Betsy Cornwell
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Betsy Cornwell
@betsycornwell.bsky.social
790 followers 650 following 260 posts
NYT bestselling author, teacher at U of Galway, Markievicz Award, IWC mentor. Immigrant single mother. Agents: Sara Crowe & Dara Kaye. BetsyCornwell.com / OldKnittingFactory.com
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Preorders are pretty much the best thing you can do for an author, and I am grateful for every one. waterstones.com/campaign/jul...
An image with a pale yellow background reading "25% off RRP On Upcoming Books, Pre-order now with code: SUMMER25 28-31 July / Online Only" and the book cover image for Ring of Salt: A Memoir of Finding Home and Hope on the Wild Coast of Ireland" by Betsy Cornwell
July 28, 2025 at 7:45 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
My friend Mary McGraw came to the knitting factory to take some photos for me. Teapot makes me look a little like Dr. Evil but I love him for it.
A photo of a white woman with bleached hair in a blue dress and tan sandals, sitting on a white wicker chair by a window and holding a black cat
July 22, 2025 at 10:13 AM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
I got some quality book mail from @avidreaderpress.bsky.social — my car is very sandy but please read that as a badge of living near the ocean and not personal slovenliness (it’s both). I can’t get over the company I’m in with Ring of Salt.
Advance reader copies of Joyride: A Memoir by Susan Orlean and Convent Wisdom: How Sixteenth Century Nuns Could Save Your Twenty-First Century Life by Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita, on top of two tote bags on a very sandy car seat
July 18, 2025 at 6:43 AM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
A little change to the final cover for Ring of Salt is that one of the strawberries is red. I like the idea that the book has ripened a tiny bit more since galleys were printed. (I also keep pinching myself at the blurbs, let's be real.)
A light green book cover -- Ring of Salt: A Memoir of Finding Home and Hope on the Wild Coast of Ireland by Betsy Cornwell. There is a ring of strawberry blossoms and fruits in different stages of ripeness around the subtitle. The blurb at the top reads “Beautiful and deeply moving . . . Cornwell explores what it takes to start over with honesty, humor, and courage. A must-read.” —J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN The back cover of Ring of Salt: a light green background with strawberry plants scattered around the edges. The text reads: “Ring of Salt is so vast and tender and urgent, it’s almost like reading a novel. I couldn’t put it down. I haven’t cheered for a heroine like Betsy in ages.” —JEN HATMAKER, author of Awake “Ring of Salt is a wondrous book . . . A testament to the power of determined women, this book renewed something in my own heart.” —RACHEL LOUISE SNYDER, author of No Visible Bruises “Poetic and gritty and funny and heartbreaking. Cornwell doesn’t mistake escape for freedom, and she writes beautifully about what comes after survival . . . It’s quietly revolutionary.” —LARA LOVE HARDIN, author of The Many Lives of Mama Love “Ring of Salt is clear-eyed, openhearted, and brimming with hope. As an artist, an ex-pat fleeing family violence, and an immigrant searching for a home in the world, Betsy Cornwell writes with urgency and candor, pulling readers along on her wild roller coaster into love and heartbreak and out again.” —ANONYMOUS, author of Becoming Duchess Goldblatt “Book clubs will pull Betsy Cornwell from these pages and into their circles in triumphant solidarity, rallying around her bravery, heralding her riveting story as one of their all-time favorites.” —CARINE McCANDLESS, author of The Wild Truth, the follow-up to Into the Wild “In sentences that shimmer like the incandescent Irish coastline, Cornwell enriches our definitions of survivorship and shows us how she found magic in everyday life.” —CHRISTIE TATE, author of Group “A powerful and deeply empowering book, Ring of Salt is a hymn to the strength of community, a rallying cry against systemic injustice, and a testimony to the resilience of one woman’s spirit . . . This is an immersive exploration of the joy of finding home in unconventional places.” —ROISÍN O’DONNELL, author of Nesting
July 11, 2025 at 12:19 PM
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37, have notions, will travel 🎂
A white woman with bleached hair and brown glasses, wearing an orange dress and a gold necklace that says “notions”
July 7, 2025 at 12:23 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Continuing to work on the show toad, it was such a throwaway comment but apparently I can’t let it go
A white piece of paper with a green linocut print of a toad, hung to dry with a clothespin A test linocut print of a green toad with a red circus tent on its back, on graph paper A pencil sketch, and a linoleum block marked with sharpie, of a toad with a circus tent on its back and the phrase “let’s get this show on the toad”
July 7, 2025 at 10:21 AM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Whenever I manage to do makeup on a school run morning I feel the need to immortalize it
A selfie of a smiling white woman with bleached hair, brown glasses, and a blue sweater
July 4, 2025 at 9:16 AM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Just kidding it was this day but I can’t decide if it’s better or worse
A linocut print of green and black on grey paper, or a circus tent on top of a toad and the phrase “let’s get this show on the toad”
July 3, 2025 at 10:47 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Someday I will be brave enough to do multicolor prints but it is not this day
July 2, 2025 at 8:05 PM
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A friend wrote to me “let’s get this show on the toad” instead of road and then said I should write a book called the show on the toad and I am not doing that but still The Muse Must Be Heeded so it is linocut time
A linoleum print block with a line drawing of a circus tent on a toad’s back
July 2, 2025 at 8:04 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
My kid’s buggy board was swept out to sea at one of the local beaches a year ago. He handed me this note when I suggested we go back today. Where does he get the need to process life’s horrible traumas in writing one wonders
A neon yellow piece of paper with writing in red marker: “when I think about my board, the beach is no joy no f.u.n no fun at all”
July 1, 2025 at 10:51 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
In today’s makeup-checking selfie I seem to look like a scientist who’s found something disturbing in the lab
A white woman with bleached hair and brown glasses, wearing a teal shirt dress and grey cardigan, stares at the camera doubtfully.
