Anna Frame
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annaframe.bsky.social
Anna Frame
@annaframe.bsky.social
2K followers 1.3K following 470 posts
Communications Director, @canongate.co.uk. Currently working with Miranda July, Omar El Akkad, Len Pennie, Damian Barr, Lily King, John Niven & many other talented folk.

Live in Edinburgh, though more often on trains. Don't have access to DMs.
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annaframe.bsky.social
This was a truly lovely thing to find on arrival back into the office today, after a fairly intense few weeks of extensive touring.

Thanks again to the BA, and to all the brilliant booksellers who voted. It really does mean the world.
A bright blue award sitting on a desk, which reads: “BA Booksellers Association - Sophie Christopher Publicist of the Year: Anna Frame”
October 6, 2025 at 11:25 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Yes, yes she is. Not only that, she’s #6 on the bestseller list at the most competitive time of year, her poetry outselling celeb memoirs. Pretty much unheard of.

Huge thanks to Lemn and the many other poets, writers, booksellers and readers who’ve lent their support to this extraordinary woman.
A screenshot of a tweet from Lemn Sissay, which reads: Today Len Pennie is number 6 in the Sunday Times Bestseller List.
October 5, 2025 at 8:35 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
(Sorry - here with ALT text)
Sophy Ridge @SophyRidgeSky My conversation with new Green Leader Zack Polanski about the St George's Cross: Zack Polanski: What does it mean to me? Well, I think it depends on the context. So during an England football game, I'll paint my face in a Saint George's Cross quite happily. At another time though, where we don't have a football tournament, I think it's quite imported from America this idea that we wave flags outside our house. If people want to do that then I think that's up to them. But I think at times of heightened tensions, I would say patriotism is actually about loving your neighbour, whether they're from this country or not. Patriotism is about building cohesive communities. I'm really proud today to be an elected Jewish leader of the Green Party. My deputy leader is a Muslim man. I think that's patriotism. When we recognize that antisemitism and Islamophobia are two sides of the same coin, and actually communities are so much better when we're more creative and work together in solidarity. SR: It's interesting to listen to what you're saying there - so do you think that flying a St George's Cross outside your house at a time, as you put it, of heightened tension could be intimidating for some communities? Zack Polanski: I think people can experience it as intimidation. And I think if those communities are intimidated, again the patriotic thing to do would be to have those conversations with your neighbours, have those conversations with the communities.
September 3, 2025 at 8:12 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Huh. Is that…optimism, I can feel?
September 3, 2025 at 8:10 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
It’s been almost 2 months since I last made this journey - the longest stint in some time. Is it odd that I’ve missed it?
A laptop and takeaway coffee sit on a train table. Through the window can be seen a river and several arched bridges.
August 27, 2025 at 7:42 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Amazing work here from The Trainline. How did they know that “surprising or inaccurate” information is what I’m almost always looking for in a customer service situation?

(To be fair to them it was, as advertised, utterly useless.)
A screenshot which reads: Trainline Assistant Beta This Trainline Assistant is powered by Al and its content may be surprising or inaccurate. Please don't input sensitive information like credit card or phone numbers.
August 25, 2025 at 5:14 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
Well, I guess LinkedIn’s algorithm *sort of* got it right in advertising this to me?!

