iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Kathleen Jamie @kathleenjamie.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Arresting the poets are we? Not a good look.

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RSPB Science @rspbscience.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Hello world! RSPB Conservation Science has officially landed on BlueSky Follow us to hear about our science discoveries, new publications, citizen science, and all things conservation research

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

'She's a tree that's fallen; she's a tree that trees have grown out of; she's now part of the past, but also she fed and nourished and loved and guided a possible future'. Absolutely beautiful tribute to Joanna Macy by @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social www.meditationsinanemergency.com/in-honor-of-...

meditationsinanemergency.com

In Honor of Joanna Macy, 1929-2025

I write while staying in one of the great forests of British Columbia, a forest in which the inextricability of life from death is gorgeously evident. Several kinds of fern spring from this soil, some...

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Polly Atkin @pollyrowena.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Look what arrived while I was away @wcorklitfest.bsky.social! My edited ‘10 poems from the Lake District for @candlestickpress.bsky.social!

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BookwormVaught - Dr Anna Vaught @bookwormvaught.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

I'd like to big up what we have offered in the #Curae literary prize for unpaid carers and invite industry press, once more, to look at something extraordinary which people from across industry have helped me to put together a second time. It's still flying under the radar too much. LET'S GO!

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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

I was initially gen AI agnostic, before I read up on how it works, how it's been developed, and the ideologies that underpin it. In my view, its costs massively outweight its benefits and if you can avoid using it, you should.

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

1. Yesterday, 86 people were arrested in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000 for holding signs saying "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action." They are the opposite of terrorists. They were protesting *against* terrorism. 🧵

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

For me as someone currently not disabled or ill (but close to loved ones who are), I’ve learned SO much nuance from Polly’s writing, centrally #SomeOfUsJustFall. Reading disabled/chronic writers helps transform what is visible/legible to me in others’ bodily & political experiences — & in my own.

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Cathy Elliott @profcathyelliott.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Yeah. The issue with The Salt Path isn't so much it's 'truth value' as the dodgy aesthetics which have always been there. Look I have no interest in casting stones at someone who made up a story to cover up (a) bad decision(s), though I think that 'true' story would have been more interesting 1/n

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

One of the many problems I have with the ‘nature cure’ label is that it gets slapped on any memoir about nature and illness/disability/mental distress, regardless of content. When most of those books - and Nic’s is a fine example - are doing something MUCH more interesting than the term implies.

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Abbi Flint @draflint.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

A fab looking peaty poetry opportunity for young poets (14-25). ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/workshop/bog...

ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk

The Bog Challenge on Young Poets Network – Young Poets Network

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

The Italian for swift is rondone, which is linked to the word for ‘patrol’. Patrolling implies ownership, agency, a sense of responsibility: the naming is a powerful, if subconscious, act of recognising the birds as co-citizens. #swiftawarenessweek wreckageandshimmer.substack.com/p/shimmering...

wreckageandshimmer.substack.com

Shimmering with swifts

Finding abundance in Italy

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Julian Hoffman @julianhoffman.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

It's not just about the broken trust between writer and reader, or all the time, energy and unfounded faith invested by booksellers, but it's also about the important stories still unheard of those living with illness and homelessness that could have been elevated by the industry instead.

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Truth in memoir is a slippery thing. Nevertheless, if we present our writing as memoir, we enter into a solemn contract with our readers: that we are telling the truth as best as we possibly can. If one writer abrogates that responsibility, the consequences affect all of us.

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Polly Atkin @pollyrowena.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

I've made a new list on @bookshop.org of books that explore nature / walking / the outdoors by disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill writers - Nature Beyond Cure - aka our own narratives are messy and complex. Do share! #BookSky #DisabledWriters uk.bookshop.org/lists/nature...?

uk.bookshop.org

Nature Beyond Cure: Disabled Perspectives

Books that explore nature and living with disability and illness from disability perspectives. No magical cures here!

