Sign in

Helen Sedgwick

@helensedgwick.bsky.social
1.2K followers 380 following 38 posts

Author, editor, physicist. Books: The Comet Seekers, The Growing Season, The Burrowhead Mysteries trilogy. linktr.ee/HelenSedgwick 🏳️‍🌈

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Sherry Morris 💙🇺🇦💛 @uksherka.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Listen again to January's Sherry's Shorts for an hour of New Start stories, including 1 from Highland writer @helensedgwick.bsky.social about a man on a quest to help sea turtles (& himself) move in the right direction. Read by @churchofben.bsky.social on @highlandhradio.bsky.social bit.ly/4buwb66
bit.ly
Sherry's Shorts - January 2026
A monthly spoken-word show featuring local writers & stories focused on the Scottish Highlands, with music and chat. Presented by Sherry Morris, a short story writer local to the Inverness area. Stori...
033
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Hello friends, I am no longer using this platform. You can find me on Instagram @helensedgwickauthor
000
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Heather McDaid @heathermmcd.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Argonaut Books needs your help 📣 Waterstones are set to open a store less than 100m from the indie bookshop's front door. Full info on @argonautbooks.bsky.social's Insta: www.instagram.com/p/DRMULI1jCI...
WE HAVE NEWS. We've been shocked go discover that the UK's biggest book.cjaon is moving in mere steps from our front door. Waterstones, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh shop less than 100 metres from Argonaut Books at the Foot of the Walk in Leith. We know that our community is what makes it possible for us to do what we do here at Argonaut and we're going to need your help. Please share this post with everyone you know, read.on for more info about what we're going to do and what happens next.Ways you can help. Please share this post with friends ans followers. Yoi have supported us through the end of the lock down, a rocky outlook for the retail industry and two years of relentless disruptive roadworks.
02625
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
And making theft illegal would “kill” the thieving industry. Good. Make theft illegal again.
23579145
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Leamington Books @leamington.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Our friends at Literature Alliance Scotland have opened applications to the pilot programme, To Be Continued. Have a look and see if this could help you or send to someone who might also benefit. Applications close Friday 3 October 2025. literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/to-be-contin...
032
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Magma Poetry @magmapoetry.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Really looking forward to the online launch of ‘The Man Who Made Up Trees’ by Michael Greavy - the winner of Magma’s 2024 pamphlet competition on Wed 1st Oct 7-8pm. Discounted copies available on the night! Register your free place here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pamphlet-l...
021
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Sam Whyte @samwhyte.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
This gets progressively funnier with every use of the term "floppy".
One of Britain’s most senior police officers has launched an angry tirade against Extinction Rebellion protesters going “all floppy” when they get arrested.

Sir Stephen House, the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said the tactic of going limp was a “flipping nuisance” as it required extra officers to drag protesters away.

House told a London assembly police and crime committee hearing: “We have asked them to stop being floppy. And that might seem like a silly thing to say, but when we arrest them and pick them up, they go all floppy, which is why you see four or five officers carrying them away. It’s a complete waste of officers’ time, and a complete pain in the neck.”

