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Ellen Kirkpatrick

@elkwrites.bsky.social
886 followers 368 following 40 posts

writer ✶ cultural critique words in Dark Mountain, HU, Barrelhouse, Belfast Review, & more essays + shorts at The Break, a space for radical dreaming and stories from below ellenkirkpatrick.co.uk ✶ ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com

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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
A new short piece, written from the summer shed while rereading Orlando and thinking about attention, time, and Susanne Kuhlendahl’s beautiful graphic retelling. If that’s your kind of thing, you can read it here. @helvetiq.bsky.social
open.substack.com
Orlando and the Art of Attention: A Response to Susanne Kuhlendahl’s Graphic Adaptation
A reflection on rereading Orlando and how Susanne Kuhlendahl’s graphic retelling reshapes our attention to Woolf’s fluid, time bending world
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
A new piece today: On Autoenucleation, or Trying to See the Light. A meditation on specks, shadows, and the small causes that shape larger troubles.
substack.com
Ellen Kirkpatrick (@ellenkirkpatrick)
A new piece today: On Autoenucleation, or Trying to See the Light. A meditation on specks, shadows, and the small causes that shape larger troubles.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
My new piece on Fallout is live: Eleanor Anstruther’s fierce, tender novel set at the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the early 1980s. It’s a story of rupture, reckoning, and a teenage girl stepping into activism, a family jolted awake, and the worlds we build when the ones we inherit fail us.
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
Fallout by Eleanor Anstruther: A Reflection
A Story of Activism, Awakening, and the Worlds We Build
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
New short: on hero myths, “leaderless” movements, and the fiction of a generational divide. Spoiler: that story serves the ruling class, not us.
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
A Note on Heroic Motifs & Leaderless Activism, with a Question Answered
from the archive – How our stories about leadership and heroism shape the possibilities of collective action.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
We’re told youth will save us. We’re told older generations failed. Both stories are wrong, and both serve the people who profit from keeping us divided. My new essay digs into why. "Better a comrade than a hero." #MayDay
open.substack.com
We Can’t Build a Future While Waging a Generational War
from the archive – On resisting the binaries that fracture movements and futures.
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Reclaim the Agenda @reclaimtheagenda.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
May Day is the workers day, join us on the rally from 11.30 at writers square. Through rain and sunshine we will proudly march with our trade union movement and we will have our beautiful Naomi in our hearts, a trade unionist through and through, we miss her dearly and she will be with us forever.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
It’s PUB DAY, and I’m thrilled to reshare my review of Matt McBride’s At the Mercy of the Flies (Half Mystic Press). “The poems read like dispatches from a mind trying to keep pace with a reality that has become stranger than its dreams.” This dream-soaked collection deserves all the love today ❤️‍🔥🪰
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
Surrealism and Crisis in Matt McBride’s At the Mercy of the Flies: A Review
A review of Matt McBride’s At the Mercy of the Flies, a surreal poetry collection shaped by depression, political upheaval, and a world in psychic disarray.
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Erlend Sogge Heggen @erlend.sh · 18/04/2026
Heckin’ love internet protocols and the digital commons? Wanna learn the ways of commoning to rewild the web? Then enjoy «Think Like a Commoner» by @davidbollier.bsky.social for FREE in ebook and audiobook formats! It’s a creative-commons =) Do buy or loan it if you can, and help spread the word.
bollier.org
Now Available -- Audiobook and Digital Versions of ‘Think Like a Commoner, Second Edition' | David Bollier
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Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · 10/04/2026
TODAY: @raxkingisdead.bsky.social at the Cock Sparrer show. "The venue overflowed with aging punks, all soigné in their skinhead finest: Levi’s jeans that appeared not so much skinny as tattooed on, and Doc Martens polished to a high gloss." flaminghydra.com/the-want-to-...
flaminghydra.com
The want to fight club
Gentlemen, take note: a guy who’s medium-old and out of shape looks great in a fitted polo tucked into tight jeans. Neither article of clothing ought to be uncomfortably snug, but they must indicate a...
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The Real News Network @therealnews.com · 06/04/2026
“The prison facility itself is maximum security, but society is just an extension; it’s a minimum-security prison. And that [radical insight] is at the core of Black anarchism.” - @williamcson.bsky.social
therealnews.com
Black anarchism in the US: A rich, radical tradition
“The prison facility itself is maximum security, but society is just an extension; it's a minimum-security prison. And that [radical insight] is at the core of Black anarchism.”
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Brilliant work.
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John Scary Name Cullen @nellucnhoj.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
territorial dispute
Panel 1: Two swans, floating on a water, very swan-ily.

