iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Happy 100th Birthday, @davidattenborough — you have brought immeasurable wonder, joy and tenderness to this blue planet of ours. Thank you. @poetsfortheplanet.bsky.social #DavidAttenborough #PlanetEarth #HappyBirthday #PoetsOfBluesky

Man of the Century

Never off our screens, it seems,
and long may it be so, you blessèd
Titan, defending our planet from ruin.
I have wept, watching you with
other species than our own,
naming coelacanths, Darwin frogs,
animals of all kinds, but forever, your
love for those gorillas lights my heart.

Today you reach your century,
rare and precious man.
Eternal you shall be, praised
always, your wisdom, kindness, love,
spurring us all on to protect, to save,
until the plastic men, the tree destroyers,
retreat, and every creature’s voice
echoes round our blue earth in thanks.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Delighted to have my poem ‘If’ published in this quarter’s Beyond Queer Words magazine. Hope you enjoy it. #poetry #PoetsOfBluesky #lgbtqia+ #QueerPoetry

Lucy Coats is a bisexual writer and poet living in Northamptonshire, UK. She writes about queerness, war, goddesses, the minutiae of the countryside where she lives, and the effects of patriarchy on the lives of women everywhere. In 2024 she was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize, and has been published in many magazines and literary journals, including Clarion, BQW and The Winged Moon.

If I could start again,
I would ask the Fates
to send me lush-bodied witches
with midnight hair,
and pillow soft breasts
to lay my head
in the long light of solstice dawns.
A back strong as oak boughs
yet supple as willow fronds,
so that I could dance fandangos
without pain; a gut that could
ingest the heat of scotch bonnets
and laugh; a heart that loves without fear of becoming burnt sugar
in a neglected copper pan.
I would demand a life that fitted me
like green velvet gloves
on a plump holy whore

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Salt Books @saltpublishing.com · 28/07/2025

Pre-order Chris Emery’s new collection ‘WONDER, with a massive 25% discount from Waterstones today – head to bit.ly/3GWJNdA You will need to enter “SUMMER25” at the checkout to redeem the offer to receive 25% off RRP Offer ends 31 July. #WPreorder #BookSky

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I am so excited to be starting to work on my new/first collection with the much-needed counsel of @hironstom.bsky.social. I have a framework, I think I have a title—now it’s down to making shortlists of poems and editing. Hard work ahead, but I know it will be worth it🤞🏻. #PoetsOfBluesky #Poetry

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

She’s not on here, but today’s #LiftToTheSky is for Joelle Taylor (elsewhere as @jtaylortrash) and her newest collection ’C+nto’ which has been a revelation & delight to me. Really—read it. @brokenspinearts.bsky.social #PrideMonth 🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜

Cover of C+nto and Othered Poems by Joelle Taylor. Black and white lettering on dull gold background.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

I added my name to demand real action from the UK government – not just words - to protect civilians and humanitarian workers in Gaza with @dotwuk.bsky.social. 💙 Please take a minute to do the same. petition.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/page/171651/...

petition.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk

PETITION : The UK must put pressure on Israel

Doctors of the World humanitarian workers are responding to the mass violence in Gaza and the West Bank. Please sign the petition to protect civilians and medical workers.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Wednesday is #gardening day for me, so I present to you (with pride) my beautiful, just picked French Breakfast Radishes. I may write a poem about their peppery crunchiness, and the way they feel in the mouth when I put sea salt with them. Later, though, when I’ve finished the weeding…

A bunch of radishes with leaves and one spring onion on a grey-blue wood background.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Hooray! Just discovered #ThickTrunkTuesday is here. This is one of my own favourites—an ancient oak in Somerset, where I used to go for a writing retreat every January. He has very comfortable roots to lie in and dream.

An old oak tree standing in a frosty field, surrounded by sleeping sheep.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

A #LiftToTheSky @brokenspinearts.bsky.social this week for poet and writer @nikitagill.bsky.social whose work on myths and goddesses is stellar, and whose poetry uplifts me every time I read it. Here’s one of hers about rage and justice, very appropriate for the times we live in.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

A #LiftToTheSky @brokenspinearts.bsky.social this week for poet and Clarion Poetry lit journal editor @hironstom.bsky.social whose poetry lifts the soul. Honestly, if you haven’t read ‘Sometimes A Wild God’ yet, what are you waiting for? tomhirons.com/poetry/somet...

tomhirons.com

Sometimes a Wild God

The underground poetry classic by Tom Hirons - read it, listen to it, buy the poem as a book or poster

