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Tony Williams

@tonywilliams.bsky.social
1.6K followers 2.3K following 229 posts

Novelist & poet. Latest novel COLE THE MAGNIFICENT linktr.ee/tonywilliamswriter

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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Absolutely scandalised by my wife's suggestion that Welsh cakes should be eaten hot
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Recent reading... Love a bit of Arnold Bennett and Buried Alive was no exception. Light and comic (and a bit dated e.g. in gender attitudes) but adroitly done and really brilliant in places, especially when it offers a few ideas on the artist's experience...
Cover of Arnold Bennett, Buried Alive
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
I'm grateful to have five poems, and a very generous introduction by Svitlana Kryvoruchko, in the latest issue of Astraea, the Ukrainian journal. Come and take the weight off your feet in the Schopenhauer Chair! astraea-journal.org/index.php/jo...
astraea-journal.org
Astraea
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Very kind of Tim Turnbull to share some of his recent hallucinations with us, via Red Squirrel Press
Cover of Our Lady Brings Tidings by Tim TurnbullPhoto of a page from a book of poems
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Craig David remix just dropped
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Nothing more relaxing than watching a bit of telly in the evening
Dog in the way of tv
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
What Are Words Worth 2U2? is currently happening at Northumbria, a fantastic programme of arts and writing. If you're in the North East then do have a look and come to whatever tickles your fancy - there's absolutely loads going on. erratic-front-a98.notion.site/WWW2U2-Event...
erratic-front-a98.notion.site
WWW2U2 Events Programme | Notion
Hosted by Notion Sites — The easiest way to get a website up and running.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
FFS Maigret!
'He waited patiently while she washed the dishes and was even on the point of helping her.'
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Stu Hennigan @stuhennigan.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
@tonywilliams.bsky.social @luketurner.bsky.social spotted at Headingley Library today.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Depressing to hear of the closure of the MA Creative Writing @sheffieldhallamuni.bsky.social - a programme with such a long and wonderful history tossed aside. It's vandalism.
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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Anna Ruysch (1666-1754)Dutch Golden Age flower painter, younger sister of more well known painter Rachel Ruysch. Women painters became expert flower paintes as they were not allowed in academies to study human models and anatomy #WomensHistoryMonth
Photo of a painting on a purple wall in an ornate gold frame, the work is of an arrangement of flowers against a dark background
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Stu Hennigan @stuhennigan.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
On the homepage of @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social atm, 60+ titles related to Keshed. Mix of fiction, non-fic, poetry old and new inc. work by @jamesscudamore.bsky.social @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social @heidijames.bsky.social @tonywilliams.bsky.social [more below] uk.bookshop.org/lists/how-to...
uk.bookshop.org
How To Get Keshed and Influence People
A list of titles related to Keshed.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Suggestions pls for where to submit a 3,000-word prose poem 😜
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Charity shop haul
Two books: Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent and the Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Managed to break my shameful 416-day streak on chess dot com. Here's to next Christmas Day not involving playing a game on my phone!
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Rationalising the spice rack by throwing out things that are out of date. We have a clear winner - bought before we moved here from Sheffield 15 years ago and not used since.
Asafoetida best before end 26/12/09
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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Good morning from May Morris’ 1917 embroidery
Embroidered hanging design of birds flying around delightful bushes
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Time-saving gadget
‘This Is Just to Say’ parody generator
I have
•	chucked away the bread sauce
•	snorted the amphetamines
•	seduced the gardener
•	urinated on the skirting board
•	popped the bubblewrap
•	shredded the documents
•	counted the woodlice
•	performed the sonata
•	threatened the child

that was/were
•	such a distraction
•	taped off by police
•	your last memory of childhood
•	mentioned on the news
•	implicated in a scandal
•	learning the trombone
•	rotting in the loft
•	up for parole
•	undergoing botox



and which you were probably
•	responsible for protecting
•	not aware of
•	intending as a gift
•	reluctant to discuss
•	perversely aroused by
•	using as bait
•	controlling by magic
•	stalking
•	secretly recording


forgive me; it/they was/were
•	banned in the Republic of Ireland
•	so beautifully cadenced
•	covered in threads of white mould
•	buried in a shallow grave
•	so salty so dry
•	so difficult to defend
•	a terrifying hallucination
•	grossly misshapen
•	disqualified from the Olympics
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James McConnachie @jamesmcconnachie.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
'the UK creative industries — which contributed £125 billion to the economy in 2024 and supported 2.4 million jobs — are being destroyed by an AI sector that... contributed just £11 billion in the same year and supported only 85,000 jobs." www.thetimes.com/culture/film...
thetimes.com
All 2.4m of Britain’s creative workers are at risk — and we know why
A new report into the impact of AI on the creative sector makes for apocalyptic reading. The government must act now
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
This poem from my 2014 collection The Midlands seemed a bit histrionic at the time, but I feel like the world has grown into it
The towns have burned

The towns have burned, but we don’t know they’ve burned.
The prowling oligarchs spew sulphur and deceit
from side to side along the blackened road.

One preens his talons in the air and crows,
‘I own the lamplight and the flames of gold
and you may shelter in the shadows there.’ 

Towers of settled ash approximate
the guild halls and the terraced streets
and yards and pubs and rows of graves so well

it almost seems that we could lay our flowers, cry,
or speak at meetings and be heard. Except
we reach and touch them and they fall

in clouds of cinders which have lost all light
but scorch the grass for everyone to know
what beasts have passed and how they made it burn.

