iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If you've read any of her work, especially her recent A Chorus of Ears, this is something you won't want to miss. You can also book to attend virtually.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I am so delighted to be welcoming the great Denise Riley to University of Southampton to give the annual FT Prince Memorial Lecture. The title is 'Does the poem think?' Date is October 27th at 18:00 on Avenue Campus. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/f-t-prince...

eventbrite.co.uk

F T Prince Memorial Lecture 2026: Does the Poem Think (Denise Riley)

Guest speaker Denise Riley gives this year's F. T. Prince Memorial Lecture: "Does the Poem Think?"

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

On Substack? Or thinking of joining us there? I'm doing a Masterclass sharing what I've learned in the last five years and 1500 posts. Friday 9th Oct c/o @arvonfoundation.bsky.social www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

Photo of Toby Litt and his book Patience. Arvon Online Masterclass for Substack: A Sympathetic Space, Fri 9 Oct from 10-12 BST

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Intrusive Copilot now popping up everywhere in Word for Mac. Switching to Pages - for as long as that's AI-summary free. Last time this happened, I realised I just had to write on blank pieces of paper. (Recycled.)

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The Jubilee Line was finished while I lived there, so no more waiting at Elephant for a connecting bus. You can have a nosey around online, or share details with anyone who might be interested.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Anyone interested in buying my flat - the place I wrote my novels Corpsing, deadkidsongs and Ghost Story. It is a great place to live and work - high up, overlooking Southwark Park at the back and with glimpses of Tower Bridge and the Gherkin at the front. www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/det...

zoopla.co.uk

Jamaica Road, Bermondsey SE16, 3 bed flat for sale, £375,000 - Zoopla

3 bed flat for sale in Jamaica Road, Bermondsey SE16, selling for £375,000 from Alex & Matteo Estate Agents. See property details on Zoopla or browse all our range of properties in Jamaica Road, Bermo...

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Some words about Douglas Adams' weird and wonderful POV. substack.com/profile/1438...

substack.com

Neil Shooter (@neilshooter)

THIS IS SO GREAT

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Panels on How to Get a Literary Agent and How to Get into Publishing. Plus a lecture on Writing With and Against AI, and a Creative Writing Taster Session. It's all happening Thursday 30th April - Southampton - Book here. Still some places left. www.mayflower.org.uk/whats-on/art...

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Tomorrow - getting into and getting the most out of dialogue in Milton Keynes. www.tickettailor.com/events/milto...

Picture of writer Toby Litt advertising MK LitFest session Demystifying Dialogue on Sat 25 April at Milton Keynes Central Library from 11am. Tickets from www.mklitfest.org

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Milton Keynes Literary Festival @mklitfest.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Creative Writing tutor Toby Litt offers advice, ideas, and tricks for writing better dialogue with greater ease and confidence. www.mklitfest.org/in-person-ev... #writingworkshop #writingdialogue @tobylitt.bsky.social

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Writing exercise: Write down the longest unbroken sequence of back and forth dialogue that you can remember from your life. Every single line needs to be certain. You can’t resort to “and so and so said something like.” How'd you do? How many lines did you get? open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

Flashback Time - card. With words 'How Good is Your Memory of Dialogue' and 'A Complete Guide to Point of View Part 2' - on it.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

POV: You sit down to keep writing your novel and then you start to scream. Why? Most likely because there's something not quite working with the Point of View. Maybe you chose First Person Present Tense, and now you can't do a flashback?

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

This is going to be fun. April 25th.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Or you went for Third Person Omniscient, but you don't know when it's good to head hop? Today is the start of my podcast series on POV. Exercises, advice, a map of territory. It's free. It's here awritersdiary.substack.com/p/a-complete... #pov #pointofview #writingcommunity #writingadvice

awritersdiary.substack.com

A Complete Guide to Point of View Begins Today

But why, really, bother following it?

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

It being #NationalPencilDay, here are a few of my workhorses. Thank you to all of them. I've blogged about my other Means of Production over on Substack. open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

I'm not sure it'll be recorded. I hope so. @swedenborghouse.bsky.social will know.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

What links Swedenborg, Skateboarding and Sunlight? "They are all approaches to forms of human happiness. They all assert a positive purpose to life. They are all simultaneously flying and grounding." Free lecture on Thursday 26th March, booking advised. www.swedenborg.org.uk/events/toby-...

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Any devotees of rOtring out there? This may not be my last word on the subject, but it may be your first. On Mechanical Pencils open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

open.substack.com

On Mechanical Pencils

and their practicalities

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Blackwings seem to be winning on the pencil front. I have a Tikky and a 30 rOtring.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

What's your favourite pencil - the best you've every owned? Today's diary entry on Substack covers the practicalities of writing with pencils. (Yay, write upside down, hanging from a tree.)