More info on this job, and the Publicity Assistant role we’re also advertising, at www.canongate.co.uk/jobs.
A LinkedIn email advertising a job for Deputy Publicity Director at Canongate (12 month contract, Edinburgh or London) - sent to me, the person who is hiring for that role.
August 6, 2025 at 9:08 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
It was a total joy therefore to see this morning’s review in the iPaper from @mariannelevy.bsky.social, praising him for all this and more - talking about how, like his memoir, his fiction too has grown deeper and more sensitive as he’s got older, without losing any of its…Nivenness. >>
“Yet, luckily for us, it seems this was a temporary diversion. Because something wonderful has happened: Niven has grown up. His subject matter has deepened, while his writing has matured and become more rigorous; tight plots and an attention to detail on a sentence level that is belied by the strut of his literary persona. Jada is a man whose responses to humanity are binary - "If it's a woman, will I f**k it? A man, will I fight it?" - yet he holds his tiny son to his shoulder and marvels at the throb of his "wee rabbit heart".” As always with this author, there are beatings and bodily fluids, rendered so lavishly as to veer into the baroque. But they are something of a smokescreen; what he does so well, now, is heart. Niven, a man who got banned from Twitter in 2018 for telling a pair of Trump supporters, "I certainly hope you both die soon", is now writing, with precise sensitivity, about the agony of IVF. It is a much-repeated piece of advice that novelists should put their characters through hell, which Niven evidently takes seriously; and as his memoir attests, he has been there himself. The horror Dan confronts at The Fathers' midpoint is so shatteringly rendered I had to stop and put the book to one side for an hour, just as I did, a couple of years ago, reading O, Brother. Niven's most devastating passages are hard to take. Yet I always knew I'd return. Much of the narrative of O Brother was driven by the increasing divide between John and the younger Gary. As Niven found success and money in London, he pulled away from his Glasgow terrace past, a place where, both figuratively and literally, Gary remained. That divide is also present here - in the bottle of fresh juice Dan buys for Grace, "that cost more than wine and tasted like cut grass", while Jada's baby Jayden is discovered masticating a full-sized Mars bar. A question central to O, Brother is central to The Fathers too: "What was so different about me and him?" So many books are described as hilarious and so very few are. But Niven knows his comedy, and he treads where others fear to go. These days, his jokes are often a vehicle for his political rage; he paints - by stealth - a compelling picture of social injustice. To read “compelling picture of social injustice. To read The Fathers is to witness the squalor of Jada's existence, the food poverty - at one point Nicola begs for something nutritious and Jada, under duress, eventually offers to go to the Chinese takeaway for vegetables in black bean sauce. The speed with which, in the second half of The Fathers, Dan is sucked into Jada's world is testament to a lingering feeling, present in so many of Niven's books, that the past, the poverty, the desperation, they are all just a hair's breadth from the oysters and Chablis. That the Glasgow rain pounding on Grace and Dan's windows will find its inevitable way through.”
July 11, 2025 at 7:49 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Over the moon to see this glowing shout out for @lilyking.bsky.social’s Heart The Lover in this week’s Bookseller, referring to it as “one of the best novels I have read all year”.

Many thanks to @laurenrbrown95.bsky.social!
Screenshot of the Bookseller magazine’s October previews, with a close up on a specific write up: “Literary. Lily King. Heart the Lover. Canongate Books. £16.99, HB, 9781837265497. In her senior year of college, the narrator of the intoxicating new novel by the Writers & Lovers and Euphoria author is drawn into a feverish triangle of complex friendship, desire and the intimations of first love with friends Sam and Yash. Decades later and a successful writer with a husband and children, a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth. This is one of the best novels I have read all year.”
July 5, 2025 at 7:31 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Love that @edbookfest.bsky.social are offering discounts and free bookable spaces for book clubs - such a great idea!

Full info at mailchi.mp/edbookfest/i....
Screenshot featuring a woman reading, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival logo. Text as follows: “Bring your book group to the Festival! Many of you book lovers are members of book groups, and we want to celebrate the special ritual of gathering over your latest shared read by launching a new special package for book groups!” Screenshot of email: Make your next meeting a 'Book Group on Tour' edition with a visit to the Festival this August. Enjoy money off a visit to our events and some exclusive perks to make your next gathering an extra memorable one. Get planning with your bookish friends and make the most of: • 10% off event tickets* when purchasing five or more tickets (applicable against full price tickets for adult events) • access to book our dedicated Book Nook space, where you can chat as a group before or after your event • a special on-the-day discount for our Festival Bookshop, brought to you by Waterstones Read on to discover how to book in and take advantage, with further information including full terms and conditions available on our website here.
July 4, 2025 at 1:22 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
Even more so when it looks like this:
June 30, 2025 at 9:08 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
My train, like all others going south, has been stopped in Newcastle due to a fatality on the track. Lots of people confused milling about the station, lots of staff looking stressed.

