Vicky Grut
@vickygrut.bsky.social
Writer. Short story collection Live Show, Drink Included shortlisted for 2019 Edge Hill Awards. Pushcart nominated in 2023. Work in The Masters Review XIII in 2025. Website: vickygrut.com
Still coughing like a smoker, but 3 fantastic #shortstory books have arrived to entertain me. Myriam Frey's The Building Inspector, from @nightjarpress.bsky.social; Nicholas Royle's Paris Fantastique from @confingopublishing.bsky.social; and Best British Short Stories, @saltpublishing.com.
October 29, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Still coughing like a smoker, but 3 fantastic #shortstory books have arrived to entertain me. Myriam Frey's The Building Inspector, from @nightjarpress.bsky.social; Nicholas Royle's Paris Fantastique from @confingopublishing.bsky.social; and Best British Short Stories, @saltpublishing.com.
Just finished Audition by Katie Kitamura. A sinuous, intensely intimate novel where truth is always shifting & unstable. Gripping.
October 27, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Just finished Audition by Katie Kitamura. A sinuous, intensely intimate novel where truth is always shifting & unstable. Gripping.
Just finished Maya Sharp's wonderfully pacy novel The Garden (seen here in the wild on Tuesday). It's a contemporary folk horror, a love letter to the Yorkshire moors, a fable about loyalty, friendship and the power of nature. Highly enjoyable! Published by @confingopublishing.bsky.social
October 23, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Just finished Maya Sharp's wonderfully pacy novel The Garden (seen here in the wild on Tuesday). It's a contemporary folk horror, a love letter to the Yorkshire moors, a fable about loyalty, friendship and the power of nature. Highly enjoyable! Published by @confingopublishing.bsky.social
She read us this quotation from a Flannery O'Connor short story
October 2, 2025 at 8:06 PM
She read us this quotation from a Flannery O'Connor short story
Just spent the past hour listening to the fantastic Mariana Enriques talking about her new book of essays Somebody is Walking on your Grave: cemeteries, sex, death, and the enduring violence of the Latin American dictators of the 1970s. @foylesforbooks.bsky.social
October 2, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Just spent the past hour listening to the fantastic Mariana Enriques talking about her new book of essays Somebody is Walking on your Grave: cemeteries, sex, death, and the enduring violence of the Latin American dictators of the 1970s. @foylesforbooks.bsky.social
This intense, firecracker of a book by Ngozi Oprah arrived the other day from Asterism Books, Seattle, Washington.
September 22, 2025 at 7:40 AM
This intense, firecracker of a book by Ngozi Oprah arrived the other day from Asterism Books, Seattle, Washington.
A lovely day at the Dahlia Books / Leicester Writes event for Short Story September. Great to meet publisher, writer and short story powerhouse Farhana Shaikh, and to catch up with writer Laura Besley.
September 20, 2025 at 7:29 PM
A lovely day at the Dahlia Books / Leicester Writes event for Short Story September. Great to meet publisher, writer and short story powerhouse Farhana Shaikh, and to catch up with writer Laura Besley.
Wishing you strength! Really enjoying your book Postcards, by the way.
August 31, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Wishing you strength! Really enjoying your book Postcards, by the way.
Great review of John Cassidy's book on the history of capitalism by Martin Wolf in the FTWeekend. The conclusions about the present are chilling: the rise of autocracy, the collapse of the liberal order, the crisis of the environment & the fact that tech companies only need a handful of employees.
August 29, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Great review of John Cassidy's book on the history of capitalism by Martin Wolf in the FTWeekend. The conclusions about the present are chilling: the rise of autocracy, the collapse of the liberal order, the crisis of the environment & the fact that tech companies only need a handful of employees.
An intriguing and insanely well-wrapped package has arrived. It says: DO NOT BEND. (I wouldn't dream of it, not now, nor in the future.) Thank you, wrapper & publisher extraordinaire @nicholasroyle.bsky.social for these four new offerings from @nightjarpress.bsky.social
July 1, 2025 at 1:44 PM
An intriguing and insanely well-wrapped package has arrived. It says: DO NOT BEND. (I wouldn't dream of it, not now, nor in the future.) Thank you, wrapper & publisher extraordinaire @nicholasroyle.bsky.social for these four new offerings from @nightjarpress.bsky.social
An extract from Helen Garner’s diaries, this from 1991. V is her newish partner, also a writer.