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Part of my poem 'How To Heal Your Own Wolf Souls' which I read at last night's launch for Clarion 5 (recording here: clarionpoetry.com/videos) It was a wonderful evening full of love and poetry, compèred most ably by Clarion Poetry's founder and editor-in-chief, @hironstom.bsky.social #poetry

How To Heal Your Own Wolf Souls A spell for inflorescence in thirteen parts
Lucy Coats

Do not feed your gaunt, black wolf, the one whose many nightmare names intimidate your dreams; the one who gnaws down the roots of your soul, even as she hungers for sticky morsels of hate, the bitter rage broth of despair.
Instead, feed those to the dandelion seeds; let them spin out on a westerly wind, touching sun and descending once more to ground, becoming forever gold in spring after blooming spring.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

There's a tradition of challenges by female deities and mythological characters to their lovers (or tormentors)—this is mine. Not much is known about the nymph Cyrene of Thrace/Ares’ relationship, which leaves a lovely big information void for me to write what I needed to. #PoetsOfThreads #Mythology

Cyrene to Ares, God of War

Would you love me more
if I returned my rage to
Thracian earth, became once
more the shy, sweet nymph
you courted for her safe
behaviour (and maybe
for her looks)? You say I’ve
changed, become a Fate,
perhaps the one with scissors,
and it’s true. But know I
only do what burning Gaza
now demands, deadhead the
rotten roses, cut them out
of time—politicians who lie,
the child killers, women rapers
and the genocidal pricks.
Maybe you should call me
Nemesis and have done.

©️Lucy Coats/@lucywriter

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Please share. This ship of humanitarian aid workers needs rescue NOW. #HumanitarianAid #Gaza #SOS

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

A new birthday poem from the lakes of Switzerland. And a statutory selfie to mark the day, from the same place. #Poem #PoetsOfBluesky #HappyBirthday #Switzerland

Birthday Meditation Overlooking The Moritzersee

Still waters run deep, they say,
but still is not the same as
silenced, and deep is what an
old heart craves. Underneath the
paddling coot, feathers all awry
from landing wrong, swim mountain
char, silver scales reflecting sun.
Below lake mud is rock so old
it knew the world before the world
began. Yesterday its mica glitter
caught my eye, a shard ripped out of place. So shall I be in my ripened
age, a shining stillness framed
and held by ground, rooted soul-fast
and loved by earthen things and stars.

©️ Lucy Coats/@lucywriter

A white haired woman with a yellow red and black scarf, and a lake with snowy mountains and woods behind her. She is wearing glasses and smiling. Her hair is in a bun.

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Kate ✨🐱 but spooky 🎃🍁 @magickitten.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

'It's my life, their life, and our shared story… This is Gaza as it truly is' MOTAZ AZIZA We Are Not Numbers is so close to becoming the first UK bestseller of the year written by a Palestinian @wearenotnumbers.bsky.social Order your copy now: uk.bookshop.org/a/1353/97815...

A photo of a hardback book against a pinky brown background.

The text says

WE ARE NOT NUMBERS
Ahmed Alnaouq and Pam Bailey

'These pages carry the truth of our struggle and the beauty of our humanity. This is Gaza as it truly is, written by those who live it every day' MOTAZ AZAIZA

‘Impossible to put down or forget'
RIZ AHMED

‘This book is a jailbreak - and a miracle’
NAOMI KLEIN

The Voices of Gaza's Youth

'Light streams out of this collection - it etches the angles and curves of Palestinian humanity’ TA-NEHISI COATES

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I’m beginning to chronicle my poetry journey over on Substack. Free for now. I hope you’ll join me. #Substack #PoetsOfBluesky #WritersofBluesky 📚💙 open.substack.com/pub/lucycoat...

open.substack.com

How the Muse of Poetry Upturned My Life

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

For my trans sisters and brothers, a poem I wrote for you after yesterday’s terrible news. #PoetsOfBluesky #TransRightsAreHumanRights

A Meditation on Cornflowers

Consider the cornflower (mixed),
making meadows lovely since
time began, blue, white, pink,
scatter stars among the green.
Does each choose a colour, or
are they perfect in their own
difference, being exactly what
they are in their transitions,
not mown down by hate but
loved for their exact beauty?