P2: Same POV, but now the swans have raised their wings.

P3: Again, same POV, but now the wings are fully up, and the swans' necks are lowered and extended.

P4: GO! The swans shoot forward at speed, leaving trails of water in their wake. Their necks are fully extended, beaks open.

P5: A side-on view of water against a green sky.

P6: Same POV, but now the swans have burst into view. However, the only thing moving --at tremendous speed-- are their necks, stretching out impossibly.

P7: We close in on a side-on view of the swans' heads, beaks closed in a look of swan-y determination. They are literally neck & neck.

P8: The background begins to swirl as the swans pick up speed. They spiral towards the centre from the upper left & lower right corners.

P9: A dramatic reveal of a Jack Kirby-like cosmic scene, with a blazing sun in the bottom right corner, and a "krackle" filled purple sky. The swans' necks spiral around each other
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
New piece up: a reflection on the Good Friday Agreement, on how conflict turns into words and how peace starts in language before it ever hits real life. “This is how wars always end. In handshakes. In deals. In words.”
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
How Wars End: Inside the Good Friday Agreement’s Fragile Peace
A lyrical, unflinching meditation on the Good Friday Agreement, tracing the fragile hope of 1998 against the long shadow of violence that came before it.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
A myth‑infused critique of how communities create their own monsters and miracles, revealing collapse as the moment when new solidarities can begin. New post up today! #Bugonia
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
Bugonia: On What We Make From Ruin
A myth‑infused critique of how communities create their own monsters and miracles, revealing collapse as the moment when new solidarities can begin.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Everyone should hear this speech 💚❤️‍🔥 c/o Raw America @ www.rawamerica.com
substack.com
Raw America (@rawstory)
POWERFUL: Zohran Mamdani’s St. Patrick’s Day message celebrates the immigrant experience as a core part of what it means to be an American. This is a must-watch. Share this everywhere!
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Imagining Irish unity feels especially resonant on St Patrick’s Day, a moment when the past, the present, and the possibilities ahead all sit a little closer to the surface. First published in Honest Ulsterman, I’m resharing this today as a reflection on what Ireland means in all its plurality.
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
Imagining Irish Unity:
The Slow Burn, Not the Blaze
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
My work has been changing shape these last few months, so I’ve refreshed this space. It’s now a home for radical dreaming, cultural critique, and stories from below. The welcome page sets the tone. New essays & short pieces are on the way from this radical reading room, and I’d love you to join me.
substack.com
Welcome to The Break
A space for radical dreaming, cultural critique, and stories from below.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Another brilliant issue! So much amazing-ness in EVERY one!! Love it ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 Huge appreciation to the creators behind it... and if you haven’t subscribed to @flaminghydra.com yet, you really should!
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
What happens when the life you’re living no longer matches the life you imagined? This new essay follows Murakami’s giant frog and Tolstoy’s doomed heroine to explore how imagination can collapse a world or crack it open just enough to step back into life.
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
The Lifeline and the Trap: Super-Frog, Anna Karenina, and the Thresholds of Imagination
A reflection on the double edge of imagination and how it can close a life down or open it up.
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Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
For @flaminghydra.com, I used the new adaptation of Wuthering Heights to write about Jane Eyre instead, which I have read, idk, 100 times? I am normal flaminghydra.com/eyre-apparent/
flaminghydra.com
Eyre Apparent
a fiery writer-owned cooperative
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Phineas @phineas.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
It seems I’ve decided to start watching Twin Peaks again
The Log Lady from Twin Peaks, seated in front of a fireplace as she caresses her log addressing the camera directly saying ‘One day, the sadness will end.’
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Happy #TwinPeaks Day☕🌲 Letting this piece I wrote for the blue-rose dreamer drift out into the world again today. Here’s to the stories that haunt us in the best possible way 💙
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
Firebug's Passin'
A brief, fictional remembrance of David Lynch
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
A brief look at the greyscale world of Netflix’s Ripley, where identity blurs, class shapes what we see, and ambiguity becomes its own kind of freedom. New piece up now. "Tom moves in shadow because shadow is where people without power are expected to remain."
open.substack.com
Ripley: The Grey Perspective, in Notes
A brief exploration of the greyscale world of Netflix’s Ripley, where identity blurs, class shapes perception, and ambiguity offers a form of freedom.
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The Librarians Film @thelibrariansfilm.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