May 11, 2025 at 8:45 AM
An extract from Helen Garner’s diaries, this from 1991. V is her newish partner, also a writer.
I’m gripped by Helen Garner’s collected diaries (How to End a Story, W&N). Love this bit:
April 26, 2025 at 7:59 AM
I’m gripped by Helen Garner’s collected diaries (How to End a Story, W&N). Love this bit:
The Edge Hill Prize ceremony last night, 6 books: David Frankel, Forgetting is How We Survive; Tessa Hadley, After the Funeral; Charlie Hill, Encounters with Everyday Madness; Abi Haynes, Monstrous Longings; Malachi McIntosh, Parables, Fables, Nightmares; CD Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea.
February 21, 2025 at 10:33 AM
The Edge Hill Prize ceremony last night, 6 books: David Frankel, Forgetting is How We Survive; Tessa Hadley, After the Funeral; Charlie Hill, Encounters with Everyday Madness; Abi Haynes, Monstrous Longings; Malachi McIntosh, Parables, Fables, Nightmares; CD Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea.
Watched Visconti’s The Leopard on the big screen at the BFI. What a film. ‘Everything must change so that everything can remain the same,’ says Tancredi, skipping off to join Garbaldi’s revolutionaries.
m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5...
m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5...
January 4, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Watched Visconti’s The Leopard on the big screen at the BFI. What a film. ‘Everything must change so that everything can remain the same,’ says Tancredi, skipping off to join Garbaldi’s revolutionaries.
m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5...
m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5...
Lunch with the FT: economist Abhijit Banerjee. ‘Trump is a very good storyteller, and that’s power.’ At some level people are responding rationally to their circumstances. Where workers used to be paid 1/60th of the boss’s salary in the 1970s, now they are paid 1/60,000th.
December 21, 2024 at 8:22 PM
Lunch with the FT: economist Abhijit Banerjee. ‘Trump is a very good storyteller, and that’s power.’ At some level people are responding rationally to their circumstances. Where workers used to be paid 1/60th of the boss’s salary in the 1970s, now they are paid 1/60,000th.
Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery today. I liked all the tree paintings.
December 16, 2024 at 7:26 PM
Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery today. I liked all the tree paintings.
Currently reading this. Linked short stories by Jem Calder. Good!
December 16, 2024 at 11:22 AM
Currently reading this. Linked short stories by Jem Calder. Good!
Another inspirational evening of short story readings last night courtesy of story conjurer & publisher Ton Conaghan of @scratchbooks.bsky.social
December 8, 2024 at 12:17 PM
Another inspirational evening of short story readings last night courtesy of story conjurer & publisher Ton Conaghan of @scratchbooks.bsky.social
The Dec5 issue of The New York Review of Books leads with another brilliant article on the US election by Fintan O’Toole: ‘The Second Coming’.
November 16, 2024 at 3:39 PM
The Dec5 issue of The New York Review of Books leads with another brilliant article on the US election by Fintan O’Toole: ‘The Second Coming’.
Really enjoyed this novel by Orla Owen, published by BlueMoose Books. Echoes of Shirley Jackson in an idyllic west Wales setting.
April 21, 2024 at 8:15 AM
Really enjoyed this novel by Orla Owen, published by BlueMoose Books. Echoes of Shirley Jackson in an idyllic west Wales setting.
Complex, lyrical, angry, layered. Wonderful. What a writer.
January 18, 2024 at 9:29 AM
Complex, lyrical, angry, layered. Wonderful. What a writer.
Great evening of short fiction hosted by Scratch Books tonight. Six brilliant stories, beautifully read by the writers themselves. Fantastic atmosphere. I’ll be back for the next one!
December 2, 2023 at 10:23 PM
Great evening of short fiction hosted by Scratch Books tonight. Six brilliant stories, beautifully read by the writers themselves. Fantastic atmosphere. I’ll be back for the next one!
Reading Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own. Scathing. Lyrical. Questing. Playful. Bloody brilliant.
November 28, 2023 at 9:22 PM
Reading Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own. Scathing. Lyrical. Questing. Playful. Bloody brilliant.
Congrats to @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social Did you see that Dance Move is one of Kim Sion’s ‘Best books’ in the FT’s How to Spend It today? Paired with Deborah Levy’s The Cost of Living.
November 26, 2023 at 8:18 PM
Congrats to @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social Did you see that Dance Move is one of Kim Sion’s ‘Best books’ in the FT’s How to Spend It today? Paired with Deborah Levy’s The Cost of Living.