Victoria Stewart
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verbivorial.bsky.social
Victoria Stewart
@verbivorial.bsky.social
400 followers 290 following 650 posts
When not reading, often writing. Represented by @litagentfran.bsky.social
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verbivorial.bsky.social
Rush - 2013 was a strange year…
Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl as James Hunt and Nikki Lauda.
November 30, 2025 at 10:59 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Finding this very absorbing
Jason Burke’s book The Revolutionists:The Story of the Extremists who Hijacked the 1970s
November 29, 2025 at 3:38 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Wise advice from Laura Mulvey to her students: ‘You can’t write until you’ve thought…’
You can’t write until you’ve thought. I’d say, remember in The Searchers [1956] when Ethan and Martin have been drawn away by the Comanches, and then they see the farmhouse burning, and Martin leaps on his horse and gallops back, whereas Ethan takes the saddle off, feeds his horse, gives it water, and then when he gallops back he overtakes poor Martin, whose horse has died under him, and is carrying his saddle. You’ve got to be Ethan and not Martin.
November 8, 2025 at 9:05 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
If you’re interested in the case that draws on, this is well worth a look
Cover of Simon Baatz’s book “For the Thrill of it: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder that Shocked Jazz Age Chicago.”
October 26, 2025 at 5:57 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Was very happy to make the cut for the Leicester Writes anthology. Many thanks to @farhanashaikh.bsky.social and congratulations to all.
The cover of the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize anthology 2025 - gold text on a background of peacock feathers. Opening snippet of my story, ‘Experience’: When the Deputy Chief Constable, or Commissioner, or whoever he was, his uniform jacket heavy with medals, loops of braid at one shoulder, when he was reading his statement about the ‘incident’, a man in a dark grey suit and a pale lilac shirt briefly stepped into shot behind him, then stepped out again.
October 2, 2025 at 11:08 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Laurie Colwin is a new author to me, and I’ll be seeking out more by her - the blurb describing her as “the Barbara Pym of 1970s New York” seems about right. Recommended by @ds228.bsky.social, I think?
Front cover of a recent edition of Laurie Colwin’s Another Marvelous Thing.
September 20, 2025 at 6:07 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Robert Colquhoun’s ‘Woman with a Goat’ is on display @victoriagallery.bsky.social for another couple of weeks
A brightly coloured semi-abstract painting of a woman looking down at a goat.
September 3, 2025 at 7:29 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
I’ve always liked the photo on the cover of the edition I own, but yours conveys the tone of the novel much more accurately…
Cover of an edition of Elizabeth Taylor’s In a Summer Season - a 1960s couple in an open topped car, seen from above.
September 1, 2025 at 5:15 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
This was very readable
Front cover of Hallie Rubenhold’s “Story of a Murder” - a black and white image of a woman in an Edwardian stage costume, framed in red.
August 29, 2025 at 3:15 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
RIP Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp as Sergeant Troy in far From the Madding Crowd, about to demonstrate his swordsmanship
August 17, 2025 at 3:30 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Haven't added to the Virago stash for a while - pleased with this find
Cover of Cullum by E Arnot Robertson - a painting of a young woman in a pink evening dress looking melancholy
June 28, 2025 at 5:09 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
FYI - “unbroken record of examination successes” is a weird detail
June 27, 2025 at 12:59 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
He apparently thought the reputational damage of writing across genres could work in both directions …
Peter Stanford quotes a 1934 letter from Day-Lewis to Stephen Spender: “I’ve been trying to write commercial prose…I am horrified but secretly fascinated at the ease with which I can write good, window-box but bloody awful entertainment stuff”. Part of how he manages his “horror” is by separating Day Lewis the poet from Blake the detective writer; Day Lewis is able to express his own sensibility through the legitimate stage of poetry, although that Blake was a pseudonym for Day Lewis did not remain a secret from the reading public for long. Day Lewis was not only concerned that being known as a detective writer might damage his reputation as a poet but also believed that “people who read detective novels don’t like the detective novelist to be anything like a serious poet”.
June 16, 2025 at 7:13 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Love those editions
Cover of Minute for Murder by Nicholas Blake - bright yellow background with image of a man dropping a telephone receiver while being stabbed in the back.
June 16, 2025 at 7:04 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Woman with Goat, by Robert Colqhuhoun - a woman in yellow leans over a small goat - done in a kind of expressionist style.
May 23, 2025 at 5:04 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Always something interesting to see at the @victoriagallery.bsky.social
Herne the Hunter by Sean Rice - a man stares blankly forward as a crow swoops in at the side of his head. Trenchcoat by William Utermohlen - against a red background, a man whose clothes are painted in a cubist style sits in a chair. On another chair, his trenchcoat is heaped up, painted very realistically
May 23, 2025 at 5:01 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Not much changed, thankfully - these pics showing the lovely ironwork and the dome nabbed from the Liverpool Echo website
View of a circular reading room with a domed ceiling Another view of the reading room, showing a decorative wrought iron spiral staircase
May 3, 2025 at 5:29 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
This weekend’s reading - two interesting not-exactly-crime novels
Covers of Eoin McNamee’s The Bureau (a black and white photograph of two young people standing apart with their arms folded - it’s cropped at the sides so each can only be partly made out) and Nina Allan’s A Granite Silence (a black and white photograph of small girl, in the distance, walking through a tunnel towards a roadway, the sky beyond coloured orange)
April 21, 2025 at 3:20 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Maybe Jesus - but probably “just some fella”
Alan Bates in Whistle down the Wind - standing in a pose echoing the crucifixion while he’s searched by the police.
April 20, 2025 at 10:13 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Finally had a chance to visit Wigtown
The cover of a Pan edition of Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero - a face made from a tennis racquet with string for hair, the head of a golf club for one eye, a tea cup for the other and an upturned bell for a mouth - by Colin Thomas, who evidently read the novel.
April 12, 2025 at 10:13 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
At the Vanessa Bell exhibition in MK last month, learned that she also did a poster for Shell
A 1930s poster with the slogan "See Britain first on Shell" - a pointillist style image of a river leading to some hazy buildings, with a line of trees, some distant hills and a partly cloudy sky
March 23, 2025 at 1:40 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
I always think there’s something a bit melancholy about the way the flowers drop off - then lie around like discarded powder-puffs.
March 22, 2025 at 11:21 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Black Bag reminded me a bit of The Nest, which in turn reminded me of Accident, and there were certainly a few Pinteresque scenes in Black Bag (I count that as a good thing).
Michael Fassbender, wearing thick-framed spectacles and a black turtleneck leans in to Cate Blanchett, who has her mac over her shoulders and her hair hanging loose.
March 19, 2025 at 2:00 PM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Do like Celia Hart
March 9, 2025 at 8:00 AM
verbivorial.bsky.social
Some Viragos for International Women's Day
Four shelves of Virago paperbacks, mostly obscured by various postcards and other clutter. I've now removed the cobweb visible in the top right hand corner.
March 8, 2025 at 6:38 PM