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Nic Wilson @nicwilson.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

I'll be talking about #LandBeneaththeWaves at the Book Nook in #Ware (sold out) on Tuesday and David's Bookshop in #Letchworth this Thursday. Lots of local nature, plus deadly plants, snickets and Hitchin's lost nightingales. Do some along and join us if you're nearby... #booksky #naturewriting

davids-bookshops.co.uk

Event ticket: Nic Wilson for Land Beneath the Waves

Date: Thursday 19th June 2025 Venue: David’s Bookshop. This is an in person event (not available to attend online) Event to start at 7pm, doors opening 6:30pm. Nic Wilson is a writer, editor and Guard...

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Jack Wallington @jackwallington.com · 24/05/2025

I’ve written to my MP sharing my concerns about the way Labour is planning to harm nature when they promised the nation they’d protect it - please do the same, numbers matter in steering politics

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Sarah Jane Butler @sarahjanebutler.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

On our darkest days it's easy to believe humans have no positive place in the natural world - this welcome post by @joannacdobson.bsky.social reminds us that the shimmer of life includes us open.substack.com/pub/wreckage... #naturewriting #environment

open.substack.com

The shimmer of life includes us

On dealing with ecological guilt

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 13/05/2025

Writer and colourist @jordanacosta.co has a resource of pictures for writers to use rather than AI rubbish www.jordanacosta.co/p/more-free-...

jordanacosta.co

More Free-to-use Picture Resources for Writers

Because millions of free-to-use images are just the tip of the iceberg

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Pharmacist on a Pushbike @ppushbike.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Looking forward to seeing this visually stunning film at DocFest. Lost for Words is inspired by The Lost Words (Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris). It includes a song setting of Heartwood, the 'charm against harm' Robert wrote for Sheffield's trees. www.sheffdocfest.com/film/lost-wo...

sheffdocfest.com

Lost for Words | Sheffield DocFest

no synopsis available

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Nic Wilson @nicwilson.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

My book launch of #LandBeneaththeWaves is now online, tickets available from @nextpagebooksuk.bsky.social. If you're near #Hitchin, come and join us for drinks, music and chat about local nature and our relationship with it. Should be a fun evening! 😊🐸🌱🪰🦔🦉💚 #naturewriting #chronicillness #booksky

eventbrite.co.uk

Book Launch: Land Beneath the Waves by Nic WIlson

Join us for the debut book launch of "Land Beneath the Waves" by Nic Wilson, Hitchin author and Guardian nature writer

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Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 12/05/2025

My letter to the Prime Minister. #immigration

Slightly amended so I can fit this here:

I am writing to you as an immigrant who chose to make the UK my home. As someone who is now also a British citizen. And as a German-born historian who understands where the complete normalisation of the far right can end. I write to say: For shame!

I first came to the UK in the 1990s for a visit with my grandmother. Objectively, much was backwards here. No mixer taps in the bathroom; awful ‘bread’; and strings had to be pulled to switch on lights. But however I felt about this, my own string had been pulled: I loved this Cool Britannia. It was quite possibly then that I decided that the UK was to be my home. When I arrived to settle here permanently, I made a choice: to contribute my skills, my knowledge—all I have to offer—to this country rather than another one.

I am deeply disgusted by your comment today that immigration has done ‘incalculable damage’ to the country.

This is the language of the far right. It is insulting, hateful & will fuel xenophobia. And it is just wrong.

Migration is a normal part of the human existence. None of us would be where we are without it. Open your fridge and you will see migration. Immigrants help make the UK tick every single day, whether we clean toilets in our hospitals or provide care for the elderly; whether we empty our bins or carry out cancer research. We are mothers, sons-in-law, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbours and colleagues.

I ask you not tell me that you do not mean me. I know that you do not—at least not primarily—mean a white woman from Europe who has a PhD. But who do you mean? And, much more importantly, who do you think those racists who were engaged in riots on our streets last summer think you mean?

Anti-immigration narratives have defined UK policymaking for the best part of two decades. And fundamentally so. They were the key driver in delivering Brexit, for example, and, as such, have directly limited the rights and opportunities of British citizens.

This obsessive focus on immigration as the ‘problem’—that is the real problem. And it is consistently delivering poor outcomes for the UK. Instead of tackling this, you are choosing to consolidate it, sowing divisions along the way.

