Ali Mercer
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alimercerwriter.bsky.social
Ali Mercer
@alimercerwriter.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.8K following 42 posts
Here but not here. Often sleepy and mildly baffled. Late adopter. Jotter-downer. Onetime diary keeper. Writes stuff. Sometimes cannot then read it back, especially when have tried to keep secret by using rusty shorthand. Likes tea.
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alimercerwriter.bsky.social
a lull in the storm in #Oxford earlier today... in the morning, groups on walking tours huddled under the frontage of the Weston Library for shelter from the rain. Not that many takers out and about for the sequin jackets and shiny red ouchy-looking high heels left over from Christmas...
Broad Street in Oxford, with golden sunlight brightening the tips of the buildings and a few streaks of blue sky showing through the clouds
January 2, 2024 at 6:26 PM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
Muddy walk therapy! My son has been poorly but is better now, so off we went for a walk beside the swollen Thames. (Me looking slightly more knackered than usual.)
slightly tired-looking woman (me!) in front of a meadow with the Thames (running high) on the right, and Abingdon bridge just visible on the horizon, with a cloudy sky tinged yellow, as the sun is about to set
December 16, 2023 at 8:15 AM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
‘the lapsing, unsoilable, whispering sea’… which is the last line of an Oliver St John Gogarty poem in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse, an anthology that my aunt gave me for my 16th birthday (cover tattered now.) Anyway, it came back to me on the beach in Kent with my son at the weekend.
boy standing on a sloping shingle beach in a dark coat, with his back to the camera, looking out at the horizon - a calm sea and a wind-whipped cloudy blue sky
December 11, 2023 at 11:48 AM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
thanks to the magic of digital publishing and algorithms and readers and reviewers, A Child's Goodbye is on a bit of a roll and back in the top 100 in Amazon UK's Kindle mystery, thriller and suspense literary fiction chart geni.us/B0BQ7P48B1so... thank you to everyone who's supported it :-)
screenshot of A Child's Goodbye in the Amazon UK Kindle mystery, thriller and suspense literary fiction chart - at 92 this morning. Other books nearby in the chart include Blood Meridian, The Alchemist and Brighton Rock. I love an Amazon sub-chart...
November 24, 2023 at 8:29 AM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
The Children in Read @childreninread.bsky.social signed book auction in aid of BBC Children in Need is now open!

My latest, A Child's Goodbye, is lot 62: www.jumblebee.co.uk/auction/deta... (UK only)
book cover for A Child's Goodbye, showing a woman hugging a boy in front of a sunset over water
November 6, 2023 at 9:20 AM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
just to show I'm not a total Scrooge, here's my son enjoying the lights on the Christmas tree back in the day.
my son when he was younger at Christmas - you can see his back, he's wearing his purple school jumper, and the room is dark and he's sitting in front of the Christmas tree, admiring the lights. He's autistic and has a learning disability.
November 4, 2023 at 8:26 AM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
Very happy about this wonderful news - #Oxford-based inclusive charity the Parasol Project, which runs a holiday club for disabled and disadvantaged young people that my teenage son goes to, has been awarded £215k Lottery funding over next three years. Here's their website www.parasolproject.org
Image taken from the Parasol Project's Facebook page announcing the National Lottery funding they've just received - more than £215k over three years - which will enable them to continue to provide community facing activities and volunteering projects, with pictures of people involved in Parasol with the cheque for the award
October 31, 2023 at 9:05 AM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
I was just really late to pick up T (my son), which is so much one of my nightmares that I wrote a book about it (except in A Child's Goodbye the late mum runs straight into an accident and doesn't get to go home for tea. Anyway, here's me on pub day vaguely matching my cardi to my cover.) #writing
me (Ali Mercer) holding a copy of my novel A Child's Goodbye, sitting at my kitchen table, with a couple of congratulations cards (it was publication day.) I'm wearing a dark red cardigan - the slightly dishevelled woman on the book cover is too, and she's embracing a boy who looks like he's probably her son.
October 26, 2023 at 4:56 PM
alimercerwriter.bsky.social
So it's probably rude and a bad idea to make my very first post a blatantly book-promoting one, BUT: if you love a book bargain, my latest, A Child's Goodbye, is 99p in the Kindle Daily Deal today... geni.us/B0BQ7P48B1so... & might be one to curl up with as autumn sets in... #books #readers #mystery
me (Ali Mercer) sitting at my kitchen table holding up a copy of my book A Child's Goodbye, trying to do what was once described to me by a local newspaper photographer as 'the smile of ownership'
October 4, 2023 at 9:59 AM