©️Lucy Coats/@lucywriter

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I stand with my trans sisters and brothers, and against JKR’s hatred and bigotry every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Just so we’re crystal clear here. #transrights #transwomenarewomen #transmenaremen

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Jamie McKelvie @mckelvie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

This is where your Harry Potter money goes

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

CALLING ALL #AGENTS In this thread are three packs of GREAT WRITERS who are looking for representation. Check them out and you won’t be disappointed. Everyone else, please repost to help these brilliant people if you can. PACK ONE (full). Thank you! #amquerying #querying #writingcommunity #booksky

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

It’s Monday. I’m utterly enraged by all those who so casually play the AI ‘action doll’ game. Does nobody realise it’s based on art stolen from actual artists? So…I wrote a sweary thing. Call me a killjoy. I don’t care. #PoetsOfBlueSky #GenAI #ActionDolls

To All Those Jumping On
The Fake AI Doll Wagon

I do not need AI to tell me
I am not a fucking doll.
I am abundant flesh, red
hot rage blood, and a
dose of star dust. Put
that in your algorithm
and smoke it, yeah?

©️Lucy Coats/@lucywriter

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Early Muse call this morning at 5.30. I dictated this draft from her in the drifting space between sleep and waking for day 5 of #NaPoWriMo after seeing yet more horrifying video footage last night. Anyone else have a Muse prodding them into action? 🆓🇵🇸 #PoetsOfBluesky #Poetry #Mythology #Goddesses

When Humans Fly Like Birds

If you want to play with Minerva,
find a bright coffin in deep waters.
Line it with silk, spun from the hair
of ravens. Let there be a sword in
its belly. For so She will demand,
She the lightning dweller. Her
playground is war, but She will
have justice before the end of time.
Never forget She is also Nemesis.
Where will you run to, faithless dogs?
You who snipe the flesh of children,
you who kill the healers, you who drop death, make helpless humans fly inair stained grey with blood.
For She will hunt you down, Her Gorgon shield turn you to stone until the final day of judgement comes.
Take your coffin, set sail down a chute of red rocks, till you come to the wine-dark sea, and find Her, waiting.

©️Lucy Coats/@lucywriter

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Fossil Free Books @fossilfreebooks.org · 04/04/2025

The Society of Authors needs to change. But it won’t without you. Join – or rejoin – as a Full Member by Wednesday 30th April to vote in this year’s Management Committee elections. Writers, translators & illustrators face huge challenges right now… (1/5)

Writers, translators and illustrators face huge challenges right now including: falling earnings, the threat of AI, the sector’s complicity in genocide and fossil fuel extraction, challenges to free speech.

Can you resist these threats? Yes! But only if you have a member-led union that truly represents you.

Fossil Free Books recommends that writers, translators and illustrators join the Society of Authors. With its wealth of resources and powerful industry connections, it has great potential – but without you it can’t channel that potential into meaningful action.

Recent successes at the 2024 AGM and EGM have already shown that you have the power to use its existing democratic processes to make it the healthy, bold trade union that you need and deserve.

The only way to create a fairer, more sustainable industry is to create it together. Your union won’t change without you – and the first step is to join.

If you need support with your union fees, you can claim £50 through our Open Collective fund (link in post).

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Never written a folk horror poem before, so was thrilled to get this one published in Vial of Bones zine’s ‘My Eldritch Horsey’ edition last month. Prepare to have your socks scared off by the Mari Lwyd. #Poetry #PoetsOfBluesky #Horror #Folklore

She comes, she comes, she always comes, beware,
you golden, dancing girls and black-maned boys,
who line the streets with shouts and laughing eyes,
you who cry taunts and brazen challenges,
snapping fingers and clicking phones, daring
her skull to come and get you, shivering
at your own fear, for always, underneath
you know you know you know the night mare comes.
Between the flicker and the flame she dwells,
where light and shadow meet the wall, behind
the lamp, beside the bed. And she will come,
all sheet-less now, bones held apart with naught
but air, her mane astir with frozen griefs,
teeth sharper than the banshee’s screaming knife.
She comes for you, you silly child, you who
shouted loudest, who caught her empty eye and
smiled, not knowing her for what she really
is, Mistress of Revels at dark Arawn’s
Ball, she who lurks in Annwyn, dark and drear,
till she is called again to fill his halls
for New Year’s Night. No human door for her—
that thing you think is twig, tapping your pane,
is not. A soft brush of her ghostly mane
is all the warning she will give before
her teeth are at your throat, draining out your
human blood to serve as wine for morgens.
Your frail flesh is entrée for Arawn
the king, roasted with bitter herbs, served on
a plate carved from your hips, licked white by her
vanished tongue, and fashioned by the Elf Queen’s
smith himself, pinned with silver, for no iron
may enter here. Your fragile skin she takes
in one fast strip, hangs it it with other fools
from previous years, grim pink bunting on a
washing line of thorns. Your soul she holds in
a jar, made from the heart of a kelpie
maid, who spurned her once, centuries ago.
They’ll find you gone, no trace, no clue, no sign,
and never know your fate hung on one smile.
So all you black-maned lads and golden girls,
beware: she comes, she comes, she always comes,
the ghost-maned mare, she made of air and bones.