I have sympathy for everyone involved here, except whoever is responsible for this. Do LNER do surge pricing now?
A screenshot from The Trainline app, showing tickets from Newcastle to London on sale for around £600 for a single.
June 30, 2025 at 8:52 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
*cough* With apologies for leaping in: we’re working hard to tell people that All Fours is both very funny and very sexy.

But there’s a definite issue in hardback that, if you lead with funny, some people assume it’s not serious, literary writing too - when arguably funny is FAR harder to do well.
June 30, 2025 at 8:04 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Your sarcasm aside, my question about GDPR was genuine. Based on this from the ICO, my understanding is that even publicly available email addresses cannot be added to a mailing list without explicit opt in. Which I didn’t. Happy to be told I’m wrong if I am.
June 26, 2025 at 1:39 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
Also: CHECK OUT THESE WRITE UPS.
Jacket image: The Two Roberts, by Damian Barr. A roundel on the image reads “Book of the Month” The Two Roberts Damian Barr This deeply moving love story remembers two almost-forgotten Scottish artists, Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, who met at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1930s before embarking on a European art tour together, the looming threat of the Second World War on their heels. Charting their rise to stardom amid Soho's bohemian elite, where the pair rubbed shoulders with the likes of Francis Bacon, and their subsequent descent into infamy and near-obscurity, their fierce devotion to one another and profound impact on each other's art is constant. Impossible to put down, the novel explores themes of class - the two Roberts were never able to "play the game" of the art world, lacking the inherited wealth their contemporaries took for granted - and social change. "Bobby and Robert have been buried in the footnotes when, for a brief, glorious time, they were the story," Barr writes in the extraordinarily moving afterword. "This novel is my way of writing them back to where they belong." I would love to see the novel have as much impact on the memory of these artists as Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet has had on Shakespeare's twins - in the afterword, Barr notes that Colquhoun's grave is still unmarked "because his family could not afford a headstone". Canongate Books, £18.99, 4 September 2025, 9781805301547 Jacket image: Poyums Annaw by Len Pennie. A roundel on the image reads “Editor’s Choice” poyums annaw Len Pennie I have come late to the amazing Pennie but, as anyone who saw her Nibbies acceptance speech after winning the Discover Book of the Year Award 2025 knows, she is a resounding force for good. Fresh from that win, the performance poet and TikTok phenomenon, who writes in both Scots and English, follows her debut collection, Poyums, with a second, blistering collection that confronts patriarchy, gender-based violence and societal injustice with tenderness, a jousting wit and not a little righteous fury. Canongate Books, £14.99, 25 September 2025, 9781837263288
June 19, 2025 at 5:38 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
LOVE this glorious write up of @zoesqwilliams.bsky.social’s conversation with Miranda July about All Fours - the front cover of today’s Guardian Saturday. www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...
Front cover of the Guardian Saturday magazine, showing Miranda July looking into a mirror, with the headline - Sex, Power and Permission To Blow Up Your Life: What Miranda July Gave A Generation of Women.
June 14, 2025 at 7:16 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Thrilled to see @danzep.bsky.social in the New York Times opinion pages this weekend, with a rallying cry in praise of European sleeper trains, and against environmentally ruinous, socially divisive American individualism (here’s looking at you, Musk).

