James McConnachie
@jamesmcconnachie.bsky.social
Writer. Reviews non-fiction for the Sunday Times, edits The Author magazine. Books about the Kamasutra, Conspiracy Theories, Nepal and, next, a Himalayan mountain. Books, singing, wildlife, languages, running...
Christ no I realise this sentence was even longer. And it was the week before. Mustn't get into a habit...
October 29, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Christ no I realise this sentence was even longer. And it was the week before. Mustn't get into a habit...
Must be the longest sentence I've ever published
October 26, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Must be the longest sentence I've ever published
Please see my article on non-paying publishers in the latest issue of The Author.
October 2, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Please see my article on non-paying publishers in the latest issue of The Author.
Heavy metal, fingerless gloves, the Yazidi genocide, Turkish melancholy, Don Quixote... I got to interview Elif Shafak. For The Author, the magazine for members of the @societyofauthors.bsky.social.
September 15, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Heavy metal, fingerless gloves, the Yazidi genocide, Turkish melancholy, Don Quixote... I got to interview Elif Shafak. For The Author, the magazine for members of the @societyofauthors.bsky.social.
v proud of this issue of The Author from @societyofauthors.bsky.social – featuring Sarah Hall on a human-authored 'maker's mark', my interview with Elif Shafak, Adam Weymouth on wolf research, Roman Krznaric on befriending your translator, Richard Smyth on bending the non in fiction...
September 15, 2025 at 10:11 AM
v proud of this issue of The Author from @societyofauthors.bsky.social – featuring Sarah Hall on a human-authored 'maker's mark', my interview with Elif Shafak, Adam Weymouth on wolf research, Roman Krznaric on befriending your translator, Richard Smyth on bending the non in fiction...
This is not the only Biggles problem
August 5, 2025 at 4:07 PM
This is not the only Biggles problem
What a start!
July 16, 2025 at 1:48 PM
What a start!
Don't use WeTransfer
July 15, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Don't use WeTransfer
...just clattered through my letterbox.
June 24, 2025 at 12:17 PM
...just clattered through my letterbox.
People seem to be responding to the 'did I do the right thing?' aspect of this piece. I'm not sure it's the core question though. psyche.co/stories-of-c...
June 8, 2025 at 8:39 PM
People seem to be responding to the 'did I do the right thing?' aspect of this piece. I'm not sure it's the core question though. psyche.co/stories-of-c...
What questions should writers ask? Katherine Rundell nails it in @thetls.bsky.social
May 29, 2025 at 5:14 PM
What questions should writers ask? Katherine Rundell nails it in @thetls.bsky.social
A book by a YouTuber ghostwritten by a writer who 'co-writes' most of his novels. For the sake of all the kids who are going to make this the first book they read, I really hope it isn't as shit as it sounds. www.thebookseller.com/rights/james...
May 6, 2025 at 6:00 PM
A book by a YouTuber ghostwritten by a writer who 'co-writes' most of his novels. For the sake of all the kids who are going to make this the first book they read, I really hope it isn't as shit as it sounds. www.thebookseller.com/rights/james...
excellent! and of course! Turns out 'fisher' is not all that much less common - though I wonder how many uses are outside the KJV.
May 1, 2025 at 9:57 AM
excellent! and of course! Turns out 'fisher' is not all that much less common - though I wonder how many uses are outside the KJV.
and here's Hannah Berry's accompanying graphic article
April 24, 2025 at 9:43 AM
and here's Hannah Berry's accompanying graphic article
So the @societyofauthors.bsky.social goes to the barricades... 3 April. Meta Takeover. Let's go.
March 27, 2025 at 8:28 PM
So the @societyofauthors.bsky.social goes to the barricades... 3 April. Meta Takeover. Let's go.
Roger Greenwald's riposte to Tim Parks' surprisingly ill-informed praise for AI translation, in @thetls.bsky.social, is superb: 'But “came back down” is wrong, because Marcel’s mother came up and went back down afterwards. A bot cannot understand the narrator’s point of view and physical location.'
March 27, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Roger Greenwald's riposte to Tim Parks' surprisingly ill-informed praise for AI translation, in @thetls.bsky.social, is superb: 'But “came back down” is wrong, because Marcel’s mother came up and went back down afterwards. A bot cannot understand the narrator’s point of view and physical location.'
aha! interesting... it's when the expression emerged that I'm trying to nail down. SO hard to remember! Not sure this quite captures it - post 2015 feels more right to me that late 1990s.
March 26, 2025 at 12:28 PM
aha! interesting... it's when the expression emerged that I'm trying to nail down. SO hard to remember! Not sure this quite captures it - post 2015 feels more right to me that late 1990s.
The preview is exceptional. This is a snippet. It gets more and more layered...
March 13, 2025 at 2:45 PM
The preview is exceptional. This is a snippet. It gets more and more layered...
Aliaga, Agbogbloshie, Gedangrowo. I reviewed Alexander Clapp's Waste Wars for the Sunday Times @thetimes.com
March 3, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Aliaga, Agbogbloshie, Gedangrowo. I reviewed Alexander Clapp's Waste Wars for the Sunday Times @thetimes.com
The @societyofauthors.bsky.social offers detailed and bespoke advice to members on how to chase late payments and what to do if you're worried about a publisher's ability to pay. (And yes, it's true: the money your book earns goes into cashflow, not a savings account specially set aside for you.)
February 27, 2025 at 10:18 AM
The @societyofauthors.bsky.social offers detailed and bespoke advice to members on how to chase late payments and what to do if you're worried about a publisher's ability to pay. (And yes, it's true: the money your book earns goes into cashflow, not a savings account specially set aside for you.)
I was recently implausibly accused of being 'like Rowan Williams' for this quibbling review in the TLS.
February 24, 2025 at 8:57 AM
I was recently implausibly accused of being 'like Rowan Williams' for this quibbling review in the TLS.
I also got mildly arsey about crediting illustrators
February 18, 2025 at 11:07 AM
I also got mildly arsey about crediting illustrators
“Every sight of a familiar script is a reminder of who their ancestors were, and who they themselves might be once again”
February 18, 2025 at 10:34 AM
“Every sight of a familiar script is a reminder of who their ancestors were, and who they themselves might be once again”