warning: this @theguyliner.bsky.social piece looks like it's going to be a bit of light relief, but in fact it's a stealth treatise on suffering and joy! theguyliner.com/impeccable/b...

really delighted that my second novel, NATURAL DISASTER has found a home in the US with Little, Brown

Yes but only came to it quite recently! This paragraph has been v useful to me writing-wise

Just finished ‘Our Evenings’ by Alan Hollinghurst. A beautiful, elegiac book, so perceptive at times I found it almost painful (but also, because it’s Alan H, very funny and sharp too)

And here is the poem/story/piece referenced, 'Head, Heart'

I wrote this a couple of years ago for @stingingfly.bsky.social about the great solace I found (and continue to find) in Lydia Davis's work. Re-posting here in case anyone else needs some Lydia in their life.

perfect description of falling in love (from Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst)

all the Limes are (all the Limes are down) and the sky is grey

Now that’s a BLURB (Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald which I have finally got around to reading thanks to @jessicastanley.co.uk)

no high like it

I loved writing the intro to the beautiful Weidenfeld & Nicolson reissue of Laurie Colwin’s FAMILY HAPPINESS, which is out this week alongside two other brilliant classics of hers. She was such a talented writer: sparkling, insightful, funny, profound.