You may point me to polling and tell me that this is what voters want. Do they? I am not surprised at all that over 50% of voters might say they want to see immigration reduced if that is the question they are being asked. What we need to know is what they would answer to the question: “Would you like to see immigration reduced? What this would mean for you and your local community is XYZ.” That is not how surveys can ask questions, but governments absolutely can choose to make policy using such a more informed position.

Prime Minister, you continue to talk a lot about making the tough choices. But let’s be clear: setting immigrants up as the ‘other’, as a scapegoat—describing us as a threat ‘pulling the country apart’, a ‘squalid chapter’, a risk that might make the UK an ‘island of strangers’—these are not tough choices at all. These are the easy choices. They are the choices that populists make who have no solutions to the real problems a country faces.

What I would like to know, Prime Minister, is what you will do when your policies lead to the implosion of the UK’s Higher Education sector. What you will tell communities when they can no longer provide any care for the elderly.

The policies you announced today will not solve anything at all. They will have exclusively negative impacts. For those immediately affected; for our communities; and for our economy.

Being pro-immigration—it is progressive, yes, but the much more crucial point is that it is also the most pro-UK policy approach that any politician in the country can pursue. And you are choosing to do the opposite. This, Prime Minister, is the real damage—and it will be very calculable indeed.

Tanja Bueltmann

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Today I am thinking about the midwife who delivered my firstborn, the psychiatrist who led our family through a turbulent time, the neighbours who shared their cooking with us in London, the ESOL students who trusted me with their stories, and so many more. The sum total is incalculable enrichment.

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Dr Laura Eastlake @victorianmasc.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

- Lecturer in Postcolonial or Indigenous Literature - Lecturer in Early Modern English Literature. University of Glasgow. FT Permanent. Closing 22nd and 25th May. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMO617/l...

jobs.ac.uk

Lecturer in Postcolonial or Indigenous Literature (R&T) at University of Glasgow

Searching for an academic job? Explore this Lecturer in Postcolonial or Indigenous Literature (R&T) opening on jobs.ac.uk! Click to view more details and browse other academic jobs.

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The Unhurried Reader 📚🦊🇺🇦🇬🇱 @theunhurriedreader.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

That's 131,000 vacancies. You did read it right. I 'hope' the whole lot of them have someone to look after them in their old age.

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Ooh looking forward to reading this. Absolutely loved What the Trumpet Taught Me

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

This is bonkers. Care homes are closing because they can’t recruit staff. Elders are stuck in hospitals because of care home staff shortages. This is actually an opportunity to argue for the value of migrant workers but I guess that would clash with their apparent plan to Be More Reform

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

The allotment is looking great this year, thanks to hours of work by @juliandobson.bsky.social. But it’s so, so thirsty. Anyone else finding their rhubarb and broad beans seem sluggish in the heat? #allotments #growyourown

A view down a large, downward-sloping allotment plot with a central grassy path dividing two rows of vegetable beds. In the bottom left hand corner is a polytunnel; beyond the plot a thickly wooded slope rises to a clear blue sky

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Tracy Marks @tracymar.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

I created a POETRY WRITERS STARTER PACK for short-form poetry (which includes many of the Blueskyers that I follow, as well as relevant magazines, organizations etc.) go.bsky.app/UxLkD3s #poetry #poetrycommunity #bskypoets #poem #inkmine #writingcommunity #haiku #tanka #micropoetry

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Longbarrow Press @longbarrowpress.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Today, 12 noon - 4pm, Exchange Place Studios, Sheffield, S2 5TR (free, no need to book, just drop in)

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Sam Missingham @samatlounge.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

If you’re surprised by this, you’re not paying attention.

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Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

It’s wonderful - and surreal! - to be named by Elle U.K. as one of their 40 for 40 Women of Hope: “the trailblazers pushing the status quo who will define the next four decades.” Here’s to another 40 years of progress. Or just the next 40 minutes, to be fair.

An image of me sat in my wheelchair with blonde long hair and a black cut out AllSaints top. The title - Elle 40 for 40 Women of Hope - sits at the bottom of the graphic.