©️Lucy Coats

Lucy Coats is a writer mostly focused
on mythology, but her poetry takes in a wider view, encompassing the
minutiae of nature and the
countryside, as well as war, grief, Celtic folklore, witches, queerness and sacred feminism. She is currently working on her debut poetry collection as well as researching and writing a book on matriarchal goddesses. In 2024 she was
shortlisted for The Bridport Poetry
Prize, and in 2022 won the Latin
Programme Poetry Prize. Her work has also appeared in The Winged Moon,ThreadLitMag, Beyond Queer Words and Clarion. She is based in
Northamptonshire.

Roll Up, Roll Up For The Mari Lwyd
Show’ is a poem steeped in the
folkloric carnival tradition of the Mari
Lwyd, the skeletal horse skull who
dances through the streets of South
Wales on New Year’s Day, above a
sheet-clad bearer. But behind the
carnival revels is a darker truth, and a
sacrifice for the feast of Arawn, king of Annwyn, must be paid. Only the
brightest and best may apply all
unknowing for an honour they never
asked for. Mari Lwyd, Mistress of
Ceremonies, will have her due. There
are things that go bump in the night…
and things that merely whisper your
fate. Think Shiver by Nox Arcana, and
that thing you can’t quite see out of
the corner of your dreaming eye.

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Damian Barr @damianbarr.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

And if you can’t get there in person, raise your voice however and whenever you can. Ironically, I’ll be ranting about it on *checks notes* insta….

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I’m supporting The Society of Authors today in their action against the book thieves Meta, who have stolen millions of authors’ books to train their AI. 13 of mine. It’s bloody iniquitous and I am so angry. #BookThreads #DoTheWriteThing

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Absolutely delighted to have been shortlisted for this year’s Latin Programme Poetry Prize for ‘the child of khaos makes herself’. I wrote it for all the babies who were never born in Gaza because of weapons our governments sell. I know it’s not an easy read. #PoetsOfBluesky #Poetry #FreePalestine

the child of khaos makes herself

©️Lucy Coats

she called on star-shine hidden by clouds of smoke from burning tents,
fashioned hair-thin crinkles
at her wrists from threads of sunlight
sensed through ruined windows, glass all cracked spider webs.
she dreamed herself into being through the clamour of bombs
falling outside Nyx's womb, felt maternal blood surge with fear,
carried on growing until the night her sanctuary ripped open,
explosion on explosion investing the flame-blade air with lethal rage,
as she faced the baneful light of war for one surprised nanosecond
till moonbeam eyes fell shut, all life and growth cut off, cell by cell
returning to dust without a name, though half the sky saw her
small, broken body and wept stars, knowing they could do nothing.
xiv

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Saraswati Nagpal @saraswatinagpal.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

I loved reading the entries for the March competition! Congratulations to our winner @oormilaprahlad.bsky.social and commended poets Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social Laura Cooney @lozzawriting.bsky.social Chris Campbell @citizen-chris.bsky.social Wendy Howe, Miriam Grace & Erwin Arroyo.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Happy Spring Equinox to you all. Here’s one of mine that was published in @fracturedlit.bsky.social last year. Inspired by the great Mahmoud Darwish’s ‘Think Of Others’. #PoetsOfBluesky #SpringEquinox

Spring Equinox (do not forget)
(after Mahmoud Darwish 1941-2008)
Yesterday's lambs frisk in pea green fields, a leap of whirling tails, of milky nuzzlings. (do not forget the new born babes, suckling mute at starved-dry mothers' breasts).
Lone daffodils sway in a stiff west wind, cherry pink cups nectar-seeking bees. (do not forget the million ancient olive trees, burned & bulldozed to oblivion).
In the endless blue above, skylarks sing, invisible black dots, ecstasy-full of music. (do not forget the families, huddled close, praying death drones fly past their silence).
Catkins dance on hazel trees, yellow pollen drifting gold-heavy in a still air. (do not forget the mother sprinkling flour on dust, for her just-killed children's iftar).
Four roe-deer graze on wildflowers, ears ever alert, ready to leap and run. (do not forget the boy with a car seat, fleeing missiles, all spilt tear eyes & terror).
There's a run-over hare on the back lane outside, flattened berry-red on black. (do not forget the blooming teenage lad, his crushed flower flesh, his living blood).
As you gaze on spring, fresh life, think of ruined Gaza, her murdered people. (say: "I will not be silent. I will not be silent. I will be a candle." Repeat).
Published by Free The Verse edition 11 November 2024
©️Lucy Coats