Extinction Rebellion: how successful were the latest protests?
Read more
House also expressed annoyance at how the tactic made the police look heavy-handed. He said: “The problem with them going floppy and four offices carrying them away [is that it] looks to the general public like police are overreacting here. We’re not making them go floppy. They’re just sort of being a nuisance.”
21472302163
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Ingrid Bergman was born on this day in 1915. She also died on August 29th - in 1982. 📷 David Seymour, 1953 "Love would come right through that lens." - Pia Lindstrom
Ingrid in short hair, wearing a turtleneck sweater, smiling at the camera.
35417
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Polly Atkin @pollyrowena.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
I keep getting asked for my salty thoughts about the Salt Path as my position on nature cure narratives is v clear! A mere fraction of those thoughts published here @literaryhub.bsky.social, with thanks to @bookwormvaught.bsky.social and @nicwilson.bsky.social for their earlier pieces linked below.
lithub.com
Nature is Not Going to Cure You: On Raynor Winn’s Fabricated Memoir
Like many writers, I have been following the unfolding revelations about Raynor Winn and The Salt Path with great interest, and a degree of self-interest. I am a memoirist and nature writer, and I …
1919069
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Ever Dundas @everdundas.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
"Publishing is attached to the idea of a narrative arc that peaks with healing... Nature writing has long had a problem with the way it presents illness. Nature writing only wants to admit illness into its pages if it is to show nature performing a miraculous cure." Excellent piece
1102
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Kit de Waal @kitdewaal.com · 20/07/2025
As Bookbanks new Ambassador I’d like to spread the word about this brilliant charity giving books with food at food banks. Please share and support if you’re able :) www.bookbanks.co.uk
15332191
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Among yesterday's arrestees is Deborah Hinton, an 81-year old retired magistrate with an OBE. That's Yvette Cooper's idea of a terrorist. Language has been turned on its head. The law has been turned on its head. Murdering children is righteous. Trying to stop it is terrorism.
351935673
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Remember all that fulminating in the billionaire press about "free speech" (ie their freedom to abuse Muslims, trans people etc with impunity)? Now that people are being arrested for speaking about an issue of the utmost gravity, the self-appointed guardians of liberty have fallen strangely silent.
441762578
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Anna Frame @annaframe.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Oh hell no. WeTransfer now claims access in their T&Cs, in perpetuity, to your content to “improve the service and our technologies (and develop new ones)”. I used to use them to transfer large manuscripts, but looks like I’m jumping ship. Other large transfer sites are recommended in the comments.
181
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
010
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
020
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
404 Ink @404ink.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
In case you miss it amongst the news, we're delighted that @saraband-books.bsky.social will be continuing the Inklings series and they open for submissions in August! The process is very similar to our own but check out the guidelines and get your pitches ready. saraband.net/2025/07/11/i...
saraband.net
Inklings submissions open from 1st to 31st August - Saraband
Inklings submissions open from 1st to 31st August
02721
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Very sad to hear @404ink.bsky.social are closing, but they deserve a massive congratulations - they’ve been a shining light in the industry and have worked with unending passion. I’m delighted @saraband-books.bsky.social are taking on Inklings. A HUGE well done to Laura & Heather for everything!
183
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Saraband Books @saraband-books.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Following the announcement of 404 Ink's closure, we're delighted to announce that we'll be taking forward a significant portion of the Inklings series! Read more here: saraband.net/news-events #Booksky 📚💙
12912
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Emily Yoshida @emilyyoshida.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Borges’ capsule review of KING KONG in which he mostly complains that Kong should be bigger
Film review by Jorge Luis Borges of KING KONG (1933): King Kong: A monkey fourteen meters high (some of his fans say fifteen) is obviously charming, but perhaps that is not enough. This monkey is not full of juice; he is a dried out and dusty contraption with angular, clumsy movements. His only virtue-his height-seems not to have greatly impressed the photographer, who persists in not shooting him from below but from above, a plainly mistaken angle that invalidates and annuls his tallness. It should be added that he is hunchbacked and bowlegged, features that also shorten him. To ensure that there is nothing extraordinary about him, they make him fight monsters far stranger than he and find him lodgings in fake caverns the size of a cathedral, where his hard-won stature is lost. A carnal or romantic love for Miss Fay Wray brings to perfection the ruin of this gorilla and of the film as well.
341115249
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
BookwormVaught - Dr Anna Vaught @bookwormvaught.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
- and I have wondered sometimes if I’d reframed it - partly fictionalised it, then - as a tale of triumph in which my body & mind got fixed and everyone said sorry, got therapy and didn’t pass on more inter-generational trauma, that might have been considered more commercial. That really upsets me
181
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
BookwormVaught - Dr Anna Vaught @bookwormvaught.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
It’s Sunday but I’m feeling all the feels so I’ve just pitched The Bookseller a piece centred on overcoming tropes. A few years ago a big 5 rejected a proposal from me; it was about mental health problems alongside physical disability. They didn’t want it on both because it would be too depressing
1114
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Polly Atkin @pollyrowena.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
If you've found yourself taking the narrative of the tragic illness the helpless homelessness and the walking cure encrusted with inspiration porn with a pinch of salt over the years, this is *quite* the read. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
observer.co.uk
The real Salt Path: how the couple behind a bestseller le...
Penniless and homeless, the Winns found fame and fortune with the story of their 630-mile walk to salvation. We can reveal it was far from the truth
3027087
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
There are no red states, no blue states, only purple, from Idaho fuchsia to Vermont violet. And in every state there are children, non-citizens, and prisoners who can't vote. In every state where one candidate won, a bunch of people voted for the other candidate. And so forth.
683526728
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Emily L. Hauser (she/her) ❌👑 @emilylhauser.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality." - James Baldwin
4475802055
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
As a historian, I think of cities as the things that are real & permanent, not countries. Countries are like glaciers that move across & rearrange things, usually crawling slowly but sometimes cataclysmically fast when something triggers avalanche or flood; monument-boulders mark where they’ve been.
11487128
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Natasha @nastynatasha--1.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
342192844641
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Trish K @tkaz99.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
No doubt 👽
"Plant based potatoes" .... this is why aliens fly straight past us