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Nic Wilson @nicwilson.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Wow! After a day recording the audio of #LandBeneaththeWaves in London, now fab bookshops like @foldedorset.bsky.social & @stanfordstravel.bsky.social are coming online with pre-order links (incl. Blackwells for folk in Canada & US): linktr.ee/nicwilsonaut... #naturewriting #booksky #chronicillness

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Well this looks fascinating - and it’s open access

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Gilbert White @gilbertwhite.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

1776: Rain much wanted. No rain since the second week in March. The latest summer birds of passage generally retire the first: this is the case with the hirundo apis, the caprimulgus, & the stoparola. Birds are never joyous in dry springs: showery seasons are their delight for obvious reasons.

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Nic Wilson @nicwilson.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Isn't this a beautiful #CraftedWildlife butterfly?

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Dr Malice @atarbuck.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Blessed Beltane to you all - we found the sunrise this morning, and the pinked trees, and the deer. May the summer hold all sweetness for you, may the long days fill you with light, and may what you planted and coaxed in the darkness bloom. 💜

The sun rising golden and red over the hills of lowland Scotland, viewed through trees.

The trees at the summit bathed in light. Sitka spruce? They were fragrant.

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

‘Red deer … still do not cross what was the “iron curtain” – even though the electric fence that divided the countries was taken down 25 years ago’ Excellent and sickening account of the environmental cost of border walls. 1/2 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

The missing lynx: how the rise of border walls has split up wildlife populations

In an age of growing hostility to migrants, there are 10 times more barriers on borders than when the Berlin Wall fell. But as well as the human cost, animals are unintended victims

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Chris Jones @cwjoneschris.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

My first post on Substack on the swifts we share our house with #swifts @joannacdobson.bsky.social @drjomaher.bsky.social @longbarrowpress.bsky.social @petegreensolo.com cwjoneschris.substack.com/p/swift-diar...

cwjoneschris.substack.com

The Secret Places

Swift Diaries

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Robert Macfarlane @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Calling river-lovers: your river needs you! The Big River Watch runs until 1 May. Spend 15 mins by your local river, record what you see in the free BRW app––& help create a clearer picture of UK river health. I'm taking part. More here. @theriverstrust.bsky.social theriverstrust.org/take-action/...

theriverstrust.org

The Big River Watch

Help improve our rivers. T ake part in The Big RiverWatch survey between 25th April and 1st May!

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

For Independent Bookstore Day I bought a copy of the Nature Chronicles prize anthology from the excellent Rhyme and Reason in Sheffield. So far I’ve read an absolute gem of a multilayered essay by @davidhiggins.bsky.social on minibeasts. Really looking forward to the rest.

The Nature Chronicles Prize Anthology 2 has a cover that shows the title against a backdrop of green ferns outlined with boar frost. The book lies on a pine table.

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Emma Mitchell @silverpebble2.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

My new workshop:small museums for mental health, is now live. I'll teach you how creating small museums alters brain biochemistry to improve mental health & we'll make small museums together 24 May,zoom, recording available afterwards Open to anyone,anywhere workshops.emmamitchell.uk/courses/smal...

Collection of spring nature finds in antique typesetter's tray

Collection of finds from Old Hunstanton beach made in 2019

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Climate Psychology Alliance @climatepsychol.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Join us for a supportive, caring session where parents, carers, and guardians can express their emotions about the climate crisis. Date: Tues 20 May | Time: 13:00-14:30 BST | Register on Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1070918499...

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Caroline Lucas @carolinelucas.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

The Govt’s #PlanningBill would allow developers to pay cash to trash wildlife & the environment. The nature levy isn’t a tool for ecological recovery - it’s a license to kill nature. Pleased to join ecologists & experts to sign letter to MPs👇 @zero-hour.bsky.social @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social

theguardian.com

Planning bill would allow builders to ‘pay cash to trash’ nature, say UK experts

Exclusive: plan to let firms sidestep environmental laws by paying into nature levy would add cost and delay, says letter to MPs

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Dr Joanna Clare Dobson @joannacdobson.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

And now this. I’m losing track of all the ways this government is failing us, not even through incompetence but through deliberate policies that seem purposely designed to dig us deeper and deeper into the sh*t the Tories left

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