This was so much fun to do! Thank you, @mjrsangster.bsky.social , for the great questions. Just in case these questions make you want to read it: Here is a discount code for pre-orders, which applies to paperback, hardback, and e-book. 📚🩷

Pre-conference swim spot and the commute to work (Wordsworth Summer Conference) this week

My little Fig! I got her when I was at Hamilton College (2007) and she's with my mom in Florida now (did not want to make the transatlantic move). That makes her 20-ish (?!). She's a mouser, when she gets a chance, and I'll get to see her in September 🩷 I'm so sorry for your loss.

I had been worried that I'd used the perfect cover for my second book for my first, but I like how they look together. 📚😊

😊

Ghent is such a lovely city of bicycles & beer, & also where (now Dr.) Dominic Bentley Hussey successfully defended his startlingly original dissertation on media studies, Romanticism, & pseudo-translation (British + French). 36 hrs there was not enough. In other news, my BU regalia made its debut 🎉

Sense of community is crucial to postgrad intellectual life, so the Directors of Durham's MA in English are cooking up ideas for 2026/27, from a Welcome Symposium👋 and autumn picnic🥪🧺 to a winter Bake-Off 🍰 and a movie/theatre night🎭🍿. (Yes, a baked goods competition *will* help the ideas flourish.)

In the depths of book production anguish, I did it. I bought myself a 1797 edition of Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets ♥️🌸

Visiting family in Florida last week, I got to see the space launch.🚀🌖 And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne.

Join us this summer at the Wordsworth conference--where they make you climb a mountain before giving your talk ⛰️😅

London ♥️🌸

Next week, I'll be giving 2 talks in London. Tickets available. Happy World Book Day! 📚

I love books. I really, *really* do. But sometimes, when a book is so big as to be downright cumbersome, one must apply the razorblade to lighten the physical burden of class prep. Happy Year of Reading📚

Join us in lovely North East England for an MA in English Literary Studies at Durham. Applications now being accepted for 2026/27.

My second-year students in Poetry by the Book with archivist Richard Higgins at the Palace Green Library yesterday, learning about Romantic-period book production and exploring some of the library’s gems. (Posted with permission of those pictured.)

Autumn in the Durham woods 🍄

Next week! Come along if you're in Durham 📚♥️ www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

My immediate reaction to seeing these tiny volumes: 💞Oh, they are cute! … Evidently so cute they broke Hazlitt’s theory of repeat reading when, in this form, Rousseau’s ‘Eloisa’, which he had long loved, suddenly revolted him 😅 (small, gilt edges, rosy perfume)—at the Palace Green Library, Durham

Staying in a flat attached to Rydal Mount. In the day, the house and garden is open to tourists; at night the garden is all ours! 🌸🌹

In exciting news: at long last I took my UK driver test. This means now being able to reach the beautiful and stunningly undeveloped beaches of the North East, where Jolene can chase all the birds. Best days ever.

Splashing in the River Wear on a warm day ☀️🐾💕🌊

🥀💕

The roses have gone rogue, but I have no will to tame them. My version of ‘no-mow May’ 🌹

My aspirational energy, in any case!

Nothing like running into one of your besties on a walk by the river

So does Jolene! 🦈💕

It is world book day, and I am ready for it, with the National Literacy Trust North East, today at RVI hospital, Newcastle. 📚🐰💕🥳 @literacy-trust.bsky.social

Fig got a new bed for Christmas (early). And could her little tail and feet markings be any cuter (no they could not) 💕

This isn't quite it, but it's the one I happen to have a photo of!

477 manatees at Blue Springs (Florida🌴) today. Not sure who counted, but I believe them!