As book banning sweeps across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate, brave librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy. A film by Kim A. Snyder. Opens UK 9/26 @berthadochouse.bsky.social, US 10/03 @filmforumnyc.bsky.social, rollout to follow. Tix: TheLibrariansFilm.com/screenings
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
A brief, layered reimagining of the library as a living, shifting archive carried through bodies, landscapes, and time. My new piece moves from griots to galaxies, from bark‑books to mycelial networks, mapping how knowledge lives beyond shelves and binds us together. #Libraries #libsky #booksky
open.substack.com
Library Allsorts
A brief layered reimagining of the library as a living, shifting archive carried through bodies, landscapes, and time.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
I’ve a new short essay out today in The Honest Ulsterman, looking at the surge in talk about Irish unity and the imagination that hasn’t quite kept pace. "That’s what this moment demands: not just a conversation about unity, but a bold, public reckoning with what we want to unite for." #IrishUnity
humag.co
Honest Ulsterman - Features - Imagining Irish Unity by Ellen Kirkpatrick
The Honest Ulsterman is a long-running Northern Ireland literary magazine that was established by James Simmons in 1968.
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Channeldraw ★ @channeldraw.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I have been to #Düsseldorf many times, a city deeply connected to the life and work of #JosephBeuys. It is where he lived, worked, and taught, and traces of his presence can still be found throughout the urban landscape. Read more 👇
channeldraw.org
Joseph Beuys: The Only Oak in Düsseldorf - ChannelDraw
Memory and social sculpture in the urban heart
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Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · 31/01/2026
TODAY: celebrate our second birthday with us with some free selections from the archive! 🎈🎂 www.google.com/url?q=https:...
google.com
And now we are two
Celebrating Flaming Hydra’s second birthday
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
A brief look at what it means to create in solitude, how process shapes outcome, and why making things alone carries its own toll. Frankenstein, tech ambition, creative solitude, and the cost of disappearing into the work. #WritingLife #WritingCommunity
open.substack.com
Solitary Pursuits, or Frankenstein and the Toll of Creation
On ambition, isolation, and why the way we make things matters just as much as what we make.
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WoodPig Press @woodpigpress.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Woodpig Press is a new micro-press based in Wales. We're a loose collection of publishing freelancers who oppose AI and think books should be more about art than money. We want to publish the unusual fiction and non-fiction that mainstream publishers ignore. (Thread, 1/2) #booksky
woodpigpress.com
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
A small-town remembrance for David Lynch, or a version of him imagined through memory, myth, and the strange glow someone can leave behind. New piece up now. #DavidLynch ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com/p/firebugs-p...
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
Firebug's Passin'
A brief, fictional remembrance of David Lynch
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Loved this! I had no idea about the 1939 NYC guide, and now I’m completely obsessed. Clearly I need to track down a copy… my reading list just got a lot more interesting.
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
Been thinking about how a single shift in perspective can completely rewrite a story. My latest piece digs into #StrangerThings and the ending that reframed the entire series for me. 'What’s missing isn’t nostalgia, it’s the nerve to deliver on the story’s own radical promise.' #TVThoughts
ellenkirkpatrick.substack.com
The Ending That Changed Stranger Things Forever…
Stranger Things wrapped on 31 January 2025, a day that shows how endings and beginnings are only what we choose to see in a moment — New Year’s Eve or Old Year’s Night, depending on the angle.
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The Bulb Region @bulbregion.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
LAUNCHING SOON 🌷 THE BULB REGION! Fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, prose poetry, hybrid, comics, cultural criticism, personal essays, and everything that falls in-between! Save the date: January 13, 2026. bulbregion.com
bulbregion.com
The Bulb Region
The Bulb Region is an online literary journal dedicated to short form. Prose, poetry, comics, essays, humor, hybrid, and anything in-between.
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Hajar Press @hajarpress.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
𝘊𝘖𝘖𝘗 by Nida Sajid is officially out tomorrow! There is so much buzz around this book — MULTIPLE people who stopped by the Tower Hamlets Book Sale said they’d come specifically for this!!! — and we can’t wait for it to finally hit the shelves 😌 www.hajarpress.com/books/coop [1/2]
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Zach Rabiroff @zachrabiroff.com · 12/12/2025
Once again: @sirosenbaum.bsky.social with the most poignant and memorable comic you'll read this year. No kidding. It's all here on @flaminghydra.com, so subscribe today.
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Matthew Stewart @roguestrands.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Libraries are transformative. In fact, Farnham Library saved me. Kept me afloat when I was being bullied at South Farnham Middle School in the 1980s. This poem from Whatever You Do, Just Don't is my homage to it...
