iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Martha Sprackland

LRB Bookshop @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk · 27/04/2026

Martha Sprackland (@marrrtha.bsky.social) will be at the Bookshop next month to discuss her new translation of the works of John of the Cross, the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, with James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social). Tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/martha-spr...

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 14/04/2026

There I stayed, and there forgot, my cheek laid on my Beloved fair. And all things ceased, and I was lost and all my worldly doubt and care were sunk among the lilies there. ‘Dark Night’, a poem by John of the Cross, translated by Martha Sprackland. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

lrb.co.uk

Martha Sprackland · Poem: ‘Dark Night’

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weird medieval guys @weirdmedieval.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

virgin mary punching the devil, england, 13th century

a medieval illustration of the virgin mary punching a horned, claw-footed, bestial devil

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Review 31 @review31.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

"The Palm House is a funny book. Part of me wants to write blackly funny; darkly funny — but in truth, it’s the humour that operates the levers of complexity." @marrrtha.bsky.social on Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House review31.co.uk/article/view...

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Can anyone add to my reading pile – specifically, poems about beer, *not* written by men? 🍻

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Some of my editorial work comes via Reedsy. Over the past year it's become completely overrun by people (I can't call them authors) who are asking for editorial help on manuscripts that have been generated by #AI. Often, what they want is for someone to make the text sound more human.

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

A rare Sprackland double-header – Jean and I will be co-tutoring a course at Hawkwood @hawkwoodcft.bsky.social in March, on drawing poetry out of personal raw material. Open for booking now. www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/our-programm...

hawkwoodcollege.co.uk

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Three years of work on this — my new translation of the poetry and selected prose of sixteen-century Spanish mystic St John of the Cross for Penguin Classics. • You can preorder it via all the usual bookshops or links here. www.penguin.co.uk/books/462137...

Penguin Books webpage showing the cover of Dark Night: Poetry and Selected Prose of St John of the Cross, with a cover detail by El Greco.

A quote from one of the poems:

‘Oh living flame of love,
how tenderly you scorch me’

The blurb text:

The poetry of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, St John of the Cross, has inspired and consoled for hundreds of years, influencing writers from James Joyce to Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill to T.S. Eliot. This new edition of his essential works, in a sensitive and luminous translation by Martha Sprackland, gathers John of the Cross’s complete poems and a selection of his prose, including from his extended commentary on the poem ‘Dark Night’. In his immediate, sensual writing, we see a soul searching for meaning and union with the divine: both meek and bold, deserving and undeserving, oscillating between light and dark, soaring and falling, desperation and salvation. Dark Night gives us a picture of faith at once confronting and inspiriting, and of the power of words as a means of spiritual transcendence.

Translated by Martha Sprackland, with an introduction by Colin Thompson.

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Little piece on darkness by Sprackland mère, ahead of the publication of her new book, Night Vision. www.penguin.co.uk/books/453167... @theobserveruk.bsky.social

Text of article in today’s Observer, headlined ‘Our fear of the dark is built in — but we need it.’

Cover of ‘Night Vision: In search of the true dark’ by Jean Sprackland

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Birkbeck, University of London, is seeking an Editorial Assistant (paid) to support the development of a new anthology on the influential British photographer and activist, Jo Spence. cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/edit...

cis7.bbk.ac.uk

Editorial Assistant (2279) - Birkbeck, University of London

Birkbeck

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

A new partnership with BBC Writers to deliver a six-month mentorship scheme for emerging Muslim writers. Four mentees will benefit from tailored guidance, industry insight, and one-to-one support from experienced writers. ukmuslimfilm.org/bbc-writers-...

ukmuslimfilm.org

BBC Writers Partnership: Supporting Emerging Muslim Writers – UK Muslim Film

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

If you are tall enough to see over the paywall, my story 'Bee Box' is up on the @irishtimes.com now, after coming second in @themothmagazine.bsky.social The Moth Short Story Prize. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

irishtimes.com

Bee Box by Martha Sprackland

The runner-up in this year’s Moth Short Story Prize, chosen by judge Evie Wyld

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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.

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Ashton Pittman @ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

The five brave Palestinian journalists whom Israel targeted and killed today (left-right): -Anas al-Sharif (correspondent) -Mohammed Qreiqeh (correspondent) -Ibrahim Zaher (camera operator) -Muhammad Al-Khalidi (photojournalist) -Mohammed Noufal (camera operator) -Moamen Aliwa (camera operator)

a young man holds a young boy and girl in front of rubble

a young man in glasses wearing a protective vest with the word press on it leans against a car

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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

You only kill journalists when you want to hide what you're doing.

