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Philip Womack

@philipwomack.bsky.social
198 followers 154 following 230 posts

Author: Ghostlord and Wildlord 12+, The Arrow of Apollo, The Double Axe, 10+, How to Teach Classics to Your Dog, for adults. Writes for many papers, mostly about books. Shakespearean, Classicist, etc Ghostlord - Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week

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🎃👻🧙‍♀️ Vio the VVitch 🧙‍♀️👻🎃 @viothevvitch.myatproto.social · 08/10/2026
this is so fucking sad
Alvin Sng 0 @alvinsng My wife: Can you read our baby a book?
Follow
Me: Icanjust play an audiobook from my phone.
My wife: But then it won't be in your voic e.
Me:| can train a voice model.
Parenting hits different when you workin Al.
8:30 AM .07 Oct 26 . 816K Views
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Alice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
yeeeeeessssss
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Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Did someone say Anne Carson
Cover of The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem: from Baudelaire to Anne Carson, edited by Jeremy Noel-Tod
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
My piece on Addresses spectator.com/article/i-mi...
spectator.com
I miss knowing my friends’ addresses
Do you know your friends’ addresses? Do you even have an address book? I’ve had the same one since I was 18. It moulders on my desk, a relic. These days, I’m not sure I could name even the streets whe...
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Title: Just announced! Three new Gruffalo books commissioned from bestselling authors!

Lee Chilld:
The Gruffalo just wants a quiet life, but when a crime syndicate moves into the deep dark wood, he must use his terrible claws and the terrible teeth in his terrible jaws to protect the fellow.

Sally Rooney:
The Gruffalo moves to contemporary Dublin. He  
ill ever see past his orange eyes, purple prickles and poisonous wart.