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Yes, I've got one of those, too. Just dug it out. I'll be covering sharpeners in the next few days. Thanks for the reminder. Hope you're well.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Every sounded nicer than ever.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

What's your favourite pencil - the best you've every owned? Today's diary entry on Substack covers the practicalities of writing with pencils. (Yay, write upside down, hanging from a tree.)

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Jeremy Millar @jeremymillar.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

Our graduates write books — published by the likes of @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social, @grantabooks.bsky.social, Peninsula Press — set up their own magazines and journals, edit others (The White Review, RIP), do PhDs, and also become primary school teachers. All good things.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

They are rare. How did you find yours?

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

If you're a writer, how and where do you write? What's your posture like? How's your spine holding up? Any advice for others? Are You Sitting Comfortably? open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

open.substack.com

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

If not, we can't begin

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

If you're a writer, how and where do you write? What's your posture like? How's your spine holding up? Any advice for others? Are You Sitting Comfortably? open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

open.substack.com

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

If not, we can't begin

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Yes, do. Thoroughly recommended.

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Jeremy Millar @jeremymillar.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

This book sounds great and I want to read it immediately

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Look, I'm here, rather than working. How do you cope with/limit/work through the distraction of your screens? Today's diary entry way over yonder on Substack. On Distraction and Overcoming It open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

open.substack.com

On Distraction and Overcoming It

or Giving In to It

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

I said I'd share the link when the The Guardian posted my review of Elizabeth McCracken's whipsmart writing manual, A Long Game: How to Write Fiction. (Following their publication of an extract.) So, here it is - www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

theguardian.com

A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken review – here’s how to really write your novel

The novelist and writing tutor delivers bracing advice that demolishes familiar ‘stick to what you know’ nostrums

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Today's entry in the diary is on the Ghosts of the Desk. Who haunts yours? open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

open.substack.com

On the Ghosts Haunting Your Writing Space

Even if you don't know they're there

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

I've also spoken about it in today's Writer's Diary over on Substack. awritersdiary.substack.com/p/on-elizabe...

awritersdiary.substack.com

On Elizabeth McCracken's A Long Game: How Write Fiction

A mini-review

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

theguardian.com

A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken review – here’s how to really write your novel

The novelist and writing tutor delivers bracing advice that demolishes familiar ‘stick to what you know’ nostrums

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

I was very glad to be asked to review Elizabeth McCracken's A Long Game by @theguardian.com No spoilers, but they should be publishing what I wrote soon. Here's a taster - just the right kind of thing to read if you're starting a new piece of fiction. www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

theguardian.com

Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules!

After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

There will be 5 minute daily-ish podcasts, with advice, writing exercises and answers to subscribers' questions.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

New Year, New Writer's Diary. This year, I'm going - with my subscribers' help - to draft a writing manual (working title is 'The Page: On Drafting'). I'll be podcasting and writing about it on my Substack. Together, hopefully, we can write our books. open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

open.substack.com

We're Starting to Write a Book

A Writer's Diary enters the New Year with a new project and a new sound.

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lucynoakes1.bsky.social @lucynoakes1.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I gave up and walked away - letting the world's most boring man get on with taking his surely boring photographs. It took me a number of years before I realised Martin Parr had just, in that moment, demonstrated his secret technique.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I asked him another question, about cameras, and the answer was on a Marvin the Paranoid android level of focussed tedium. I couldn't bear it. The burden of being interesting rested entirely upon me.

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

And he said something like, 'Oh, there's a way of doing it, a technique, but I'd never tell anyone.' I tried to continue the conversation, but within a couple of moments, and I can't say how, he had become the world's most boring man. He radiated conversational tedium. He was incandescently grey

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

RIP Martin Parr. I have a story, from the one time I met him. At the Port Eliot Festival. It gave, eventually, the secret to his genius. We were standing under a tree, chatting, and I was asking him about how he worked? How he got people enough at their ease that they'd forget he was there?

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

"For the overwhelmed poet, this poetic artifice is deeply enabling, allowing what was previously unspeakable to finally be spoken." 'the overwhelmed poet'! This year's FT Prince Memorial Lecture by Dr Mary Jean Chan was outstanding. You can watch it here - youtu.be/LO3gjO0I0s4?...

youtu.be

F. T. Prince Memorial Lecture 2025: Dr Mary Jean Chan ¦ University of Southampton

YouTube video by Humanities Southampton

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Toby Litt @tobylitt.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

youtu.be

F. T. Prince Memorial Lecture 2025: Dr Mary Jean Chan ¦ University of Southampton

YouTube video by Humanities Southampton

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