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Joe Dragovich

@joedragovich.bsky.social
3.8K followers 3K following 188 posts

History writer, digital archive nerd. Words in @nytimes.com, @historytoday.com and @sdtimes.bsky.social. Associate Fellow, Royal Historical Society. 📚 lnk.to/Hawkhurst Runs @historyclippings.bsky.social

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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
I'm going to start every book I write with an apology for writing the book from now on. From 1892. If you think the book market was oversaturated in 1892, buddy I got bad news for you... #writesky #authorsky
In view of the already overcrowded state of the book-market, the author of this little work feels that some apology is due to a much-enduring public for his temerity in adding yet another drop to the stream.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Check out my appearance on BBC Secret Kent. I talk about the Battle of Goudhurst, the high water mark of the Hawkhurst Gang. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... #kent #c18th 🗃️ #smuggling
bbc.co.uk
Secret Kent - Shootout at the Goudhurst Corral - BBC Sounds
A story of smuggling, violence and the Hawkhurst Gang.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Really enjoyed meeting everyone at the #HWACrowns25 yesterday. A great evening with great writers!
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Thrilled to be Highly Commended in this year's HWA short story contest! My story this year has some elements based on an old family story about a hobo working for a traveling preacher. Thrilled to be able to keep that little story alive through fiction!
Announcement of highly commended stories. "Poacher turned Gamekeeper" by Alex Edwards. "We Bring Miracles" by Joseph Dragovich.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
Really pleased to be long listed again this year. I don't usually write fiction and the Dorothy Dunnet competition is a great opportunity to do it!
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Grimma Wormtongue is a Lord of the Rings character that sounds like a Harry Potter character.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
My article for @nytimes.com is in French! It's the first time anything I've written has been translated. www.ledevoir.com/societe/scie... That feels like a writer achievement unlocked. #writing #writesky
ledevoir.com
Quand la NASA s’est retrouvée prise dans la guerre des colas
En 1985, Coca-Cola et PepsiCo se sont affrontés jusqu’à la Maison-Blanche pour envoyer le premier soda dans l’espace.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Check out my piece in the @nytimes.com about the 1980s cola space race. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/s... Worked with some great editors and a spoke with interesting people while I was working on this. Really pleased to see this published. #space #nasa #spaceshuttle #challenger
nytimes.com
When Coke and Pepsi Fought for Soft Drink Supremacy in Space
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/... Come see where the Hawkhurst Gang went on trial if you're in #chichester on a Thursday morning! #smuggling #c18th
sussexexpress.co.uk
Historic Chichester Guildhall opens to public
The Guildhall is located in Priory Park in the West Sussex city of Chichester.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
As a writer, you're going to do things that are a waste of time. Do them anyway. Send that pitch, write that piece outside your niche, research that crazy obscure subject. It will probably come to nothing, but you'll learn something and it might be amazing. #writingcommunity
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
It's a real honor that Lou Ferrante endorsed my book! When a former mobster and bestselling author likes your book, it really means something! amzn.eu/d/h1tPRU1 #booksky #histbookchat 🗃️ #kent #sussex #smuggling.
Meticulously researched with a brisk writing style that does not allow you to put the book down. It should be made into a television series.
- Lou Ferrante. Bestselling Author and BroadcasterLouis Ferrante picture.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
Still time to get the book delivered for Christmas!
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
I get it, you don't know what to buy your dad/uncle/grandpa for Christmas. Get him my book if he likes crime!* *Reading about crime, not doing crime. Actually, get it for him if he likes doing crime too. www.amazon.co.uk/Hawkhurst-Co... 🗃️ #histbookchat #smuggling #kent #sussex
Hawkhurst book cover.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
My book is in an archive. The historian circle of life is complete. Really great to see it stocked so close to where it takes place! #booksky #histbookchat #authorsky
Screenshot of tweet showing my book in the Kent Archives.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
My stupid fan theory: #tropico is the Anno game that can't be made because none of the years in the 20th century add up to 9.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
I was in the UK ten years before I realized the Pudsey had nothing to do with Remembrance Day. Like I thought he was some sort of friendly cartoon war wounded.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Anyone in the #writingcommunity know of a good lit mag that takes historical fiction submissions? I've got a story: 3500 words, takes place in 1910s, book-club fiction. Long-listed for the Dorothy Dunnet award. Not necessarily looking to get paid, just to get a clip. #historicalfiction #writing
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Starting a #tropico game and playing a leader where I try to make people's lives better, even though I don't have to, feels like an act of rebellion right now.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 20/10/2024
I did a straw poll on my other account on where people found their last history book. The takeaway for me is: A book finds you, you don't find a book. Marketing is important for authors. Who knew? #booksky #authorsky
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 14/10/2024
Lukewarm take on the War on Drugs is also a bad take on the Hawkhurst Gang... www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/2462744...
guardian-series.co.uk
Banning things sends them underground
Cllr Paul Donovan from Wanstead Village ward on why he doesn't agree with banning drugs or tobacco.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 12/10/2024
Two satellite images of Eastern Ukraine: August, 2022 and August 2024 The brown streak in the second picture is the front. The war's destruction is visible from space. #ukraine 🇺🇦 from the NOAA JSTAR mapper. www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/mapper/
satellite image of eastern Ukraine, August 2022satellite image of eastern Ukraine, August 2024, showing brown streak of destruction from the fighting.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 25/09/2024
