iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Heading up to Lumb Bank as a guest on @nicholasroyle.bsky.social and @kerryhp.bsky.social’s @arvonfoundation.bsky.social writing course. First time there in nearly thirty years! Looking forward to it and feeling reflective. www.arvon.org/tutors/simon...

arvon.org

Simon Okotie | Arvon

Simon Okotie’s novels Whatever Happened to Harold Absalon?, In the Absence of Absalon and After...

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

A thoughtful review of my book The Future of the Novel, which was published in the UK a year plus a week ago today, alongside Madeleine Thien’s novel The Book of Records, which I will look forward to reading. ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/02/25/s...

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

Snap! Criticism: Okotie and Thien

Dan Hartland In a letter on May 14, 1981, Philip K. Dick was characteristically pugnacious: “I will define science fiction, first, by saying what sf is not. It cannot be defined as ‘a story (or nov…

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

I successfully defended my PhD thesis in English Literature at the University of Reading on Wednesday. With thanks to my supervisor Conor Carville and examiners Peter Robinson and Peter Boxall (pictured).

Photo of Prof. Peter Robinson, Simon Okotie and Prof. Peter Boxall

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

En route to meet my PhD supervisor on the South Bank to prepare for my viva (which is next week!).

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Goldsmiths Prize @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

'We Live Here Now emerged similarly mysteriously, flying steadily & consistently under the radar before assuming its rightful place as the winner of this year’s Goldsmiths Prize.' Judge @simonokotie.bsky.social on why C.D. Rose won this year's Goldsmiths Prize. www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

newstatesman.com

Why CD Rose won the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction

His fourth book We Live Here Now challenges the novel’s form by focusing on texture, atmosphere and resonance

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Melville House @melvillehouse.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

@cdrose.bsky.social is the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize winner!!! So, so well deserved ❤️🏆 Read WE LIVE HERE NOW! @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social

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Goldsmiths Prize @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

The waiting is nearly over! Our judges - Mark Haddon, Megan Nolan, @simonokotie.bsky.social, and @asack.bsky.social - have read, deliberated and decided. Winner announcement TONIGHT around 7.30pm🔥

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

I dug out this top for my run today - a third kit from the early 2000s modelled on Inter Milan. I’m hoping it will bring us luck (and an Italian defensive display) against Porto this evening.

Photo of a black and blue Nottingham Forest top.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Nicholas Royle ends his much appreciated comments on A Personal Anthology by saying that, like a favourite bar or secondhand bookshop, it shouldn't be allowed to close. I agree! But it can only go on as long as there are contributors, so if you'd like to take part, please get in touch!

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Goldsmiths Prize @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

#GoldsmithsPrize2025 judge, @simonokotie.bsky.social, on C.D. Rose's We Live Here Now:

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Imogen Reid @imogenreid.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

It's publication day for this beauty, with stories by David Bevan @iancritchley.bsky.social @pippagoldschmidt.bsky.social, Alison Moore, Okechukwu Nzelu, @simonokotie.bsky.social, C.D. Rose, Iain Sinclair, Naomi Wood, lucky old me! et al. Thank you @nicholasroyle.bsky.social & @saltpublishing.com 🔥

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Goldsmiths Prize @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

#GoldsmithsPrize2015 judge, @simonokotie.bsky.social, on Yrsa Daley-Ward's 'extraordinary shape-shifting, genre-defying work of fiction'

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Goldsmiths Prize @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Our '25 judges, @simonokotie.bsky.social Amy Sackville (Chair) & Mark Haddon together @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social to decide this year's shortlist! Megan Nolan joining virtually. Announcement next Thursday, 2nd October around 9pm! 🔥

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David Collard @davidcollard.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

Literary Bluesky! According to Maeve Binchy in the Irish Times (14th May 1980) Samuel Beckett "had admired Myles na Gopaleen and laughed so much at everything he had written but had been a bit disappointed when he met him because he had expected too much." Details of the encounter? When and where?

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

In my dream last night I played tennis against the Queen.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

I’m delighted to be speaking about my book The Future of the Novel at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival. As someone who spans 'the two cultures' of science and the humanities, I am pleased with organiser's title for the event. So much to say! www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/autho...

Picture of Simon Okotie next to the festival dates: 10-19 October 2025. Tickets go on sale Thursday 4 September.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Have just submitted my intention to submit [my PhD] form, which I have been intending to submit for some time.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

I'm grateful for the review of my book The Future of the Novel in this week's TLS but I do want to clarify one thing: I don't believe that the prospect of a novel generated by AI is still some way off - it is already with us. www.the-tls.com/literature/l...

Quote from the TLS review: "Okotie believes that the prosect of a novel generated by AI is some way off."

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

One of the best pieces I’ve read on this hot topic. Thank you John. This, for instance, is an exquisite distillation of the issues: ‘The LLMs, by definition, can only synthesise from existing texts; they cannot originate. Bestsellers and prize-winners tend to come from nowhere, not from everywhere.’

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Stu Hennigan @stuhennigan.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

The Republic Of Consciousness Prize is undergoing a slight change as it celebrates it's tenth year. #Booksky, get this on your radar if it's not already. therepublicofconsciousness.substack.com/p/new-name-a...

therepublicofconsciousness.substack.com

New name and partner for groundbreaking prize for small press publishers

Announcing The Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Glad to be one of the crew on this ship (with my story ‘When viewed from the head rather than the foot’). Pre-order details below.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

I am friends with the window cleaner at my local café and he was pretty much the first person I saw on the morning after I returned to London earlier this month following my mum's death.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

My mum with my maternal grandparents at Mile End Hospital in east London just over sixty years ago, and me in the same spot last week. She died two weeks ago today.

