A.J. O'Toole
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scribblerotoole.bsky.social
A.J. O'Toole
@scribblerotoole.bsky.social
37 followers 110 following 43 posts
Writer - working on short fiction and my novel "Half A Lie".
Good listener, quiet talker, part-time drinker.
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scribblerotoole.bsky.social
All around the Wrekin
www.bbc.com/news/article...
The Shropshire landmark that could have ended up 20 miles away
How a TV transmitter ended up on one of Shropshire's most famous hills 50 years ago.
www.bbc.com
January 2, 2026 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by A.J. O'Toole
seamas.bsky.social
In what's now become an annual tradition, I've written another piece for The Gist about how and why I hate A.I.

On a bubble about to burst, a future rotted to its core, and the limits of the Mrs Doyle Theory of artificial intelligence.
www.thegist.ie/guest-gist-2...
Guest Gist: 2026, Our Already Rotting Future
Seamus O'Reilly warns of AI maximum bubbledrive this year.
www.thegist.ie
January 2, 2026 at 10:25 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
I've a lot of procrastinating to do today, but I'll put the kettle on again first.
January 2, 2026 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by A.J. O'Toole
kieranstories.bsky.social
First story of 2026 posted. If you’d like to give it a read, that’d be cracking. Hope you enjoy it! Happy New Year all - have a chilled one. kieranstorieswriter.wordpress.com/2026/01/01/o...
On new short fiction: Numb Beyond Her Last of Sense
A new piece of short fiction titled ‘Numb Beyond Her Last of Sense’.
kieranstorieswriter.wordpress.com
January 1, 2026 at 12:51 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
Fix the things you can fix, swear profusely at the things you can't.
December 30, 2025 at 10:31 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
It's the sixth day of Christmas and you are a horrible goose
Be Goose Do Crime
December 30, 2025 at 8:49 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
This is a lovely long listen about the making of Fairytale of New York. The mechanics, long gestation, happy accidents and the legacy of great art. open.spotify.com/episode/1KGb...
Spotify – Web Player
open.spotify.com
December 23, 2025 at 7:44 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
I'm Eeyore half the time, and Tigger the other. Which is exhausting for my wife.
December 22, 2025 at 1:39 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
Best Christmas card we've received. #iykyk
a festive scene of the famous Nine Locks
December 22, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by A.J. O'Toole
ronanhession.bsky.social
Isn't this nice to see!

Congratulations Subotica, @richieconroy.bsky.social Mark Hodkinson, Andrew Chaplin and all the cast and crew.

FYI @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social

UK BROADCASTER SHOW OF THE YEAR

Leonard and Hungry Paul

www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/ric...
Richard Middleton: Severance, Apple TV
'This Apple TV drama looks and feels like something totally alien to pretty much everything else out there'
www.broadcastnow.co.uk
December 19, 2025 at 11:27 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
Waking up all hangover and regrets? Last call for this one before it's in the vault until next year.
#ShortFiction #IndieLit
December 20, 2025 at 10:17 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
I endorse this message... WB's kind words and helpful critiques of various drafts really helped me this year. Let's create a community of artists and look out for each other.
w-b-aubrey.bsky.social W. B. Aubrey @w-b-aubrey.bsky.social · 14d
Just scheduled my first newsletter, which will include the section below. Sign up here to read the rest and stay in touch with my work: w-b-aubrey.eo.page/newsletter

I don't care for hashtags, but I love meeting writers and readers, so
#writingcommunity #booksky #blueskywriters #indielit #amwriting
A segment of the newsletter reads: Writing as Resistance against Generative AI In my day job as an academic, I have increasingly been required to deal with the outputs of large language models, so-called AI, for a couple of years now, and it has been dispiriting to see people giving up on the quintessentially human act of putting our thoughts into words. In my academic writing, I have spoken about how this robs students of the joy of learning, but it is even worse than that, as catastrophic as that is. By accepting that the world can and should be narrated by soulless, humourless, eight-ball machines, we are robbing future generations of the gift of ourselves. I am sure that a large language machine could produce writing that some people prefer to mine. It can certainly do so much more quickly and with considerably better punctuation. But I don't want to write for those people. I want to tell my silly little stories with serious themes to people who will recognise and enjoy them for their humanity. It was earlier this year, when reading a draft of my friend A.J. O'Toole's wonderful novel 'Half A Lie', that I realised my complacency in assuming that I would one day get around to putting pen to paper on the story I had been carrying around with me since the turn of the century. Raging (in polite academic terms) against the pollution of our world by plagiarised, decontextualised, soulless slop was all very well and good, but what was I doing? I was complaining and waiting for others to carry the fight on my behalf. And I would rather do that for myself, with my own words and thoughts and fears and inspirations. I hope you will enjoy them.
December 20, 2025 at 9:40 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
You may wish to note the below
gralefrit.bsky.social Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 14d
If the industry rumours are true about Walliams using ghost writers, a sane publisher would sign the (clearly very successful and competent) back room hack(s) up, come clean, throw the same publicity machine behind them, and have a fantastic line of popular kids’ books ready for next year.
December 19, 2025 at 6:08 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
For the day that's in it... and if you're about to knock off work and head for a couple of drinks on Black Eye Friday.
#amwriting #indielit
December 19, 2025 at 5:28 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
"Please do not expect further communication or feedback" could be the new "You may wish to note the above"
Submitted an entry to the Hilary Mantel Prize for Fiction
December 19, 2025 at 11:54 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
It's #BlackEyeFriday, here's my short story about a holiday party at the very end of the earth.