June 30, 2025 at 9:43 AM
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Monsieur Orange Cat who wanders by every evening is getting used to me
June 28, 2025 at 8:59 PM
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Was alerted to today’s bake sale at my kid’s school this morning. Slapped up cupcakes and a shirt over my sundress so I wouldn’t Harper Valley PTA it up too much. Got in, managed to say half a sentence in Irish, and got out. Back to book deadlines.
June 20, 2025 at 10:37 AM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Did anyone else read this “Cinderella but everyone is a devastatingly stylish Weimaraner dog” book in the nineties? I was half-convinced I dreamed it but managed to track down a copy this week and it’s even better than I recalled
June 13, 2025 at 2:27 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Making micro-zines to send out with Ring of Salt ARCs 💌
A page collaged wjth entries from The Dictionary of Oceanography including: mermaid’s purse, metamorphosis, diving mammal, diving suit. Also showing pictures of strawberries, anemones, a mermaid’s purse, a stitched mitten pattern diagram. My writing reads: Dear reader, 7 years ago, I hatched a wild dream to write a book to buy a house — for myself & my kid, & to make into a space for my fellow single parents. Now I’m writing from that house, a historic knitting factory in west Ireland, & the book is coming out in September. It’s about making a home in Ireland, single-mothering as an artist, community, hope, magic — & selkies, like the one in this print. I hope you love it. ❤️ Betsy
May 26, 2025 at 9:48 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
He thinks I can’t see him
A black cat lurks at the edge of a table, dangerously close to a half-eaten bowl of macaroni and cheese, with a less interesting mug and salad bowl nearby.
May 25, 2025 at 5:56 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
I’m making little selkie linocut prints to send out with Ring of SalT ARCs. They’re hanging to dry by a photo from my kid’s baptism, which is a big scene in the book. Lots of weird-feeling full circle moments. (The Old Knitting Factory’s Patreon members will get these too.)
A rough linocut stamp of a selkie, a wooden spoon, green paint and a roller, and several practice prints of the stamp on various kinds of paper. Selkie linocut prints hanging to dry next to a picture of a group of adults and a baby standing outside in a stony field.
May 25, 2025 at 5:40 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
From AN ARAN READER: a telegram sent by a parish priest to Dublin Castle in 1886: “Send us boats or send us coffins.”
A page from AN ARAN READER, edited by Breandáin & Ruairí Ó hEithir, including the telegram line “send us boats or send us coffins.”
May 24, 2025 at 11:29 AM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Met some friends on my walk
A brown calf lying in the sun, with two cows behind it, in a stonebound rushy field. A white Shetland pony in a small field by a stone wall.
May 23, 2025 at 6:07 PM
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You can win a copy of Ring of Salt on Goodreads right now! “The best memoir I’ve read in years. Think ‘Practical Magic’ set on the Irish coast. As transportive as a fairytale, but as real as the Connemara wind on your face." - Marian Schembari
www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...
May 23, 2025 at 3:48 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
galleys are here! Aah!
A white woman in glasses holding a pale-green paperback book with wild strawberries on its cover. The book is Ring of Salt: A Memoir of Finding Home and Hope on the Wild Coast of Ireland by Betsy Cornwell
May 22, 2025 at 11:49 AM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Applications are now open for The Old Knitting Factory's 2025 Rest Residency for a single mother or other marginalised single parent: a week's stay and a €500 childcare stipend. Read more and apply here: oldknittingfactory.com/single-mothe... #singlemothers #singleparents #theoldknittingfactory
May 20, 2025 at 9:13 PM
betsycornwell.bsky.social
Going through pass pages for my nonfiction project after changing everyone’s names
Screenshots from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Tabula Rasa,” where everyone loses their memory: Buffy asks Spike “Ready, Randy?” and he replies “Ready, Joan.”
May 20, 2025 at 11:27 AM
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Also I am so vain because when I did the quick version I didn’t know the character it gave me so I HAD to do the exhaustive one
“The best match between the self assessment you provided and the profile of a fictional character as rated by other people who have taken this survey is the character Prairie Johnson (The OA).
May 18, 2025 at 9:30 PM