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Clare Bullock

@clarerbullock.bsky.social
128 followers 140 following 44 posts

Editorial Director at Duckworth Books

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Reposted by Clare Bullock
Seán Costello @seanjcostello.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
“During the almost nine months I spent with Stroop, I found myself eye to eye with a mass murderer . . . I did my best, although at first it caused me some difficulty, to see Stroop merely as a man.”—Kazimierz Moczarski
A copy of Conversations with an Executioner by Kazimierz Moczarski, translated by Sean Gasper Bye
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This Thursday I'm publishing Conversations with an Executioner by Kazimierz Moczarski, translated by Sean Gasper Bye. It's an extraordinary book, and one that I've been working on for four years, on and off. I spoke about it with Jo Glanville in @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Conversations with an Executioner: a chilling classic reveals the mind of a Nazi mass murderer
Polish war hero Kazimierz Moczarski spent 255 days sharing a cell with an SS general. Nearly 50 years after it was published, an uncensored version of his account is appearing in English for the first...
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Re the Emily Wilson discourse - her Dad (A N Wilson) was the king of literary feuds. A good family tradition. Best one was his feud with Bevis Hillier who hoaxed him into including a fake letter in his biography of Bejteman where the first letter of each sentence spelt "AN Wilson is a shit".
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Briefly returning to say that a scammer is impersonating me and reaching out to authors asking if they'd like to write for Duckworth. I do contact authors directly, but if the email looks like a scam (and crucially, doesn't use our domain name), please do check with us...
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Brendan Greeley @bhgreeley.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
www.ft.com/content/ca4a...
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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Jules Renard’s journal, 14 February 1890
14 February.

Avid to know everything, and keep abreast, I have acquired a taste for very short books, easy to read, large type with a lot of white space - so that I can toss them into my bookcase, one after another, and move on to the next.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Happy publication day to Dur e Aziz Amna, whose mesmerising novel A SPLINTERING is out today. The narrator, Tara, had me hooked on p. 1 with the line: 'So let my story begin with rage...' www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
thetimes.com
She’s a horrible character — but you’ll root for her anyway
A Pakistani woman rebels against social restrictions in the pursuit of wealth in Dur e Aziz Amna’s novel A Splintering
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Come and work with Duckworth! Excellent books and one of the nicest teams I've ever worked with! jobs.thebookseller.com/career/28001...
jobs.thebookseller.com
Marketing Manager, Duckworth Books - Duckworth - Richmond-on-Thames
Marketing Manager, Duckworth Books - Duckworth - Publisher - Marketing - Salary range: £34,000-£38,000 pro rata, depending on experience.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Look, I'm biased, but this really is one of the best books I've ever read about the natural world and the way we interact with it
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Working on @elliechan.bsky.social's extraordinary DUET includes not only the joy of making of the book itself, but hearing music I thought I knew, and understanding it in an entirely different way...
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Absolutely extraordinary piece in The Times, on the role of the 'Essential grandparent' www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...
thetimes.com
When my sister was murdered, it was my grandmother who saved me
The birth of her first grandchild was joyous for Helen Kirwan-Taylor — but it also brought back memories of childhood trauma and the role her ‘Babuskha’ played at that time
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
'My toddler is going through a phase of being very suspicious of the first mouthful of any food he is presented with, as though he is a medieval king who has heard rumours of a poisoning plot. I, his lowly jester, must therefore perform the dance of the seven spoons.'
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
A bookish weekend in Lewes: dropped into the Lewes Speaker's Festival to see Terri Apter's brilliant talk about GRANDPARENTING (& the queue for signed copies afterwards); walked round a Medieval Fayre with @elliechan.bsky.social talking all things DUET; & bumped in comics supremo Hannah Berry!
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
I've been obsessed with this brilliantly dark debut, since I read the opening lines at my desk a few days after after I started at Duckworth. Couldn't be prouder to be publishing @lcwinter.bsky.social next spring!
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Richard Smyth @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Frog maths. However you run the numbers, it turns out bad for the frogs.
"Genevieve does not need to know about this. Danny does not need to know about this. When we go up to Heaton Woods and peer into the pond, we'll look at the tadpoles nuzzling the pondweed and I won't say, hey guys, approximately two per cent of frog eggs become tadpoles, zero-point-eight two per cent of tadpoles become baby frogs, and zero-point-one per cent of baby frogs become grown-up frogs, and all the rest die.