ASDA

PLANT BASED MASHED POTATO
1547360912
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Beks @antifaoperative.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
There were 31 church leaders & christian school employees who were arrested, pled guilty and/or were sentenced to prison for child sex crimes in the month of June.
57745182617
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
James Oswald @sirbenfro.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Did someone say Floof?
Floofy dark brown Highland coo calf in a field of long green grass.
3113
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
The government's plan to proscribe Palestine Action is part of a wider crackdown on protest. Instead of taking steps to prevent genocide, the gov wants to criminalise people demanding justice for Palestinians. Sign the petition to oppose this plan: palestinecampaign.eaction.org.uk/NoProscription
palestinecampaign.eaction.org.uk
PETITION: Defend the right to protest: no proscription of Palestine Action
010
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Owen Jones @owenjones.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
A Labour government is driving disabled people into poverty. This is a scandal, a stain the party will never be able to wash itself of. Every Labour MP who votes for this disgraceful legislation must be voted out and replaced by someone who stands up for the struggling.
15463128
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Alan Ferrier @alanferrier.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
“We are concerned at the unjustified labelling of a political protest movement as ‘terrorist.’ According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.” www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...
ohchr.org
UN experts urge United Kingdom not to misuse terrorism laws against protest group Palestine Action
GENEVA – UN experts* today urged the United Kingdom not to ban the “direct action” group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000.“We are concerned at the unjustified ...
1287
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
My Aloe Vera is flowering 💚
000
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Write the book you would like to see someone pull from a higgledy piggledy pile in a secondhand shop 63 years after your death and say, "This looks fucking weird. I think I will buy it for Joan."
428276
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Calling all writers! LAS are offering 5 writers bursaries of £3000 each to be awarded using a lottery system. It’s an unusual and very interesting approach - and well worth applying for! Please RT and share widely ☺️ literaturealliancescotland.co.uk/writer-bursa...
literaturealliancescotland.co.uk
Writer Bursaries for work-in-progress | Literature Alliance Scotland | Caidreabhas Litreachais Alba
112
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Chelsea Dingman @chelsdingman.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Lucille Clifton
mother-tongue: to the child just born
if i were eloquent in your language i would try to tell you
how it is
when something difficult loves you,
how it is
when you begin to love it back,
how this can cost you everything.
0196
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 10/06/2025
Lavender Menace: Queer Bookselling in Edinburgh 19 July, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed Explore the history of queer bookselling in Edinburgh, from early bookstalls to the opening of Lavender Menace and West & Wilde to the resurgence of independent bookshops 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/whats-on/lav...
edinburghmuseums.org.uk
Lavender Menace: Queer Bookselling in Edinburgh
Scotland’s first lesbian and gay bookshop grew out of several years of LGBT+ bookselling in the city which started with Open Gaze bookstall in 1976
0104
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Aoife Lyall @aoifelyall.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Me- on stage- this Friday! All info below- see you there!
042
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
ALCS @alcs.co.uk · 03/06/2025
Last night, the House of Lords defeated the Government for a fourth time by passing an amendment establishing meaningful transparency measures for the use of rightsholders’ works in AI systems, many of which are being used without recognition, permission or remuneration. (1/3)
1359117
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
If you missed this event about gender inequality in the Scottish lit sector you can now catch up here, free to all: vimeo.com/1082115463 @societyofauthors.bsky.social
vimeo.com
Industry Insider - The 40% ceiling: Gender equality in the Scottish literary sector
Join Dr. Christina Neuwirth as they present findings from their report on gender equality in Scottish publishing, reviewing equality in book festivals and prizes,…
055
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
It's surely now clear that anyone who had a contract with Unbound should be actively taking steps to reclaim all rights to their work, in writing, and ideally taking qualified professional advice.
18228
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Nellie Cubed @nelnelnellie.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
Text says: “When you've got to rule the kingdom at noon, handbell choir at 4, and a pool party at 6.” Below is a medieval drawing of a woman wearing a crown with a bell in one hand and some kind of horse thing around her waist.
0437
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Unsolicited writing advice, no. 12: However good your work is, there will be people who hate it. This is an inescapable part of having readers. Live with it. Accept it. And know that for every person who doesn’t like your work, there may be another whose life has been changed by something you wrote.
925229
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Huge congrats - I have my copy 😍
020
Reposted by Helen Sedgwick
Haunt Publishing @hauntpublishing.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
"Intriguing, instantly gripping, creepy and nightmarish" – @helensedgwick.bsky.social The book follows Eric as he abandons his fiancé at the Edinburgh Christmas market to follow a mysterious woman back to an even more mysterious hotel in the Highlands... www.hauntpublishing.com/books/p/joan...
hauntpublishing.com
The Gingerbread Men by Joanna Corrance (Paperback) — Haunt Publishing
Eric abandons his fiancé, Eleanor, at the Edinburgh Christmas market, following a mysterious woman back to the hotel she owns in the Highlands. Here he meets the men that staff the vacant rooms. Men l...
121
Helen Sedgwick @helensedgwick.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
This will be so much fun! Organised by my brilliant friend Margaret Callaghan and all for Shelter - do come along! June 19th www.ticketsource.co.uk/cringe-teena...
ticketsource.co.uk
000