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Jen Calleja @jencalleja.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Camilla Grudova writes brilliantly about how precarious it is to live as a successful & dedicated writer who doesn’t come from money. Recommended reading especially for publishers, institutions & funding bodies stingingfly.org/2025/06/25/t... @stingingfly.bsky.social

stingingfly.org

The Golden Pie of Literature – The Stinging Fly

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English and Creative Writing Goldsmiths University @goldsmithsenglish.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

The Future of the Novel: roundtable @goldsmithsenglish.bsky.social 4th June, 6:30-7:30, RHB 137 With Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social , Lara Pawson @larapawson.bsky.social, Tim Parnell @neddylud.bsky.social and Amy Sackville.

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Stu Hennigan @stuhennigan.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

First bit of today's #BookPost, a novel from @andrewgallix.bsky.social no less, head honcho of legendary 3:AM magazine and a fella who has done more for fresh, new, interesting writer over the last two decades than just about anyone you care to mention. Coming soon from Dodo Ink 👌

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Salt Books @saltpublishing.com · 13/05/2025

Dear everyone! Do please lend a hand and share our offer – times are extremely tough and we desperately need to raise some cash to keep things moving. Simply use TheBigSaltSale in our checkout or click on the link below— www.saltpublishing.com/discount/The... Happy reading!

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

A.I. represents a profound threat to storytellers but not necessarily to novelists.

Cover of The Future of the Novel by Simon Okotie.

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Stu Hennigan @stuhennigan.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

#booksky, here's one for the radar. DodoInk don't publish a lot but they're always interesting; and for the uninitiated, Andrew's been doing the awesome 3:AM lit journal since time immemorial. Here's an interview with @susannacrossman.bsky.social i did last yr 🙏 www.3ammagazine.com/3am/we-were-...

3ammagazine.com

We Were Kid Gods – 3:AM Magazine

The parentification and autonomy demanded of us was astonishing. We were expected to constantly defend a socialist-Marxist, feminist ideology. It was incredibly frightening to be exposed to these idea...

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Was discharged from hospital five weeks ago today, after a successful op for prostate cancer. (I was an NHS patient but they did the op in a private hospital - this is what the evening meal looked like!) It's easier to treat if you find it early. Check your risk: prostatecanceruk.org/risk-checker

Me in my hospital bed pointing at the silver cloche over my meal.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Alternating reading Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology with watching Line of Duty series 5.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

You can of course buy Spring Journal from CB Editions, here: cbeditions.com/gibbshtml.html And you should, of course, read MacNeice, such a master of the long line, the deft rhyme... and the surprisingly complex set of rhyme schemes, as I learned to follow, and you can see in the July stanzas.

cbeditions.com

CB editions - publisher of new writing - gibbs

CB editions - small press publishing novellas, short stories, translations and other new writing

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Khaled watches his old friend Hosam Zowa walk across the concourse towards his train to Paris before continuing out towards the west of the city, his adopted home (in Hisham Matar’s novel, My Friends). Which books does your hometown take you to? #WorldBookDay thelondonmagazine.org/guide-a-lond...

thelondonmagazine.org

Guide | A London Guide to the Future of the Novel by Simon Okotie - The London Magazine

From Shakespeare's Globe to the World's End Pub in Camden, Simon Okotie takes us on a tour of the novel, written in London's topography.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

With record numbers of Americans applying for UK citizenship on.ft.com/4i7RH1a I'm here to tell US friends there's no longer any need to come over: The Future of the Novel is published stateside today! Order here: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-future... @melvillehouse.bsky.social

Book cover and author photo for The Future of the Novel by Simon Okotie. "This book does something astonishing: it gives us the optimism to write fearlessly into the future." - Lara Pawson, author of Spent Light.

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Munster Literature Centre https://munsterlit.ie/ @munsterlitcentre.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

📍On March 20th, 6.30pm at the Dora Allman Room, The Hub, UCC, award-winning author Eimear McBride will come to UCC, with a public event to mark the arrival of her new novel, The City Changes Its Face.

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The London Magazine @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

This week, @simonokotie.bsky.social, author of ‘The Future of the Novel’ (@melvillehouse.bsky.social), takes us on a tour of the form, from its past to its future, where boundary-pushing and experimentation keeps the novel very much alive. Read here: thelondonmagazine.org/guide-a-lond...

thelondonmagazine.org

Guide | A London Guide to the Future of the Novel by Simon Okotie - The London Magazine

From Shakespeare's Globe to the World's End Pub in Camden, Simon Okotie takes us on a tour of the novel, written in London's topography.

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Rónán Hession @ronanhession.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Thought and book purchase provoking event last night as @davidcollard.bsky.social interviewed @simonokotie.bsky.social about his new book – a work of nonfiction called The Future of the Novel. Part of a new series looking at the future of various subjects including Egyptology and Wales.

David Collard interviewing Simon Okotie at Bàrd Books in London.

Book cover. Title in white on robins egg blue background with abstract of a book case on the left.

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Simon Okotie @simonokotie.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

A nice surprise to be on this bestseller list a day after publication. Thanks to all who pre-ordered the book! www.hive.co.uk/books/bestse...

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