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

A little ditty for Valentine’s Day. 💔🖤🤍💚 #ValentinesDay

Violets are purple
Let’s all Free Palestine
Stop all the jen-o’-cide
instead of a Valentine

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Off to Totleigh Barton tomorrow (body willing, which I hope it will be) to explore feminine creativity in the excellent company of @nikitagill.bsky.social and @salenagodden.bsky.social — hoping that many poems will be written and much fruitful discussion had. I’ll taking a SM break for the duration.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

In memory of Hind Rajab. Killed by the Occupation on 29 January 2024 by 335 bullets. She was five years old. Remember her. Remember them all. Speak out. Witness. #PoetsOfBluesky 💙📚 #HindRajab #FreePalestine

HIND 335
all these months later / i walk among fields of white daisies with yellow
sunshine eyes / and see her
crowned with flowers and smiling in her pretty lilac dress / listen / among skylarks singing high above /
to her small, scared whisper on the hot dry air of summer days /
‘i’m so scared please come’
and know that my heart will hear it in all the seasons that were stolen from her / whenever winds may blow //
now she is all of our daughters /
we who have wept as her small
voice pleaded on the phone / her
six beloved dead beside her in
the car // those cruel men / those monsters knew / as they sighted /
as they fired the first of three
hundred and thirty five bullets /
that they were killing children //
©️Lucy Coats/@lucywriter

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SF Said @whatsfsaid.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

"We cannot afford to tread lightly or wait for this banning surge to peter out. Fight wisely, fight efficiently, and fight bravely." How to support libraries & librarians - lots of excellent advice & analysis in this piece by @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social reactormag.com/book-bans-af...

reactormag.com

Book Bans Affect Everybody — Here's How You Can Help - Reactor

I have been a librarian for more than a decade, and a school librarian for nearly half of that. I didn’t get into this field to wage a war against a political system that has declared me the enemy. Al...

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Amy Vants to Suck Your Blood 🩸 @msfoxifurnasty.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

i cannot make the world around us less dark, but i will lend you what light and warmth i have to remind you that the darkness has edges, seams, that it cannot swallow everything

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Martin Dresler @dresler.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

The clinical neuroscience of lucid dreaming: We reviewed the link between lucid dreams and conditions like nightmare disorder, depression, anxiety, psychosis, and dissociative states, and the possible neurobiological basis of these associations. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

The clinical neuroscience of lucid dreaming

During most dreams, the dreamer does not realize that they are in a dream. In contrast, lucid dreaming allows to become aware of the current state of …

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 24/01/2025

One of the most commonly called upon ghosts in Greek myth is the transitive Tiresias, the great intersex seer whose insights even Zeus and Hera sought. Called to offer advice and counsel the living, many trips to the Underworld are just to visit them #FolkyFriday 🖼: H. Fuseli

Fuseli's famed depiction of Tiresias speaking to a downtrodden Odysseus after discovering the death of his mother and faced with the dead from his crew and the Trojan War; Tiresias gives his prophecy of how he must return home, standing as an old man with a staff with the shades of the dead behind him like smoke.

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Jane Johnson @janejohnsonbakrim.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

As more of you flee here from the billionaire-owned hellsites, come and join the book community - a nice shortcut to finding your people. Here’s the first starter pack and I’ll post up the 2nd one shortly. Welcome! go.bsky.app/MjnUSwF

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Family & serendipitous connections are important to me. My father was brought up in Burns’ village in Ayrshire. My OH is Burns’ great+++grandson. This quote from 1792 sums up the times we live in, I think. Happy Burns Night—whisky & freedom gang tegither. #BurnsNight #PoetsOfBlueSky 📚💙 #Scotland

“Here’s freedom to him that wad read,
Here’s freedom to him that wad write,
There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard,
But they whom the truth wad indite.”

