks.bsky.social' @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social page now.
September 25, 2025 at 10:21 AM
In this piece there's an excellent summary of The Universal Turing Machine, and what it's for.
‘A resistance to AI’: The author inviting readers to contribute to a mass memoir
Richard Beard says he’s got ‘better at telling the truth’ by arranging his life story on a grid – and invites others to do the same
www.theguardian.com
September 24, 2025 at 8:36 AM
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Cannot recommend these two books highly enough. Absolutely fascinating for anyone interested in politics, literature, art, resisting fascism, etc etc. Beautifully done.
September 24, 2025 at 3:24 AM
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The first results of my FIFA-funded project are out in the world!

⚽ Why the FA's takeover of women's football from the WFA in 1993 was a "Hobson's Choice" for the WFA, & a moment of disempowerment for #womensfootball

⚽ It's open access & available here:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The Football Association’s 1993 takeover of women’s football – A Hobson’s Choice
In 1993 the Women's Football Association (WFA), the organisation which had run women's football in England for 24 years, ceded control of the sport to the Football Association (FA). This has often ...
www.tandfonline.com
September 22, 2025 at 8:31 AM
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Lily Dunn's 'Into Being' is a milestone text in the art of life writing. I'm looking forward to chairing a discussion with her at @rilch-ljmu.bsky.social next month. It will be a great evening about how we raise raw personal material and make it powerfully universal.
Join us next month as @lilydunn.bsky.social hits the road next month to launch her new book, 'Into being', sharing the secrets of writing memoir.

Coming to a bookshop, festival or university near you, visit our Events page for more info and tickets: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/events #booksky
September 19, 2025 at 8:45 AM
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Welcome! A home for anyone who wants to write a memoir and isn’t sure where to start. Full details of how to get involved:
www.universalturingmachine.org
UTM Guide
www.universalturingmachine.org
September 15, 2025 at 9:54 AM
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Reminder that my new poetry collection (my SEVENTH because I apparently cannot take a hint) is available from Picador www.panmacmillan.com/authors/luke...
September 15, 2025 at 8:09 AM
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In @thebookseller.com today, author @lilydunn.bsky.social on how writing memoir can be exposing, but Substack is a good place to experiment.
Read it here: www.thebookseller.com/comment/a-sa...
Lily's new book 'Into being: The radical craft of memoir and its power to transform' is out next month.
A safe space
Writing memoir can be exposing, but Substack is a good place to experiment, says Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father.
www.thebookseller.com
September 11, 2025 at 9:37 AM
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Novelist and memoirist Richard Beard (‪ @richbeard.bsky.social‬ ) is launching “the first-ever mass participation online memoir” on 8th September 👇 #BookSky
Author opens online memoir platform for submissions
ebx.sh
August 29, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Ian Marchant's final novel The Breaking Wave exists now as a pre-publication special edition, for reasons too miserable to mention. Except by Ian himself, of course.

imarchant.substack.com/p/breaking-w...
Breaking Wave No. 1
Montgomery Infirmary Blues
imarchant.substack.com
August 29, 2025 at 7:30 AM
A most discerning reader. Thank you Steve, happy travels!
Drinking tea, reading @richbeard.bsky.social’s interactive memoir The Universal Turing Machine (@universalturing.bsky.social), which can be found here; all of it, the whole damn thing.

Making more tea.
UTM – Richard Beard
universalturingmachine.co.uk
August 28, 2025 at 4:04 PM
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Certainly a more unusual photo ... the beautifully designed and constructed toilets at the Nursery End at Lord's were built in the late 1890s and demolished to make way for the new Edrich Stand in 2019. They were considered to be classic examples of Victorian enamelware
August 27, 2025 at 1:50 PM
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In her latest book, acclaimed memoirist, teacher and mentor @lilydunn.bsky.social shares the secrets of writing a new, transformative kind of memoir.

'Into being' shows readers how to turn writing memoir into a journey of discovery - one that can be shared with the whole world. #booksky #memoir
August 26, 2025 at 7:50 AM
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“Journalist writes novel” is about as interesting a headline as “Dog bites man”, but Richard Lloyd Parry’s debut novel In the Green Heart is a good, nasty, thought-provoking entertainment.

My review:
Chased by a black helicopter — a jungle adventure story
In the Green Heart, Richard Lloyd Parry’s debut literary thriller, plunges a young family into peril in a foreign land
www.thetimes.com
August 23, 2025 at 7:52 PM