Joanna Lilley
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joannalilley.bsky.social
Joanna Lilley
@joannalilley.bsky.social
500 followers 700 following 68 posts
Author of books including the extinction poetry collection Endlings and the novel Worry Stones. From the UK, now living in Yukon, Canada.
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joannalilley.bsky.social
What a productive time I'm having. I removed all the commas from a poem and then put them all back again.

#amediting #poetry
A black dog on a sofa, hiding her face between her white paws. There's also a part of a laptop screen showing.
November 16, 2025 at 11:14 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
A photograph by my sister the British artist Rebecca Lilley taken at Uppark House in Hampshire in 2013, not long after her cancer diagnosis. She posted a couple of her poppy photographs on social media at the time, titling one of them 'Fallen'.

#RemembranceDay #Lestweforget
#NationalTrust
A photograph of a red poppy surrounded by green leaves. The photograph is taken from above, so the poppy's petals appear as a floating and none of the stem is visible.
November 11, 2025 at 5:29 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Delighted to be offering two writing workshops with @YukonWords on Sunday 23 November – in-person in Whitehorse from 9.30 to 11.30am and online from 1.30 to 3.30pm. All welcome. No experience needed. Free but email yukonwordssociety@gmail.com to register.

More to come at: www.yukonwords.ca/events
November 3, 2025 at 12:44 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
The Canada Post strike held it up but it was definitely worth the wait. I'm chuffed to have a little poem in the Love Loves Our Loving chapbook edited by @radiasilencia and published by @canadianpoets.bsky.social. What fine company I'm in. Oh, and the pages are all soft and creamy.

@TurnstonePress
Weight by Joanna Lilley. The leaded weight / hanging from my sternum / keeps me perpendicular // It's comforting, / the pendulum of you / thudding against my breastbone, / knowing I'm the replica / and you're the original
October 15, 2025 at 3:40 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Yukon fireweed on the morning dog walk. August leaf tips pointing to autumn.
Long narrow green leaves with red tips and orange-yellow patches. The leaves are close to the ground which is covered in brown spruce needles and there are tree trunks and blue sky in the distance.
August 9, 2025 at 5:45 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
A marvellous article about what the dodo was really like. A few years ago, I wrote a poem to try to redress the balance a little after 'meeting' a dodo who was behind the glass at
‪@amnh.org‬.

#Endlings #extinction #poetry #TurnstonePress
The Flightless Bird of Mauritius No no, I have nothing to say. No need. Everyone knows me. There is no requirement to register, remark on what is already recorded. By all means, stare instead at the over-middened moa, my antipodean protector, or the ivory-billed woodpecker, full-feathered forest dweller – What? Did you say there was a tree named after me? I would point out, perhaps, as you are looking – this is not all actually me. I am bits of others. A borrowed carpal, vertebral rib, an ersatz ulna. My maxilla and mandible are mine, my patellas, left and right. I wouldn’t be myself without my kneecaps. There’s no mention of the size of my kneecaps? How I ran over rocks and roots, across the palm savannah, into ebony shade? Such injustice, necrotic silence. You like your lie that I was clumsy, plump and bumbled into nullity. If I were asked, thank you, I would only say there is no air here, just dust, this itching skullcap proving familiarity’s neglect. And I cannot digest. I cannot form flesh to cover this ghastly cage. I need my gizzard stones. No one thought to pick those out of the mud on my hot island when they dug up my bones. You are not the only ones who need tools, who, without them, would be as obliterated as me.
July 19, 2025 at 3:31 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
The submission deadline for The Arctic Circle residency on a tall ship in Svalbard is coming up on 15 July. A marvellous, complicated, submersive, transformational experience.

thearcticcircle.org
Rounded shapes of white ice floating on turquoise sea.
June 23, 2025 at 4:29 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Tempted to have a go at writing #poetry? Join me on Saturday at Bob Prittie Library, Burnaby, BC, Canada, for a free, two-hour workshop. It's for beginners so the less you know about poetry, the better! All welcome. Email info@bws.bc.ca to sign up.
Please join us for our upcoming workshop, You’re a Poet and Deep Down You Know It, with Joanna Lilley. It runs from 2:30-4:30pm at the Bob Prittie Library in Burnaby, BC, Canada, at 6100 Willingdon Avenue in the Program Room. It's a gorgeous new space! For anyone who wants to attend, please email info@bws.bc.ca.
June 4, 2025 at 3:48 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
I’ve been travelling and it’s been amazing and I’m so lucky but it’s still wonderful to be back in ‘my’ forest for my third spring of the year.