Kazuo Ishiguro:
After a long absence, the gruffalo returns to the forest and attempts to make sense of his past. Encounters with a mouse, a fox, an owl and a snake uncover long-buried memories, regrets and revelations.
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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
This is quite cool. My university is the first organisation in the world to force Microsoft to allow us to turn off copilot summaries in Word 365, after a backlash against it from staff (including, very vocally, me). That cannot have been easy for our heroic IT people so hats very much off to them!
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
My review of Sebastian Faulks' new novel, FAREWELL TO EDEN, in the Financial Times www.ft.com/content/5383...
ft.com
Farewell to Eden by Sebastian Faulks — a plea for peace
Tracing a life of trauma and war, this involving novel is a characteristic hybrid, mixing moral questions and a murder mystery
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is an interesting and I think good take
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Tim Harford @timharford.ft.com · 13/09/2026
I've been checking the source of quotes for my forthcoming book, and the performance of Gemini is extraordinary. I paste the quote into Google, and Gemini will barge in with the wrong answer over and over again. It's not an occasional thing - it's reliably wrong. Very odd.
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Jamie Smart @jamiesmart.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
They seem to think everyone’s used Chat GPT or similar but I’ve never used it, and I think a lot of other people feel the same.
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 02/09/2026
Issue 48.16 is now online, featuring: James Meek on social housing Nick Richardson on fairies Chal Ravens on slacker pop Colin Burrow on Helen Vendler Emily Witt on Rachel Cusk Lucy Wooding on Thomas Arundel and Thomas Jones on Leonardo Sciascia. Read online now at www.lrb.co.uk
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
philipwomack.substack.com/p/networks-o...
philipwomack.substack.com
Networks [Obsession]
On literary webs
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
My two cents on "less" vs "fewer" in the Telegraph. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08...
telegraph.co.uk
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
philipwomack.substack.com/p/less-hair-...
philipwomack.substack.com
Less hair, fewer hair [Grammar]
A tricksy point
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Do your children like Greek myth? They could do worse than try my 10+ novel, THE ARROW OF APOLLO, published by Wilton Square books.
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Join our course! It's fun!
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@Galleybeggars @galleybeggars.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
First reviews arriving! In the TLS Philip Womack enjoys Mark's "sharp, bright, mordant intelligence" www.the-tls.com/literature/f...
the-tls.com
What do people talk about?
Mark Bowles’s autobiographical debut novel, All My Precious Madness (TLS, November 8, 2024), followed the philosophical travails of a Bradford-born
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
You mis-took
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
`Would be interesting to have some kind of analysis as to why rents have increased. Oh wait, I know why.
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
As a sixth former, I saw the whole lot in 9 hrs I recall
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Nobody's written about the Odyssey yet, so I did philipwomack.substack.com/p/christophe...
philipwomack.substack.com
Christopher Nolan's Odyssey
A review, as if you needed another
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
And a wonderful book from Clare Pollard too
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
My children's book round up for Literary Review literaryreview.co.uk/old-flames-c...
literaryreview.co.uk
Philip Womack - Old Flames & Creepy Crawley
Philip Womack: Old Flames & Creepy Crawley - Eight new books for younger readers
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
My video with Frederick Atkinson about Shakespeare and the Great Vowel Shift will be up on YouTube this weekend.
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Think of the counterfactual if he had survived!
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Shakespeare Resource Center @shakespearerc.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Apr 2, 1502: Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King Henry VII, dies aged 15 at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. #OTD
Portrait of Arthur, Prince of Wales.
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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Want to learn more about our new Human Authored scheme? We've put together a lunchtime learning session to answer all your questions. Book now via the link buff.ly/0eHflqh #HumanAuthored
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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Have you joined our Human Authored scheme yet? We've been delighted with the response so far, so thank you all for your efforts. We're processing everyone as fast as we can. Sarah Hall, author of Helm, is absolutely right; we must protect the integrity and cultural value of creators.
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James Barr @jamesbarr.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
PSA: if like us you are on the lookout for children's books, then @philipwomack.bsky.social's reviews for the Literary Review are available here, for free. We've had a lot of joy following his tips
literaryreview.co.uk
Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books
Book reviews by Philip Womack
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I enjoyed my visit to Goffs School, Cheshunt, last week for World Book Day. This is the National Year of Reading and it's so important to get children into reading from as early an age as possible.
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
That's lovely to hear, thank you!
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
As we children's authors approach peak School Visit Season (World Book Day tomorrow), let us remember Alison Uttley, who once, at an event, charged through a mob of children, wielding her duck-handled umbrella, until she was asked to leave.
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Angus Dunican @angusdunican.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Never a big Narnia guy but this 6 seconds typifies everything I love about British television.
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
I made a series of videos with Frederick Atkinson about William Shakespear: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAVj...
youtube.com
Shakespeare's Identity (Part 1)
YouTube video by Frederick Atkinson
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Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 26/07/2025
422 years ago, Hamlet was entered in the Stationers Register by printer James Roberts.
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
My piece on the latest Shakespeare nonsense www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...
telegraph.co.uk
No, Shakespeare wasn’t a black woman. Why is this madness still being promoted?
Shakespeare denial theories fail on two levels, the evidentiary and the practical
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
This is @vcorenmitchell.bsky.social's final column for the Telegraph - I will miss them! - but what a stonker, I agree with every word. www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/victori...
telegraph.co.uk
One final valedictory TV column, with some blunt advice for parents
This week, Victoria is not watching anything
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Everything got worse. QED.
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
I wrote about Shakespeare's coat of arms: philipwomack.substack.com/p/william-sh...
philipwomack.substack.com
William Shakespeare, gent. [Shakespeare in context]
Identity and coats of arms
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
Ivy Compton-Burnett: The Last and the First
Power and money, money and power
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
philipwomack.substack.com/p/on-reading...
philipwomack.substack.com
On Reading Habits [Essay]
Nobody reads enough
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Literary Review @litreview.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Out now! Literary Review's December 2025 / January 2026 issue, featuring Peter Marshall on Holbein Sophie Oliver on Margaret Atwood Joanna Kavenna on Camus's notebooks @edwardshawcross.bsky.social on Mexico @dorianlynskey.bsky.social on George Orwell and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
At least you're not saying "Happy Twixtmas" *shudders*
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Ha! Could have used this in my article on hyphens
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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Well said! I went to a talk recently which talked about writers becoming "the human in between two AIs". I very strongly objected.
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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
At its heart, it feels like a symptom of an industry that has insisted on the idea of personal material as intellectual property; that a book is only its blurb, that it can only do one thing, that it can be reduced to KPIs, that there's no value in prose style, no value in the very act of writing.
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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
This concept that an idea is all that matters – that writing is secondary, is an afterthought, is best outsourced to a machine – I can't get my head around it.
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Martha Sprackland @marrrtha.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
What do we think writing IS? What is an author? Why bother, if you don't want to write, if you are not challenged and exhausted and exhilarated and electrocuted in the doing of it?
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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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Philip Womack @philipwomack.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Thank you!
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