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Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · 08/12/2025
TODAY: @modernistwitch.myatproto.social on the rights of the child. “The first essay I ever wrote was a plea to adults to take children seriously. Forty or so years down the line, I find I am writing the same essay.” flaminghydra.com/children-des...
flaminghydra.com
Children Deserve Better
Survivors of child abuse have been having a rough time recently, with the late child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes in the news nearly every day. Even though nearly all are united in denouncing h...
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Broken Frontier @brokenfrontier.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
Last week at Broken Frontier..THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH! “Themes Around Human Connection & Loneliness Are a Constant Throughline in All of My Works” – @rein-lee.bsky.social on Exploring Identity & Queerness in Comics, & Finding Your Way in the Small Press Community. www.brokenfrontier.com/rein-lee-int...
brokenfrontier.com
"Themes Around Human Connection and Loneliness Are a Constant Throughline in All of My Works" - Rein Lee on Exploring Identity and Queerness in Comics, and Finding Your Way in the Small Press Communit...
Rein Lee is one of Broken Frontier's 2025 'Six Small Press Creators to Watch' and they talk to us about their comics and practice.
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Ayça Çubukçu @aycacu.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Honoured to endorse Francesca Albanese's book, out now with @plutopress.bsky.social A Moon Will Rise from the Darkness: Reports on Israel’s Genocide in Palestine. Free to download, with the option to donate to @unrwa.org. . @franceskalbs.bsky.social www.plutobooks.com/product/a-mo...
plutobooks.com
A Moon Will Rise from the Darkness - Pluto Press
A devastating indictment against international complicity in Israel’s genocide in Palestine
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David Bollier @davidbollier.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
A great conversation on @Revolution.social podcast with host @rabble.nz Henshaw-Plath. We discussed the power of network protocols, the dynamics of commoning in digital spaces, and Big Tech failures to understand their dependence on trust and sharing. Refreshing! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5nZ...
youtube.com
“Think Like a Commoner" Author David Bollier on the Commons & Why Open Platforms Aren't Enough
YouTube video by revolution.social with @rabble
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
✨I have a new essay at @popjunctions.bsky.social on swap storytelling, radical imagining, and why swapping approaches often fall short—not just in fiction, but in social and political realms too. Oh, and Captain Nemo 🦑 Big thanks to the Pop Junctions team for the space and support💖 bit.ly/nemo-swap
henryjenkins.org
Captain Nemo: A Swap Story, or Why We Can’t Barter Our Way to a Better World — Pop Junctions
Ellen Kirkpatrick dives into the character of Captain Nemo, particularly Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s gender-swapped version. She argues that story is the beating heart of social action, helpin...
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Thrilled to share that my review of Sad Tiger is now live at Barrelhouse✨ Neige Sinno’s genre-defying memoir—trans. by Natasha Lehrer, out from Seven Stories Press—left me breathless. Grateful to @barrelhouse.bsky.social for the space & support💖 tinyurl.com/sadtiger-rev... @sevenstories.bsky.social
barrelhousemag.com
Ellen Kirkpatrick Reviews Neige Sinno — Barrelhouse
Can literature bear witness without aestheticizing pain? Can story save us? Make us stronger? And what even counts as story?
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HAD @havehashad.com · 16/09/2025
one of my fave things about theme calls is when they inspire and turn into work that I'd maybe never expected but that totally knocks me out. today's story from Matti Ben-Lev is such a perfect example of that. "When I got my second DUI..." www.havehashad.com/ylr2s
havehashad.com
Five Times I’ve Seen My Father Cry by Matti Ben-Lev
When my sister was born. I was seven. That swollen creature, face plum and puffy. I’ve never seen my father’s eyes shiver quite like that, not even when Mom left, ten years later. After their divorce,…
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Ireland against Fascism @irlagainstfascism.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
One of the year's highlights this 👇
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Ellen Kirkpatrick @elkwrites.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Just caught this episode – so good! Marc Garrett’s reflections on being a working-class artist hit hard. Great conversation exploring class, creativity, and resistance.🔥A proper shout from the margins. #FeralClass #RadicalArt #MustRead
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Channeldraw ★ @channeldraw.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
"Cartoonists for Palestine" is a beautiful 250-page book featuring over 60 comic stories. I'm honored to be part of it with Issa, a story written by Francesca Mannocchi. The book was published by the American publisher Crucial Comix @mirkdrop.bsky.social 📖 Order the book here: tinyurl.com/26exa9wf
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PJ Holden @pauljholden.com · 08/09/2025
You want free comics? I got free comics...! If you subscribe to my patreon.com/pauljholden you can read this in full colour (so far!) Terran Omega Page 2-3
Page 2

