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Shona Ray

@shonaraywrites.bsky.social
1.4K followers 766 following 499 posts

Writer of gothic/horror/weird. Jericho Friday Night Live SL 2024. Thinker, wanderer, ex-anthropologist. London lawyer in my spare time. #amwriting #books #art #pwme

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
For I am a salt-hag. I know gull gossip. I know the calling and quelling of storms. My hair is wind-braided. My lips wear rough salt kisses. I stand on the cliffs and read omens pulled by the tide. Be well and avoid my anger. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #FolkWitchFriday #WitchSky
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
They really are! There's a cafe just opened up near me called 'Mad and Chips'. Like, why?!
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I know. I kind of hope there's someone like him sitting behind any potentially catastrophic AI that might be out there...!
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Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · 29/09/2026
I fail to understand why squirrels are not the top trending topic at all times
Two gray squirrels in a tree hole
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Bloody nails, just in time for horror season 🎃 #horrorsky #spookyseason
A white woman's hand with deep red nail colour holds open a page of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
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Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
For the morning crowd 👇
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Hannah Vardit @hannahvardit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
i worry that men think being A Good Guy is dramatically and heroically intervening on behalf of an endangered woman and then being publicly rewarded on a grand scale when actually being A Good Guy is just usually saying, “hey man that’s not funny” or “wow that’s fucked up” and there is no reward
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David Atkinson @davidatkinsonpoet.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This poem by Pádraig Ó Tuama asks us to re-orient how we think about loss, memory, and closure That loss is not always final or absolute Remembering is not always a good thing, forgetting can be an act of self-care The ending of a book is the nature of stories #poetry #poemoftheday
Poem by Pádraig Ó Tuama - Not everything that's lost is lost
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
“When it draws near to witching time of night” (Robert Blair) 🎨 Holls Walck #owlishmonday
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Yeah I guess so. I'm trying to imagine what my 1999 self would have thought of it. To be fair it would probably have blown my mind!
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's incredible isn't it? How many of us would have the courage to do the same?
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🌈 Hailey Piper 🌈 @haileypiperfights.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is part of what I'm referring to with many people demanding stories that reassure them they're a good person. They want the moral instruction because otherwise, rather than processing the reading experience, there's a thrum of "am I bad? am I bad? what if someone finds out I'm bad?"
Tumblr post by graftini:

stories about abuse are allowed to exist without reducing themselves to moral instruction. i think sometimes when people complain about the “romanticization” of abuse, what they're actually objecting to isn't necessarily the way abuse is being represented, but the fact that the representation doesn't provide them with constant moral reassurance. like, there is a difference between “this story frames abuse as desirable or inherently romantic” and “this story depicts abuse in an erotic/ambiguous/complicated way and doesn't repeatedly tell me that abuse is bad, therefore the depiction itself is irresponsible.”
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Totally agree. Though I wonder how much of this (for me too) is about the age/stage we were at when we first saw it - like how a book can have a completely different effect at different times in your life. And rewatching my old fave films is never as good as it felt at the time.
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Still a bit blown away to see copies of ‘Hookland Fragments’ in the wild. Here is a signed copy available from @treadwells-books.bsky.social
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My horror education continues! Today's lesson: The Blair Witch Project. I'd never seen it before! Amazing film, but... not as scary as people told me. Is it me? Have I seen too many horror movies now to appreciate classics? #horrorsky #blairwitch #horrormovies
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A day late. But, you know, seems kind of worth sharing. Given the saving of humanity and all that. Never underestimate the power of an ordinary person.
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Ooh exciting! Well done!
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Writers’ HQ @writershq.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Impatient to perform the magic storytelling ritual tbh
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Seán Costello @seanjcostello.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A heads-up for those with access: this dazzling masterpiece is on the BBC iPlayer from today
Programme cover for The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Today's wisdom, for the disillusioned (like me): "The most valuable thing a writer can do is deepen their connection with their own humanity." Thank you, @writershq.bsky.social. I feel more human just reading this. #amwriting #writersky
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⛧ Mother Suspiria ⛧ (Stina Marie) @stinasdemons.com · 03/09/2026
This is one of the most inspiring and awesome things I've seen in awhile Human imagination and ingenuity is so fucking rad, and no thieving "tech" can ever hold a candle to what our minds and hearts are capable of.
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The high walls of the rich demand projection. Yet some spend less time picturing houses and gardens they shall never see, more time imagining them as a locus of secrets. Beyond the wall occult orgies, mummified relatives in attics. Cellar laboratories and chained demons. – Dr. M. Benn
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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Heathers and thistles in the front garden, in the rain.
A photo of white and pink heathers and ornamental thistles in a rainy garden.
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Papa Woof und Krampus und Bleaken @papawoof.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
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Thomas S Brown @tomsbrown.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
And today, you probably need this mouse. This mouse in particular.
Pencil drawing of a mouse witch who is justifiably proud of her fancy boot with buttons on.
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 24/08/2026
" I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library." Jorge Luis Borges was born #otd 1899 🎨 Érik Desmazières
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Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Going to start doing a thing on a Monday where I give away a free workshop recording to one winner each week. www.mattkendrick.co.uk/workshop-rec... All you have to do to get your name in the hat is reply with the name of someone who's a cheerleading superstar in the writing community.
mattkendrick.co.uk
Workshop-recordings (List) | MattKendrick.co.uk
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Long lunches too please!
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
This explains everything!
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I would LOVE to have been there for the levitating sweets. Everything else could have been a trick, no?
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Researching time is like... I don't know, going down a wormhole? Even with the illustrations in A Brief History of Time it's mindbending. Except I'm not sure my mind bends that far 😬 #writersky #amwriting #timeywimey
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Nina Antonia @ninaantonia13.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
An allegorical painting of autumn serenading the last of summer whilst anticipating the death of the year. From the time when the seasons generally did what they were supposed to. (art Piotr Stachiewicz 1858-1935)
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Scare-argh Boo-arnard 👻 @sarahbpolar.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Fell down a rabbit hole into the Domesday Book and when I searched for the area I'm from, I uh
A page from a Domesday Book website by Anna Powell-Smith. This is an entry for Humphrey Goldenbollocks. No, I don't know either.
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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
A many-tailed fox and their reflection, accompanied by a crescent moon, with a heart-shaped sea urchin fossil (Micraster) between their paws 🦊🐾🤍 #FoxFriday #FoxoftheDay #FossilFriday
a many-tailed fox, seated and facing forward, lookng slightly down to the left. A crescent moon above her, a fossilized heart shaped sea urchin at her feet. and a many tailed fox reflected below with crescent moon on the other side. Linocut, gold, white and black, maria Strutz
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
@mattkendrick.bsky.social I wrote this on your Glorious Words course! Thank you for the inspiration 🙏
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Beautifully presented! I love the photo. 🙏
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Destination Venus sells comics in Harrogate! @destinationvenus.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
AI is a scourge. But it is important not to trust "AI detectors". I lost regular freelancing work because my client insisted I used AI to write copy (I didn't, but their AI detecting software said I did). This is a great thread with an excellent example of why these detectors cannot be trusted.
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I have a little piece in @crowkeys.bsky.social today. Quite proud of this one 😊 Come take a tour of space and time 👇
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
The witch walks the woods not just to fill her garnering bag, not just to talk with her favourite Wood Sprites. She walks to enter the trance of green communion. She walks to shade and silence her mind of all the accumulated bullshit beyond the woods. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Completely agree. But also, on the plus side, that's about 9m people in the UK alone who are reading daily. I will happily write for those people.
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Would they ask a plumber to hide their plumbing business? How are they supposed to make a living?
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Congratulations! Can't wait to read this one 👀
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
This, please 👇 Oh and a room of one's own. Obviously. #writersky #thewritinglife
Virginia Woolf pictured in profile, with her words underneath: "How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself."
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Gorgeous bird, gorgeous photo!
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Abigail Larson @abigaillarson.com · 18/08/2026
I'm ready for summer to end 🫠
illustration of a seated woman with her head down on a kitchen table, arms hanging to the floor. Two little goblins are perched on the table, watching her.
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Samantha (Sam) Mills @samtasticbooks.com · 18/08/2026
Oh hey it's out early! I am in here with a bunch of other excellent weirdness
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Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
On the lookout for flash with brilliant titles (long titles, single-word titles, riddle titles, shadow titles) Who has suggestions? Your own or from others. Please share links if poss! This is for a workshop on titles & endings I'm teaching in November: www.mattkendrick.co.uk/live-worksho...
mattkendrick.co.uk
Tying in the Ends: Titles and endings in short fiction | MattKendrick.co.uk
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Thomas S Brown @tomsbrown.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Good morning. Especially to witches.
An archway formed of branches with a spectral witch floating in the centre.
Pencil drawing with wash and White highlights on toned paper.
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Shona Ray @shonaraywrites.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
I just rewatched Event Horizon in honour of Sam Neill, only [checks wrinkles] 29 years after I first saw it. Still mindblowing, still scary - a bit less so than I remember (I've seen a lot of horror movies since then!) but still a classic. #horrorsky #writersky #samneill
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
I absolutely stand by this description of folklore. #FolkloreSunday
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