Read it here: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/o...
A screenshot from the NY Times. The text reads: OPINION GUEST ESSAY: Europe Built Trains. America Built Highways and Regret. By Dan Richards. Listen to the article: 7 minutes Mr. Richards lives in Edinburgh and is the author of the forthcoming "Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark.” An illustration shows a lone train, viewed from a birdseye perspective, weaving its way through an abstract red landscape. Surrounding it on all sides are the shadows cast by many planes.
May 18, 2025 at 1:19 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
And speaking of swans - my local park has cygnets again, for the first time in 3 years! Though that heron is definitely interested…
A mother swan sits in the water, accompanied by a fluffy grey cygnet. The mother and cygnet swim through a narrow channel toward a nest, on which the male swan is sitting. At the right of the channel, a heron is standing, gazing steadfastly ahead. A close up of the heron, striped grey, white and black, standing amidst the foliage.
May 16, 2025 at 6:06 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
I’m sure there must be better ways to end a busy week than a swim under blue skies and purple hills, accompanied by the reservoir swans - but I’m damned if I know what it is.
A sandy path, lined by grass, leads down to a small beach at the edge of a bright blue reservoir. In the opposite side of the reservoir are several low hills. The sky is a vivid blue.
May 16, 2025 at 6:03 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
The weather affects my activity levels, you say? SURELY NOT.
A bar chart showing a year of step counts. On the bar representing November is marked the number “6884”. The bars remain static through December and January, then steadily climb through the Spring months. The same bar chart, this time with the number “11,020” marked against April.
May 13, 2025 at 10:58 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
“Everywhere along the roadside,
the chrome-yellow straight-out-of-the-tube-and-
laid-on-with-a-palette-knife brashness, the
amazing coconut smell of the gorse…”

Another in my ongoing series of photographs entitled: ‘God, I love this city.’
Bright yellow gorseflowers crowd the foreground, while tucked in behind them can be seen a winding path stretching to the top of a hill. Two trees stretch toward one another over a path, creating an arch, a spray of white blossom visible mixed amongst them. Behind them is visible a pond with a swan sleeping on the water, which is yellow with the reflection of gorse from the hillside beyond. Spikes of yellow gorse flowers frame the bottom of the picture, and can also be seen stretching out in the distance round the edges. Far below is a glimpse of water, on the other side of which is a small hill. The sun is setting, and silhouetted against it on the hill are visible a tower and a series of columns. The sun has set further against the same silhouetted structures. This time the gorse is barely visible against a small hill in the foreground, also appearing to be almost in sillhouette.
May 6, 2025 at 9:54 PM
annaframe.bsky.social
He has absolutely no idea what’s going on - totally out of it. I don’t know if that is better or worse than the alternative. time.com/7280114/dona...
Transcript of a TIME interview with Donald Trump: When you and I spoke last April. Are you still committed to complying with all Supreme Court orders? Sure, I believe in the court system. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that you have to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia. You haven't done so. Aren't you disobeying the Supreme Court? Well, that's not what my people told me-they didn't say it was, they said it was— the nine to nothing was something entirely different. Let me quote from the ruling. "The order properly requires the government to facilitate Aboriginal Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador." Are you facilitating a release? I leave that to my lawyers. I give them no instructions. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you're saying. But I leave that to my lawyers. If they want-and that would be the Attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don't make that decision. Have you asked President Bukele to return him? I haven't, uh, he said he wouldn't. Did you ask him? But I haven't asked him positively, but he said he wouldn't. But if you haven't asked him, then how are you facilitating his release? Well, because I haven't been asked to ask him by my attorneys. Nobody asked me to ask him that question, except you.
April 26, 2025 at 8:23 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Caught a little of the chorus on Merlin…
April 25, 2025 at 10:19 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
Went for a walk along the Water of Leith this morning before work, and the birds were in full voice: wrens, robins, blackbirds, pigeons, even a blackcap. Plus swans, moorhens, ducks and coots down by the pond, all busily nesting. I love this little stretch of wildness by my house.
April 25, 2025 at 10:16 AM
annaframe.bsky.social
I love visiting London, but returning home is always made easier by the fact this is the office…
A view into a courtyard seen through a narrow stone corridor and a pair of ornate metal gates. Beyond the gates is an iron street lamp strapped to the wall, and beyond that a yellow building with a sloped roof and small paned sash windows, set against a bright blue sky.
April 23, 2025 at 3:28 PM