My short story, Purity, got long-listed in the HWA Dorothy Dunnet Short Story Competition Really honored to be there with some great #histfic writers! #HWADDSS24 www.historiamag.com/hwa-dd-ss-20...
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 18/09/2024
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #409,951!
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 23/08/2024
Jenkins' Quality Barbecue, Jacksonville, FL 1979 I kinda want to eat there just for the cool building. LOC flic.kr/p/2225vgm
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 22/08/2024
Bracelet Bay, Wales. We got there at low tide which revealed an array of miniature landscapes among the rocks. 📸 More in 🧵
Miniature lake with rocksMiniature rock arch with seaweedGrey miniature mountains.Miniature lakeside
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 14/08/2024
IYKYK...
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 11/08/2024
The backup dancers at the closing ceremony have strong Power Rangers putty vibes. #olympics #paris2024
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 01/06/2024
I'm thinking about applying to be a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Are there any current fellows out there willing to sponsor an independent scholar who's recently published a book (i.e. me)? 🗃️ #c18th
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 23/05/2024
"All those public service cuts will be lost in time, like tears in the rain..."
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 03/05/2024
These aren't the snacks I would choose while reading my book, but if my readers enjoy them, I'm not going to judge...
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 02/05/2024
I've been reading a bunch of short stories researching a project and I know that I'm almost 30 years late for this but... The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is an amazing collection!
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 01/05/2024
I'm writing an article about the 80s and I lost a whole evening trying to solve my daughter's rubik's cube. It's not procrastination, its method #writing!
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 30/04/2024
I love it when a news article references EP Thompson and food riots. Great article in The Economist on #inflation www.economist.com/finance-and-...
economist.com
Is inflation morally wrong?
Workers think so. Economists disagree
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 27/04/2024
I *really* wish that people would stop claiming to have statistically derived universal human experience... www.bbc.com/future/artic...
bbc.com
Why societies grow more fragile and vulnerable to collapse as time passes
Pre-modern states and civilisations became more prone to collapse as time passed – a pattern that holds lessons for today's ageing global powers.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 20/04/2024
Question for the intellectual historians out there: Do we see anything similar to the idea of authenticity (similar to that expressed by Sartre and Adorno, and practiced by music cultures like punk and hip hop) pre 20th century? 🗃️
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 03/03/2024
The account of the smuggler's murders in the 1740s has been print for centuries. Joanna Davies is selling the latest reprint in her ebay shop! www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12560600...
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 03/03/2024
Sell your truck, get gas money! This is a spam message I got on LinkedIn today. Don't think you can pay me enough to do this...
LinkedIn message advertising a writing consultancy job training LLMs.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 19/02/2024
Somehow, this guy's parents knew he was an elite cyclist...
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 18/02/2024
Great Blog post from the National Archives about a little island that appeared and disappeared in the 14th century. Really interesting to see how the British coastline is constantly changing. 🗃️ beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-...
beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Ravenser Odd
Ravenser Odd was a short-lived island in the mouth of the River Humber. It rose from the sea in the early 13th century and had sunk beneath the waves again by 1360. Documents at The National Archives ...
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 14/02/2024
Any historians out there have any advice for conducting a phone interview with a source? I'm talking to a person about something that happened in the mid 1980s. 🗃️
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 10/02/2024
Me at the start of a #Stellaris game vs. Me at the end of a Stellaris game.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 09/02/2024
Most of your ideas are bad. So have lots of them, and try to pick the good ones.
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 05/02/2024
Man... the Reagan Library has a hell of a 404 page... 😬
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 05/02/2024
A very good example of why digital archives are great, but you still need to keep the originals. From the Reagan Presidential Library's papers of Michael Deaver. #archives #digitization
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 31/01/2024
Great review of my book, Hawkhurst by Captain James Bollinger. Check it out. Captain James is running a pretty cool local history YouTube channel! #kent #sussex #localhistory youtu.be/3c3EdSjrtNc?...
youtu.be
The Sussex Smuggler Book Review. Hawkhurst by Joseph Dragovich.
📚 Dive into the shadows of history with our latest book review! 🕵️‍♂️ Join us as we explore the thrilling world of "The Hawkhurst Gang," a riveting tale th...
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 27/01/2024
replicant? "You're in a desert, you see a walled city in front of you. You keep circling the city and blowing the shofar but the walls aren't tumbling down. Why is that?"
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 26/01/2024
The Death of the Author applies to your pitches. You're not pitching the idea in your head, you're pitching what you wrote in your pitch. What I'm trying to say is that writing pitches is hard... #writing #pitches
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 17/01/2024
Me watching the bowls championship on TV:
Vinnie Jones as a football hooligan
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 14/01/2024
Question for the software developers out there: What's your favorite engineering based comedy? Looking for stuff like Programmers Are Also Human. The crunchy stuff that people in the industry share amongst themselves. #developers #software #comedy
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Joe Dragovich @joedragovich.bsky.social · 01/01/2024
For scholarly purposes, I'm including January 2024 in the "Long 2023". I'm absolving myself of any resolutions or diets for a little while longer. 🗃️
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