Double page spread. Left hand side a large full page panel. Terran omega floating in space. An armoured heroic looking character carrying a staff of pure light and wearing a helmet that’s a cross between dr fate and galactus. Floating behind here (and where’s she’s flying towards) is a large chunky salvage ship (which is big and blocky and has two very obvious hands for gripping salvage)
Terran Omega : "No, I think I'd like to do this myself"

Second page has a column of panels. 
First: Terran omega flying towards a door (she flies gently while standing)

Second; her hand reaches towards the door and is cracking with energy

Third: her helmet and staff now inside the airlock of the ship
Terran: I'm inside
Terran: ...
Radio: *static*
Terran: Hmmm... on my own.
Terran: Ok

Fourth: she’s walking carefully down a corridor filled with smoke
Terran: Now. Let's look around.
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Pop Junctions @popjunctions.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
To kick off #EMMYSWATCH2025, Pop Junctions shares a 2-part interview on the @peabodyawards.bsky.social/Centre for Media and Social Impact podcast, We Disrupt this Broadcast. In Part 1, Lauren Alexandra Sowa interviews Jeffrey P. Jones about "Television that Changes Us".
henryjenkins.org
EMMYS WATCH 2025 — Television that Changes Us (Part 1): An Interview with the Peabody Award’s Jeffrey Jones on We Disrupt This Broadcast — Pop Junctions
‘Emmys Watch 2025’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama, Outstanding Comedy, and Outstanding Limited Series at that 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. Contributions to t...
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HAD @havehashad.com · 26/08/2025
the streak of banger new list poems continues today with Tyler Tea Friend! "...Trans Day of Horror Trans Day of Honor Trans Day of Dishonoring Trans Day of Dishing..." www.havehashad.com/7ho8l
havehashad.com
365 Days of Trans (January) by Tyler Tea Friend
Trans Day of Being Hungover Trans Day of Rebirth Trans Day of Forgetting to Take the Estradiol Trans Day of Getting a Papercut Trans Day of Getting It Trans Day of Getting Over It Trans Day of Yes,…
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