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Aidan Ghyll

@aidanghyll.bsky.social
133 followers 187 following 36 posts

Writing fiction as Aidan Ghyll. YA, sci-fi, neo-mediaeval. Also musician, professor and doctor of horror.

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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Camus @camusfolk.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
@sidmouthfolkfest.bsky.social We're delighted to be playing and running workshops again at Sidmouth this year! Expect Northumbrian pipes and tunes, children's street games, and a few surprises! More on our 'Sidmouth' page, includng downloads for workshops: camusmusic.net/sidmouth-fol...
camusmusic.net
Camus at Sidmouth
We’re very happy to be visiting Sidmouth again this year. We’ll be doing five events: TRY THE PIPES Time and venue TBC. We’ll have beginners’ practice sets so you can try th…
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Very pleased to have published this (under my “other” name), with a stellar group of Northumbrian musicians. Available from the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society online shop.
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
The Bookseller @thebookseller.com · 29/06/2026
DK Children’s will publish Questions, Questions, a non-fiction picture book by award-winning author Pippa Goodhart and illustrator Corrie Gorman. 👇
ebx.sh
DK Children’s to publish Questions, Questions by Pippa Goodhart and Corrie Gorman
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
The Annals of the Heptarchy are coming! Get ready for a future world where hope and despair are finely balanced across seven warring realms … Here’s the opening of the first book, The Phantom Flame.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
The Phantom Flame manuscript is with a publisher! Watch this space!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Every day the dystopian future imagined in the novels I’m writing about a future UK ravaged by climate change gets a bit closer.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
New elevator pitch for The Phantom Flame: When a servant girl steals the magic of a long-dead Viking queen in the future city of Cant, she becomes both a weapon and a target in the war for the drowned fenlands of a shattered Albion. Go on - make me an offer!
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Michael Rosen @michaelrosenyes.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
If you missed it when it first came out, here it is: www.bigissue.com/culture/book...
bigissue.com
Read Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury's new Christmas story, created for Big Issue
Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, creators of We're Going on A Bear Hunt, are back with a festive tale written specially for Big Issue.
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk · 08/12/2025
St Nicholas, shown here resurrecting three boys from a pickling tub, became known for genorosity and protecting children. Such stories shaped Europe’s Sinterklaas, which evolved into Santa Claus and eventually, Father Christmas. 🎅 MS. Douce 51 fol. 069v #MedievalMonday
A manuscript depicting St Nicholas standing over a tub with three young boys inside who he has resurrected, set within the letter B on a page.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Up to chapter 10 of the second novel in my quartet. A strange song has appeared, which I wasn’t expecting, and it’s on everyone’s lips. 🎶 The novel writes itself …
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Huzza!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Nice graphic from the @bathnovelaward.co.uk showing words appearing in titles of novels submitted. I see a word from my title! Judging starts tomorrow….
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
Into chapter 6, and the protagonist from the first novel has appeared to join forces! Flood, drought, mysterious cracks in the earth, and a crew of vagabonds. It’s very exciting!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Amazing how, when you’ve created the imaginary world, the novel writes itself. As Stephen King says - “Buckle up for the ride!”
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
I love writing in my loft, surrounded by books and art materials … but then upload online, and download for evening browsing and revision on phone. Then email to myself for next morning … It’s a virtuous cycle!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Brilliant - thanks!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Thanks so much! Is it a firm or an individual? May I know the name? Thanks again.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Blimey - that’s very generous! Would they need the usual package?
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Wrote the novel this year. But many years of academic writing - on videogames and children’s lit! Did you get an agent first?
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Very impressed by your publications! I need advice! Thanks for reposting my blurb.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Hi Lucy! I am! But deep into the agent query game … One novel of a quartet complete and into the second. How about you?
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Camus @camusfolk.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Our new set of rants, coming up on the next album! Here’s a live version from our last gig. youtu.be/4UoChU-XUfw?...
youtu.be
CAMUS RANT SET
YouTube video by CAMUS MUSIC
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
UCL Institute of Education @ioe.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
"It is a time to engage with literature written by scholars of colour–voices that are too often marginalised in mainstream academic discourse. It is also a time to challenge the dominant narratives that shape our curricula, our research frameworks, and our institutional cultures" uclioe.info/bhm2025
Monochrome photo of Victoria with a wide smile, with the words: "Black History Month is a vital time for reflection, recognition, and renewal. To truly honour Black history and Black futures, we must embrace culturally responsive pedagogy in our teaching - Professor Victoria Showunmi Vice Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Chair of Athena Swan IOExBHM2025".Monochrome photo of Victoria with a wide smile, with the words: "Decolonising research is not simply about inclusion; it is about transformation. Black History Month is not just about the past - it is about our future. Professor Victoria Showunmi Vice Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Chair of Athena Swan IOExBHM2025".
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
UCL Institute of Education @ioe.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
The national curriculum should respond to the climate and nature crisis, emphasises a new policy proposal by UCL academics from @ucl-cccse.bsky.social www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2025/...
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Excited to complete first chapter of second book in the series. All the hard world-building in the first book is paying off!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Draft blurb for my novel, The Phantom Flame: In the mighty city of Cant, high above the drowned fenlands of a broken Albion, servant girl Chas Berryman inherits an ancient stone of power. She and her friends are swept into a world of spies, rebels and junk-pirates. And the mysterious Grey Heron.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
First felt like a writer at age 11, when I won this prize at school for a description of a coral reef in Malaysia where I lived then. The choice of book indicates also an abiding interest in horror, later to be my PhD subject!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Animal Farm at 80 - exposé not so much of communism as of tyrannical populism - never more relevant. theconversation.com/animal-farm-...
theconversation.com
Animal Farm at 80: why the animals really matter in Orwell’s parable about communism
Orwell wrote his short, shocking novel at a time when it was considered scientifically inadmissible for animals to be granted thoughts or even feelings.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
That’s what I call pressure.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
I’ve drawn maps in my novel. Big fan of literary maps - Ransome, Tolkien, Stevenson, Lewis. Fascinating project @lancasteruni.bsky.social on Chronotopic Cartographies. Here are my maps of the future (2154) city of Cant.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
I’m drawing the characters in my novel. I’m not intending it to be illustrated, apart from cover art. It’s more like casting them for a film adaptation. Thinking of authors who draw … Mervyn Peake’s haunting sketches; Lewis Carroll’s unfunny drawings of Alice; St-Exupery’s naive watercolours…
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
It’s very weird to have taught literature my whole life and now be writing it. Can’t find the right metaphor … anyway, maybe I’m getting used to it.
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Sidmouth Folk Festival @sidmouthfolkfest.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Join us next year 31st July - 7 August 2026. A limited number of season tickets are now on sale (online only) at 2025 Super Early bird rates. This is the lowest these tickets will be. sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/tickets/
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
I reckon an academic book is 80% writing, 20% editing. I’m coming to realise that a novel is the complete inverse.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Enjoying the (admittedly interminable) process of self-editing my novel. Completely different from academic books I’ve written. Continuities, false notes, tone and texture. Unpicking and restitching bits in a tapestry. “Polissez-le sans cesse et le répolissez” - Boileau nailed it.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
Fascinating discovery of letter by the young ST Coleridge. We sometimes forget that the greatest writers were prone to self-doubt.
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Sidmouth Folk Festival @sidmouthfolkfest.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
This week we caught up with the wonderful @jackieoates.bsky.social to explore her fascinating new show she’s bringing to Sidmouth this summer and hear about some of her favourite Sidmouth moments… Read the full piece here: sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/q-a-with-jac...
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Camus @camusfolk.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Looking forward to our five events @sidmouthfolkfest.bsky.social - three Northumbrian workshops, a concert and a talk on children’s folklore! Come and unleash your inner Northumbrian!
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
There’s a novel or two in this, for sure.
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Lewis Wood @lewiswoodmusic.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
The new Granny’s Attic album Could Blows The Wind is out now! www.grannysattic.org.uk/product/cold...
grannysattic.org.uk
Cold Blows The Wind / Granny's Attic - Granny's Attic
Cold Blows The Wind, released 16th May 2025 on Grimdon Records Also available as a download on Bandcamp
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Sidmouth Folk Festival @sidmouthfolkfest.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Children's Festival 2025 1-8 Aug 2025 As the summer term winds down and thoughts start to turn to how to fill those long summer days. Don't worry parents, grandparents and carers ....we've got you covered! sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/childrens-fe... Come and join us!
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Fatea Magazine @fateamagazine.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Just added a trio of gig reviews to our live section. www.fatea-records.co.uk/magazine/live/ @followers #Buy In Advance
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
We can never have too much monster theory. And all cultures need monsters to reify their deepest fears about themselves.
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Samantha Rayner @profbookshops.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
@sharpweb.org #SHARP25 Special offer on all titles in the Cambridge University Press & Assessment Elements in Publishing and Book Culture series to celebrate next week's SHARP conference! 20% off! See lnkd.in/e8DyPynu
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Lost track of how many times I read this to teenagers in a former life as English teacher. And of course watched the fabulous film, one of the greatest adaptations ever made.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Whose idiotic idea was it to rename the lovely Russell Hotel the “Fitzroy”? TS Eliot must be turning in his grave …
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
My favourite bookshelf at home. Endless inspiration.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
This was a titanic achievement in the landscape of children’s and YA literature. Hats off.
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Aidan Ghyll @aidanghyll.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
I’m well used to writing and self-editing academic books (under a different name), but self-editing the draft of my first novel is a whole other order of detail. But very enjoyable!
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Reposted by Aidan Ghyll
Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk · 20/05/2025
Recently #PhilipPullman teased the release of the next book in his #BookofDust series. We spoke to him about his writing process whilst he was working on this very novel. Watch the full thing and glean some hints about what's next for Lyra on our YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wln6...
A photo of the author Philip Pullman looking through a small pair of binoculars. Overlaid text reads:

Philip Pullman’s writing essentials: 
✅  Flasks of water in case I get thirsty 
✅  Gigantic collection of every motif in every folk story in the world 
✅  Pair of binoculars Portrait of Philip Pulmman wearing a blue shirt and frameless spectacles, looking directly at the camera. Underneath, in white text a quote from him reads: 'The book I’m writing...The third part of the Book of Dust involves long journeys in a world which is not ours, but very like ours...I’ve got this map of the world and Lyra has moved from Oxford and she’s now in the Caspian sea. She’s moving a little further East, which she’ll have to do in the next 60 pages...’ Portrait photograph of Philip Pullman in front of bookshelves holding lots of books and a stereo. He's holding a book and text overlaid on top of the photograph reads: '‘One of the places of course, you have to be introduced to [in Oxford] is the Bodleian Libraries. So I went and got my Bodleian ticket and solemnly swore not to bring fire or flame into the building... I used the Radcliffe Camera because you could just walk in, find a book, and sit and read’ A final photograph of Philip Pullman, back in his attic writing room. He sits in front of a map of Oxford, blue tacked to the slanted ceiling behind and above his head. Text reads: 'When I came to writing His Dark Materials, my first resource was the Bodleian Libraries. I looked up books on early ballooning, on the Arctic, on everything I wanted to read. It’s wonderful. You just go in, you look it up, you find it, you put in your slip to order it, and you go back and it’s there and you can read it. Absolutely extraordinary.
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