#Yukon #borealforest #Whitehorse #forestbathing
Aspen, spruce and pine trees reaching towards a blue sky with white clouds.
May 21, 2025 at 4:15 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Join Cynthia Sharp and me for some #poetry on Wednesday 21 May in #Whitehorse, #Yukon, at the Multicultural Centre and bring along your own words to share at the open mic. Thank you, @yukonwords for hosting us. #WordsOutLoud
May 10, 2025 at 1:50 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
What wonderful light on the horizon travelling home from Dawson at dusk after giving a poetry workshop. What an inspiring town Dawson is –brimming with creativity, individuality and friendliness. A concoction of hope. #Yukon #Canada
A view from an aeroplane window of a grey sky with a narrow band of orange light on the horizon and snowy hills and mountains below.
March 5, 2025 at 5:55 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Grateful to everyone who gave #veganuary a go. If milk chocolate is your downfall, there are some wonderful #vegan companies out there making delicious mylky temptations – No Whey! Foods, Go Max Go, YumEarth, Mummy Meegz, Buttermilk to name a few.

(Get your orders in before, um, tariffs?)
Photograph of a packet of Choco No No's "milk like chocolatey candies", made by No Whey! Foods.
January 31, 2025 at 4:01 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Yesterday's sunrise from Haeckel Hill.

#HaeckelHillWindProject #Whitehorse #Yukon #Canada
A view of an orange sunrise above thick clouds with mountain peaks poking through and with snow heaped up in the foreground.
January 18, 2025 at 8:20 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
wind power, cloud power

#HaeckelHillWindFarmProject #Whitehorse #Yukon
Three wind turbines on a ridge under a dark grey, cloudy sky and a band of golden light.
January 14, 2025 at 3:44 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Favourite quote so far of 2025:

'Remember: progress is better than perfection.'
– Sarah and Team WHQ

@writershq.bsky.social
#writingtips #amwriting #newyear #Yukon
A black and white husky bounds through the Yukon snow above a forested valley.
January 3, 2025 at 2:48 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
I'm hoping to get started with a new writing project any day now and am grateful to have #CheleneKnight's new book Safekeeping to guide me. The idea is you actually write in the book so it becomes a writing journal. Dare I?
#NewYear #writingtips #amwriting @houseofanansi.bsky.social
A photograph of Chelene Knight's book Safekeeping: A Writer’s Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love on a wooden surface beside a pen, stone and hinge.
January 2, 2025 at 4:09 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
A ski through a gallery of aspen.

#Yukon #borealforest
December 26, 2024 at 6:01 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
moonlight doglight snowlight

#Yukon #Whitehorse
A night photograph of the moon glowing through trees with a silhouette of a dog below with a white light from her collar shining on the snow.
December 13, 2024 at 1:39 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
So uplifting to take part in the first #Delisted colloquium today with @stephanieliu.bsky.social @madelinebassnett @alissahattman.bsky.social @madhuranand and @adrienejenik where we shared our creations inspired by @jencalkins' www.delisted2023.com vision.

#Sympoiesis #morethanhuman #extinction
Scraps of blue, purple and white torn paper with fragments of poems on them curling on a wooden surface next to four grey stones.
December 12, 2024 at 3:38 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Just picked up my copy from @evaholland.bsky.social herself. Couldn’t resist dipping in even though I’m at work and am loving it.

#NoSleepTilFairbanks #Yukonwriters #Whitehorse @brianphillips.bsky.social
December 6, 2024 at 10:53 PM
joannalilley.bsky.social
A study of an orange by my sister @RebeccaLilley who died on this day nine years ago. I love how much life there is in this orange and how it tilts with its own internal energy.

#Britishartists #breastcancer
A painting of an orange on a flat surface. The orange tilts to the right a little as if it's about to roll away.
November 26, 2024 at 4:40 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Vernon, Nelson, Cranbrook! Ivan Coyote's brilliant show Playlist is coming your way! I just saw it in Whitehorse and can't recommend it enough. It's beautiful, mesmerizing, funny and devastating. Hopefully there will be a world tour and everyone will be able to see it!
www.ivancoyote.com
Illustration of a person in a white t-shirt with 'playlist' written on it in ACDC style, with their hands behind their head. They're listening through headphones to personal cassette player.
November 3, 2024 at 2:01 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Looking forward to learning lots at the Association for Literature, Environment and Culture in Canada conference next week and also sharing and discussing some of my nonhuman animal poems. Very grateful for the support of a Government of Yukon Express Micro-Grant.
June 12, 2024 at 4:12 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Our venue on Saturday 25 May – the Globe Theatre, Atlin, BC. @ellenbielawski, @pattiflather and I are reading from our novels-in-progress, dreaming of the day when they have covers and spines. Join us at 7.30pm. Thank you @ExploreAtlin and @thewritersunionofcanada. (Photo: Klondike Lost Photography)
The wooden Globe Theatre, with two windows downstairs and two windows upstairs, on a slight hill rising up from Atlin Lake and the mountains beyond. The photograph is black and white.
May 23, 2024 at 12:00 AM
joannalilley.bsky.social
Dropped off some books for the Family Literacy Centre the other day in Whitehorse. Always nice to send books on their journey into other hands and minds. They're looking for books for all ages and the drop-off box is in the Horwoods Mall.
#YukonLiteracyCoalition
The Family Literacy Centre's book donation box has a round hole for books to be dropped through and a roof decorated with book spines and is covered in newsprint.
May 4, 2024 at 6:01 PM