Maggie Brookes
maggiebrookesbutt.bsky.social
Maggie Brookes
@maggiebrookesbutt.bsky.social
📚Historical novelist with Penguin Random House (Maggie Brookes)
📚Poet with six published collections (Maggie Butt)
🥰 Besotted grandmother (Nanma)
📖 Eager reader
🌹Hopeful gardener
Amazing book launch at Keats House! Huge thanks to everyone who came, and to my publisher Greenwich Exchange.
January 28, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Looking forward to a bit of a tour with my new book!!
January 23, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Superb performance by Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock in this Merchant of Venice set in 1936. Timely and very moving.
. #shakespeare #merchantofvenice @tracyannoberman @trafalgartheatre
January 22, 2025 at 7:01 PM
This amazing book is everything it says on the cover: ‘stunning’ ‘beautiful’ ‘extraordinary’. A well deserved Booker winner. #orbital
January 19, 2025 at 11:50 AM
The indomitable and irrepressible Katherine Gallagher launched her new collection last night to a packed house. ‘Can the Dandelions Be Trusted’ (Arc Publications) is her 7th full collection, in addition to a chapbook and book of translations. The love in the room was palpable. #poetry
January 17, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Acumen Literary Journal has always been very special to me. It was the first highly regarded magazine to publish a poem of mine. A few years later, Patrica Oxley published my first pamphlet, ‘Quintana Roo’.
Thank you Acumen.
January 9, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Wise, witty and consummately clever. Harriet Walter tells us what Shakespeare’s female characters might have said, if they’d been given a chance! Not just for Shakespeare fans and feminists, as you can see from these two sonnets. @viragopress #harrietwalter #shespeaks #shakespeare
January 6, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Has anyone got a better cure for the new year blues?
January 4, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Happy new year! May it bring you happiness, hope, peace and love. (This clock has chimed 248 new years!)
January 1, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Some of my favourite reads from this year which sent me whizzing through space and time. Any of your top 10 here? @lizfremantle.bsky.social @gillpaulauthor.bsky.social
December 29, 2024 at 11:44 AM
Beautiful writing in this vivid portrayal of Calcutta. And wonderful characters. And so wise. But is it a novel if nothing really happens? Discuss. #amitchaudhuri #whatisanovel
December 28, 2024 at 3:58 PM
Look closely at my favourite Christmas card: Mary is sitting up in bed, reading, while an exhausted-looking Joseph sits on the floor, holding the baby. No, it’s not a modern meme, but a genuine 15th century image. Happy Christmas to all who celebrate it. #fitzwilliammuseum
December 24, 2024 at 6:20 PM
The wonderful Renard Press produces one of these gorgeous little books each year in aid of Three Peas, a charity which helps refugees and asylum seekers in Europe. Happy Christmas @renardpress.bsky.social
December 23, 2024 at 6:06 PM
The suspense at the end of this powerful, atmospheric novel was so great that I couldn’t bear to read it at bed-time, in case the ending kept me awake all night. So I had to get up early this morning to finish it! Wrung out! @larsmytting #thebellinthelake #readers
December 9, 2024 at 9:34 AM
Didn’t manage to see the northern lights, but thanks to the magic of sophisticated AI, we can imagine that we did! 🤣 #tromsø
December 3, 2024 at 2:40 PM
Snowing hard at 11am in Tromsø. Thank goodness - found a bookshop! #tromsø #bokhuset
December 2, 2024 at 12:22 PM
Tip for a struggling writer:

When Norwegian novelist Cora Sandel fell on hard times she wrote “I didn’t make a living by writing… I survived by pawning my typewriter. For each short story payment I redeemed it again. One can get a lot out of a typewriter if one just doesn’t use it’
December 2, 2024 at 8:52 AM
Sliced reindeer stew or a whale steak anyone?? #arcticfood #tromsø
December 1, 2024 at 3:25 PM
I want to be this feisty Sami woman when I grow up. And to carry a bag made of silver birch bark. #tromsø
December 1, 2024 at 3:11 PM
Hard to think of a better book I could have brought to snowy Tromsø. A snow child might materialise at any moment! @eowyn.ivey #thesnowchild
November 30, 2024 at 5:05 PM
Still snowing, and this is a real cathedral, not a library! Pretty spectacular. #tromsø #arcticcathedral #arcticcathedraltromsø
November 30, 2024 at 4:56 PM
A city with a library which thinks it’s a cathedral. That’s my sort of place! #tromsø
November 29, 2024 at 3:03 PM
Lovely view over Tromsø, but thick cloud and an arctic storm on the way. #tromsø
November 28, 2024 at 10:25 PM
Another sky-related post! Off to Tromsø. Hoping for northern lights. Def going to see snow! Very excited to go to a place with an ø. #tromsø
November 28, 2024 at 2:21 PM