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Indrapramit Das @indrapramitdas.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Again, if you're suspicious that Palestinian accounts are spam, ignore/mute/block/don't donate. By reporting, you are risking hindering real people undergoing an active genocide from surviving, escaping, keeping their families alive. You are doing evil work, as y/our governments starve/kill them.

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Sandeep Bakshi @sandeepbak.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Please share in your networks. Goldsmiths, UoL are offering 5 scholarships in Undergrad & MA courses for Palestinian students. The scholarships include: tuition fee waiver, £19,550 allowance, return trip to & from the UK. Eligibility details & further info at link👇🏽 www.gold.ac.uk/fees-funding...

gold.ac.uk

Palestinian Scholarship

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Reposted by Martha Sprackland

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Painfully on the nose moment. In the train station shop getting my morning coffee. On the radio I'm hearing about benefits cuts, one of the newspapers headlines is about Trump's tariffs hitting us in the UK... and the Sun's headline is about how "dinghy refugees" are "taking us for fools".

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Please support Farah and Mohanad, if you can.

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Jamal abu hashem🇵🇸 @jamalzuhir.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Eid mubark to you my friends and we are just 350£ away, donate if u can or repost help me rebuild our life All your donations and reposts are appreciated gofund.me/a625d5ba

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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @qasimrashid.com · 20/03/2025

Wow. Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum officially recognizes Palestine as a state. Here she welcomes Palestinian ambassador Nadya Rasheed. Sheinbaum is Jewish, supports Palestinian self-determination, & unapologetically condemns Netanyahu's attacks on Gaza. Historic & inspiring leadership. ❤️✊🏽

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

A big cathartic yell: I've sent my translation of St John of the Cross to the publisher, after two years of immersion in his strange bright darkness. Going to climb back out for a gin and tonic.

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British Ecological Society @britishecologicalsociety.org · 30/01/2025

Nature is not a blocker to growth. The UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has claimed that 'The balance has gone too far in the direction of always protecting every bat and every newt.' But how can this statement be true when the UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world?🌍

A thriving natural world is the foundation of economic growth and vital for health and wellbeing. Language that pits these against each other is unhelpful and deeply concerning.

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Ceasefire does not bring suffering to an end. There is so much to do, so much to rebuild, so many to feed and shelter and comfort.

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 16/01/2025

‘It was due to the Little Flower that I quite seriously considered joining the Carmelites in my teens. Hence I do want to see a nun on the ground, and to read the firsthand accounts of God’s various worm-wives.’ @TriciaLockwood on the mystics: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

lrb.co.uk

Patricia Lockwood · That Shape Am I: Among the Mystics

Doubt is the dimension of the religious experience that brings it into reality, gives it that voluptuousness which...

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

AI instead of UBI, wild, extremely dumb

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ben smoke @bencsmoke.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

next election, test of this govt will be if voters can answer ‘yes’ to the question ’are you better off than you were 5 years ago?’ opening the door to automation of millions of jobs, lining pockets of tech bosses whilst cutting welfare is not the way to do that www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

‘Mainlined into UK’s veins’: Labour announces huge public rollout of AI

Plans to make UK world leader in AI sector include opening access to NHS and other public data

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Please support Diana and her children, if you can spare something, however small.

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Really missing a trick not having a default ‘Every 28 days’, Google Calendar

Screenshot of the ‘repeat every’ options on a Google calendar: does not repeat, Every day, Every week, Every month, Every year

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Have had a long think about what one thing would improve my own one life and in case anyone is in the business of granting wishes I have decided it’s a sleeper train between Bristol and Madrid.

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Not staying up until midnight because I’m sick but at the crossing of the year I’ll be thinking of all the Palestinians living in tents, currently struggling through rain and floods, everything having been taken from them. May this year see change. #freepalestine #ceasefirenow

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Dr Alex Fitzpatrick @animalarchaeology.com · 31/12/2024

If you haven’t donated to a Palestinian fundraiser, maybe do so today - Gaza is experiencing heavy rains which are destroying tents and leaving already suffering people in the cold. Molly has a good thread of accounts below but there’s many more out there you can donate to! ⬇️

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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Does anyone have any recommendations for brilliant (living, working, contactable) poetry translators from English to Chinese? Thank you!

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