But we are human still. We’ll gather up
a store of rubble and the will to build,
and work, directed by a show of hands,

so that in spite of living at the end of days, 
or seeming to, the fact shall stand:     
the children of our children shall have towns.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Horrifying grave of Paradise
Gravestone in the woods bearing thd word PARADISE
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com. ‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’ economist.com/united-state...
economist.com
Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless
Independent research identifies few learning gains
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Deadline 23rd January...
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Come and talk to us about the pragmatics of producing text, including creative writing, at #MLA26
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Very much enjoyed Lidl's 'about 2000-piece' jigsaw. Five missing and two duplicates. 👌
An almost completed jigsaw of a world map
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billylinguist.bsky.social @billylinguist.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
My fellow speakers are @tonywilliams.bsky.social from Northumbria and Anne Fulrong from the University of Prince Edward Island
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Come and talk to us about the pragmatics of producing text, including creative writing, at #MLA26
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Really looking forward to the latest Hollywood remake: One Angry Man
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
The reason dogs became domesticated
A dog sitting very close to a fire
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
The new bumper issue of Long Poem Magazine is really tremendous. I'm very grateful that it includes my 'Return to Matlock', a piggybacking of Aemilia Lanyer's 'Description of Cooke-ham' or, as you might say, a Lanyerism.
Cover of Long Poem MagazineOpening lines of a poem called 'The Return to Matlock':
Ey up (sweet Matlock) where I first obtained 
Place from that place where perfect place remained,
And where the boozers gave their full consent 
I should have power their closure to lament,
Where dingy premises willed me to indite
Saudade stories of the soul's delight...
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Come and do a funded PhD in Creative Writing at Northumbria. Happy to field queries on tony.williams@northumbria.ac.uk www.findaphd.com/phds/program...
facebook.com
Redirecting...
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
New word just dropped. I do feel affectional about the Grauniad's legendary proofreading.
Screenshot containing the 'word' 'affectionally'
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
I'd like my drag name to be 'Airy Thinness
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
She's found something she loves more than her ball
A dog sitting very close to a fire
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Marina Benjamin @marinabenjamin.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
The future of UK Independent presses hang by a thread. Supporting the sector is vital: this is where ALL the bravery lies. The big houses are risk averse, but copycat small press successes to revitalise their lists. Small presses are the motor! www.thebookseller.com/comment/open...
thebookseller.com
Open letter on the future of small press publishing in the UK
The industry must work together to ensure the longevity of the UK’s independent presses.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
Please consider supporting indie publishing by contributing to this fundraiser for @saltpublishing.com You can of course also support Salt by buying a book or two - I particularly recommend Cole the Magnificent, Hawthorn City, Nutcase, etc... gofund.me/0fe44ad35
gofund.me
Donate to Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026, organized by Christopher Hamilton-Emery
New books and reprints arrive daily at Salty Towers – and we'… Christopher Hamilton-Emery needs your support for Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
Lydia Davis, from the Collected Stories
Getting to Know Your Body

If your eyeballs move, this means that you're thinking, or about to start thinking.

If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeballs still.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
I'm very much enjoying Andrew Neilson's pamphlet Summers Are Other from Rack Press, particularly the lovely lyric 'The Viaduct' @badlilies.bsky.social
First stanza of The Viaduct:
As a child I would cross
with my father's brother,
and in summer weather
we would walk into loss.Pamphlet titled Summers Are Other
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Ind Coope's Story of Testicles
Beer mat saying, Ind Coope's Story of Beer: Tegestology
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Cherry plums
Cherry plums
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
I call it an OranGINa
An orange cocktail
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
That's like a cross between turning in his grave and rolling in the aisles - he's fuming, but he's also amused, because he knows how inflation works.
Newspaper headline: Freddo bar creator would be 'rolling in his grave' at its price today, daughter says
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
A classic of the genre* *the genre = M John Harrison novels
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Lecturer in Creative Writing (poetry) at Bath Spa, 0.6 FTE www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOB269/l...
jobs.ac.uk
Lecturer - Creative Writing - Poetry (Part-time) at Bath Spa University
Recruiting now: Lecturer - Creative Writing - Poetry (Part-time) on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Lecturer in Creative Writing (fiction) at Bristol, 0.5 FTE www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOF238/l...
jobs.ac.uk
Lecturer in Creative Writing at University of Bristol
Apply now for the Lecturer in Creative Writing role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
You seem to have mistyped 'Life: A User's Manual, by Georges Perec'
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Can't quite express how grateful I am to have a poem included in 'Ten Poems from the Peak District' from @candlestickpress.bsky.social - not only because it's a beautiful object, nor that I find myself among poets I deeply admire, but also because... 1/3
Pamphlet titled 'Ten Poems from the Peak District' selected and introduced by Katharine Towers
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Stu Hennigan @stuhennigan.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Also feat SHITLOADS of others inc @heidijames.bsky.social @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social @jamesscudamore.bsky.social David Peace,Tony Harrison, Elfriede Jelinek, Tim O'Brien, @jonsavage.bsky.social, @markabowles.bsky.social Kathy Acker, Naomi Booth, @stephenking.bsky.social, Sarah Kane, Pat Barker &c.
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Stu Hennigan @stuhennigan.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
This is a fucking phenomenal piece of writing in soooooo many ways. Can't recommend highly enough.
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Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
"Sleaford Mods out of their minds on spice." Banging recommendation of Nutcase from @stuhennigan.bsky.social whose novel KESHED is out from Ortac Press next year uk.bookshop.org/lists/how-to...
uk.bookshop.org
How To Get Keshed and Influence People
A list of titles related to Keshed. Some are works by my literary influences; some are by writers who other people have said Keshed reminds them of; and some are linked in other ways. To keep it inter...
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