"That is, however, how all this beauty is made.

" Wasteful, Darwin called it: The clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature! Darwin, who saw it all first, who figured out the mechanics, totted up the numbers. was right, of course. The scale of the waste is beyond our comprehension."
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Bound proofs are in for these two stunners. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett's brilliantly incisive take on modern parenthood, illustrated by Pia Bramley, and Eleanor Chan's extraordinary DUET, which will forever change the way you think about music
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
I am Very Excited about this one. I'LL BE THE MONSTER by the ludicrously talented Sean Gilbert, coming from Duckworth in time for Valentine's Day 2026: www.thebookseller.com/rights/duckw...
thebookseller.com
Duckworth snaps up I’ll Be the Monster by debut novelist Sean Gilbert
Duckworth has acquired I’ll Be the Monster by debut novelist Sean Gilbert.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
I haven't been able to stop thinking about WHEN THERE ARE WOLVES AGAIN since I read it a month or so ago. An extraordinary book.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Happy publication day to @paulmmcooper.bsky.social, whose magisterial FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS is out in paperback today. Don't just take my word for it: ‘Cooper is a phenomenon’ Max Hastings, Sunday Times
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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
“When all the books are gone, there will be nothing to remember but a single porch light at the far end of the road…” ‘As If From The End Times’ by John Burnside (from his forthcoming final book of poetry, The Empire of Forgetting)
AS IF FROM THE END TIMES
(Homage to David Garnett)

When all the books are gone, there will be
nothing to remember but a single
porch light at the far end of the road,
where something live is moving in the snow,
a woman, or a fox, it's hard to say.

Last day of birdsong; salt rain in the trees;
the echo of someone going about
their business, making good or making hay
– you never know for sure, although you know
that something here is coming to an end:

last day of weather, lanternlight crossing the yards, last of those stories our kinfolk used to tell
of woman into fox, fox into deer,
deer into shadow and, always, the darkness-to-come.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
'I don’t really run in spiritual circles... Broaching this subject at all had the whiff of something faintly embarrassing, a bit like publishing a sex manual while hanging out exclusively with prudes' Really enjoyed Abi Millar's latest substack. abimillar.substack.com/p/an-update
abimillar.substack.com
An update
Because it's been a while!
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
“This is the first abortion centre in democratic Poland.” It's been one of the strangenesses of my life to know that I've always had rights that my Polish cousins, whom I share so much with, haven't. Time for change... www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
theguardian.com
‘There’s no other solution’: Polish abortion centre opens in challenge to strict laws
Frustrated by government’s failure to ease rules, an NGO is opening a centre a stone’s throw from parliament in Warsaw
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
A brilliant piece by Terri Apter about how 1 in 3 women (me included), have only been able to return to work after parental leave because of the childcare provided by grandparents. community.thefemalelead.com/p/grandparen...
community.thefemalelead.com
Grandparents are secretly fuelling women’s careers
A staggering one third of working mothers in the UK rely on grandparents for childcare.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
En route to Manchester and, predictably, the sky is a pearly grey. Ah, the north, how I've missed you.
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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Back in Kyiv after three years, and sending a reminder of the reality: Maidan, earlier today.
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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.
Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. The agony in his face…he looks overwhelmed with disbelief at the sheer cruelty.
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Lyndsey Stonebridge @lyndseystonebri.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
If you're in the UK you'd like a pause from banging your head on the table in agonised despair & belief, there's this petition. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/71...
petition.parliament.uk
Petition: Grant automatic visa extension and ILR for Ukrainians after 5 years
Since Feb 2025, Ukrainians and their eligible family members in the UK have been able to apply for further permission to remain for up to 18 months. We would like the extensions to be automatic and fo...
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Watched the full Zelensky/Trump exchange and I feel physically sick about what this means for Ukraine's safety and the future of Eastern Europe
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Bookish hive mind: suggestions of books for my friend's clever, sensitive 9 yr old who has a reading age of 16? I was on a winning streak last year with Anne of Green Gables and sequels, but I tried a Katherine Rundell at the weekend but she's already read them all
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Fantastic interview in @thetimes.com with Terri Apter today, on how not to fall out with your parents when you become a parent yourself www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...
thetimes.com
How to be a good grandparent without falling out with your children
Psychologist and writer Dr Terri Apter shares her expert guide to being a modern grandparent
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Anna Pallai @annapallai.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Lovely piece by Abi Millar in this month's @womanandhome.bsky.social - tied in to publication of *The Spirituality Gap* @clarerbullock.bsky.social @mattcasbourne.bsky.social @angelampr.bsky.social
Magazine spread - I'm Not a Hippy But... From ecstatic dance to astrology, I've tried it all, says Abi Millar, who is looking for meaning in an uncertain world.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
In 2026 I'm finally publishing the extraordinary CONVERSATIONS WITH AN EXECUTIONER by Kazimierz Moczarski, tr. the brilliant Sean Gasper Bye. Immensely grateful to @englishpen.bsky.social for supporting our translation. www.thebookseller.com/news/pen-tra...
thebookseller.com
English PEN announces PEN Translates winners 2025
English PEN has announced the PEN Translates awards winners for 2025, including the first-ever PEN Translates award for a title from Somaliland.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
There's some amazing writing about parenthood out there at the moment, but Rhiannon's witty, insightful column, The Republic of Parenthood, is something I've returned to time and again over the past few years. Absolutely thrilled to be publishing this in Aug. www.thebookseller.com/rights/septe...
thebookseller.com
September scoops 'agenda-setting' reflections on parenthood by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
September Publishing, an imprint of Duckworth Books, has acquired rights for The Republic of Parenthood by Guardian columnist and author Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett.
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Reflecting on the ludicrous ego trip that is editing: taking the ideas of someone who knows more about their subject and wields their words more skilfully than I ever could, and telling them how to make it better. Who the hell do I think I am??
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Wasn't expecting first week back at work after the break to be so full of good things: the wonderful @villagebooks.bsky.social hosting an event for GRANDPARENTING with our amazing author Terri Apter in conversation with Julia Samuel. Cannot wait for this... www.trybooking.com/uk/events/la...
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Well, this is a nice way to start the year, with a shout-out to Andrew Ridker's brilliant HOPE in the Observer: 'Tragicomic, piercingly satirical and perceptive about the American dream' www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
theguardian.com
In brief: Hope; Wild Chocolate; Night Watch – review
The tragicomic collapse of a wealthy family; a genre-busting exploration of the cacao trade; and a tough Pulitzer-winning tale of the US civil war
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
So incredibly proud to be publishing this wonderful book by the amazing Terri Apter in a few weeks. Julia Samuel called it 'Brilliant, warm, human and wise', which says it all, I think. Out on 13 Feb from September Publishing
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Richard Smyth @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
It is once again that time of year when every Books Dad gets absolutely bodied by Molesworth.
Nigel Molesworth on A Christmas Carol. "There is something about the xmas Carol which makes paters and grown-ups read with grate XPRESION, and this is very embarassing for all."
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Clare Bullock @clarerbullock.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Pinching myself that I get to publish the brilliant Dur e Aziz Amna next autumn. This book! www.thebookseller.com/rights/duckw...
thebookseller.com
Duckworth secures rights to A Splintering by Dur e Aziz Amna
Duckworth has secured rights to A Splintering by Dur e Aziz Amna, the author of American Fever (Sceptre).
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