Robert Burns
from: Here’s a Health to Them That’s Awa’ (1792)

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Red K Elders’ extraordinary and beautiful art brings me joy literally every day. She is a wonder. Do follow her. #ArtistsOfBluesky #Artist #Mythology

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Salena Godden @salenagodden.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I start the year with a study of fear, the way we speak to fear, the way we listen to fear or even ignore and shush our fear, and how this blocks hope, my lovely friends, may we be kinder to fear and sorrow and find more fearlessness and joy in this already absurd 2025 - read more on my #substack

There are fears we hide and fears we share. There are the fears we whisper and fears we sing. There are the fears we are all holding quietly and the fears we are passing like hot coals of blame or guilt. There are the fears that stop us taking action or speaking up, the fear that makes us second guess and edit ourselves, the fears that make us shrink and not try to live to our full potential.
Yes. Now these fears, see how they grow and grow, until they become like prophecies, until they become real. You know like the times you say it to yourself: Oh there is no point trying I will only fail.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Today, I’d like to share a quote from @matthaig.bsky.social. Love, not hate, always.

Quote from Matt Haig:

It's not right versus left it's empathy versus oligarchy, it's humanity versus tech, it's raising people versus crushing them, it's nuance versus cartoons, it's art and heart versus cage-fighting nihilism

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Yasmeen | 🇵🇸🇱🇧 @yasmeen.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Use your excitement and relief to help a Palestinian in Gaza today - share their fundraisers, donate, use this energy to help them survive. They have a long road ahead.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 20 Again, the Alt Text might be interesting. #Books #BookSky 💙📚👀 #BookChallenge #Mythology #LookInTheAltText #GreekMyths #UKKidLit

Front cover of The Heroes by Charles Kingsley. Gold and black type on a red background. In the centre is a fold and black line drawing of three men fighting. One lies on the ground, one is on a rearing horse, axe raised, and the other is trying to defend himself with a shield while pulling at the horse’s reins. All are dressed in ancient Greek costumes. The horseman is wearing a Phrygian cap which marks him as Trojan.

This is the book which propelled me into a lifelong love of and writing career in Greek mythology, along with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales. It first belonged to my grandmother, who passed it on to me when I was 8.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 19 Definitely look in the Alt Text today! #Books #BookSky 💙📚👀 #BookChallenge #geography #LookInTheAltText #AncientHistory #maps

CAMBRIDGE LIBRARY COLLECTION
A TOPOGRAPHICAL
DICTIONARY
OF ANCIENT ROME
SAMUEL BALL PLATNER
EDITED BY THOMAS ASHBY
CAMBRIDGE
Yellow Text within a dark blue box on a yellow background. Below are two sepia tone photos of ancient Roman buildings. One is a stone house-type structure on several levels, the other a temple with typical portico and columns.

This is for those, who like me, geek out at ancient geography. Using this huge volume and clues from other ancient history texts to cross-reference, I managed to find out exactly where Cleopatra’s father lived during his Roman exile for my novel ‘Chosen’. Honestly, it’s one of my most treasured books and a storehouse of amazing information.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 18 #Books #BookSky 💙📚👀 #BookChallenge #Mythology #LookInTheAltText #GreekMyths

Cover of The Greek Myths Complete Edition by Robert Graves. Lettering under an ancient Greek painting in terracotta and cream of a seated man and a woman carrying a staff within a small temple with six columns. Cover background is a yellowy cream.

This is a seminal text for me, the one I always return to, not least for the wonderful footnotes.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 17 #Books #BookSky 💙📚👀 #BookChallenge #UKKidLit #LookInTheAltText #Fairytales

Not an actual cover today but the title page, because the cover is a plain dark green with no text. Text reads:

THE
GREEN FAIRY BOOK
EDITED BY
ANDREW LANG
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSIRATIONS BY H. J. FORD
SIXTEENTH IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4
NEW YORK, TORONTO, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1 9 24

There is a black and white illustration in an ‘arched’ frame decorated with cherubs of a princess lying on a couch, looking at a man coming in through the door opposite. Above her is a magnificent lit chandelier.

This book belonged to my mother, and it began my long love affair with fairy tales. Still my favourite of all Andrew Lang’s coloured fairy books.

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Lucy Coats @lucycoatswriter.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

The front cover of Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. A scary black and grey castle is viewed from below, with black tree branches and an old woman waving at the bottom of the picture, holding a stick, with a misty plain between her and the castle. To the left is a torn strip, revealing purple and pink.

This was the first DWJ book I ever read, and Sophie Hatter is one of my favourite characters. I don’t actually think it’s her best book, but it introduced me to her beautiful writing style, for which I shall be forever grateful. DWJ has been an influence on my own writing ever since.

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