ajotoole.substack.com/p/black-eye-...
Black Eye Friday - short fiction
A holiday party at the end of the earth
ajotoole.substack.com
December 19, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by A.J. O'Toole
duckpondsreview.bsky.social
2020 #46
The debut novel from another real favourite of mine, a Black Country writer who brings us dark tales from that oft ignored part of the English Midlands. Also debuts the author's distinct and unsettling narrative style, the blurb gives a hint.
@saltpublishing.com
⭐⭐⭐⭐
🖋️📚
#booksky
#books
The Black Country, by Kerry Hadley-Price. Plot Maddie and Harry: she's an estate agent, he's a teacher. They'll say they live in the Black Country. They'll say how they met Jonathan Cotard, explain how they later argued, had a car accident, thought they'd killed someone. Thought they had. And as they search for a truth, they'll tell us their secrets, their mistakes. And we'll judge them. We'll judge Harry's fling with a schoolgirl and Maddie's previous life. We'll judge the nature of love and violence, good and evil. The Black Country. For Maddie and Harry, it's darker than it should be.
December 19, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by A.J. O'Toole
ninaantonia13.bsky.social
December 13th is the feast day of Saint Lucy or Santa Lucia who wore a crown of candles so that she could see where she was going as she distributed food to Christians hiding in roman catacombs. The flaming headdress is still worn in Italy, Sweden & Norway to commemorate St. Lucy.
December 13, 2025 at 5:46 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
If you have a spare five minutes this weekend:
literarygarage.bsky.social Literary Garage @literarygarage.bsky.social · 23d
This morning's story from @scribblerotoole.bsky.social is taut, cinematic, and steeped in atmosphere. It reads like pure McKinty meets le Carré: morally gray, procedural, and emotionally tight.

You can read it here:
literarygarage.com/the-big-man
🎸📚

#fiction #writing #shortstory
The Big Man | Literary Garage
literarygarage.com
December 13, 2025 at 10:08 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
Really pleased for this short to find a home. Thanks for the opportunity @literarygarage.bsky.social !
literarygarage.bsky.social Literary Garage @literarygarage.bsky.social · 23d
This morning's story from @scribblerotoole.bsky.social is taut, cinematic, and steeped in atmosphere. It reads like pure McKinty meets le Carré: morally gray, procedural, and emotionally tight.

You can read it here:
literarygarage.com/the-big-man
🎸📚

#fiction #writing #shortstory
The Big Man | Literary Garage
literarygarage.com
December 10, 2025 at 3:54 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
A Star Called Henry - Roddy Doyle
After the Wake - Brendan Behan
Strumpet City - James Plunkett
The Ginger Man - JP Donleavy
Ulysses - James Joyce
irishlittimes.bsky.social Irish Literary Times @irishlittimes.bsky.social · Dec 3
Introduce yourself by naming five books by Irish writers that you have read.
December 7, 2025 at 1:08 PM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
Yep. That's my writing music, and the soundtrack for the as yet unmade adaptation of my not quite finished novel.
Spotify Most Played of 2025 Lot of Eno.
December 5, 2025 at 8:12 AM
scribblerotoole.bsky.social
Please ring and wait for an answer
A bell push. A brass plate that says "Please ring and wait for an answer"
December 3, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by A.J. O'Toole
dhanendran.co.uk
Nine years ago Mike Fitzgerald wrote up an extraordinarily fascinating breakdown of the differences between the Tom Stoppard shooting script and the original Jeffrey Boam draft of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

It's well worth your time: www.creativescreenwriting.com/indiana-jone...
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Learning from Stoppard By Mike Fitzgerald, June 13, 2016 Comparing two drafts of a script can be hugely instructive, revealing point-by-point how a writer went about improving the story. When I stumbled upon an earlier draft of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I discovered a dazzling, glittering trove of lessons as nourishing as eternal life itself. Well, nearly so. Last Crusade was written by Jeffrey Boam, from a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes. So say the opening credits. Boam’s final draft, dated March 1, 1988 (ten weeks before production) differs drastically from the published script which reflects the released version of the film. Differences come as no shock, but with Last Crusade they aren’t just a few deleted scenes and some line changes. Whole sections of the Boam draft were reimagined, major set pieces were added, and the pacing and tone were markedly transformed. Whoever made these changes possessed a profound grasp of story craft. Screenshot from https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/indiana-jones-and-the-last-crusade-learning-from-stoppard/
July 2, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by A.J. O'Toole
theguardian.com
Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror review – dark tales with a sting
Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror review – dark tales with a sting
This collection of macabre stories set across England explores class, hierarchy and the enduring nature of inequality
www.theguardian.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:14 AM