Sifting through my archive for my next book and found a photo of this small cloud taken from a Greyhound bus in 2006 somewhere near Tucumcari, between Amarillo and Albuquerque. It looks so sure of itself and so perfect.
#desert
#tucumcari
#cloud
#greyhound
When my kid was 4 years old, I left my office job & set up from home as a freelancer. It was incredibly tough: little money, very little time to myself & still very little sleep. I used to sit at my desk with her on the floor & tell her to ‘take any book and draw the cover’. 1/3
@tedgioia
It's like the song is there in the ether somewhere and Paul just magically finds it. Truly astonishing. (George yawning is hilarious as if he sees songs being born all the time).
It would buy me a concentrated 30 minutes. I remember this one because when I glanced over at what she’d drawn, my heart melted. Therein lies the entire paradox of being a woman, a writer and a mother. Frustration with lashings of surging love and connection. (2)
I’ve only just discovered Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Winesburg, Ohio’. What a book! Influenced Faulkner, Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Hemingway & Virginia Woolf. His modernism feels strangely barbed: Nothing cosy here but there is profound humanity. A fascinating and beautiful book.
OK, finally got to Daisy Hildyard’s EMERGENCY. This book is extraordinary. This passage about a lapwing building her nest in the ruts of a tractor’s daily renewal is perhaps one of the most profound pieces of writing I have read in a long time. (1)
I had the house to myself last night and decided to revisit an old friend. I’d forgotten how brilliant this book is on so many topics that feed into and emerge from photography: literature, poetry, urbanism, ruralism and… (1)
My mum would have been 98 today. Here she is after giving birth to baby
#5
. I came years later (baby
#7
). Never without a cigarette – she was elemental, complex and somewhat wild. Photo by my father.
#birthdays
#mothers
#daughters
#elemental
Ivy-leaved toadflax spotted today. She came to the UK in the early 1600s on the back of Italian sculptures. The French name ‘Ruine de Rome’ suits her proclivity for nestling into walls. After she has done her job sharing her pollen with insects (solitary bees love her) … (1)
One of the very few things I have that once belonged to my mother: her 1971 copy of Alice Munro’s ‘Lives of Girls & Women’ with clippings about the author from the Ottawa Citizen. It has travelled everywhere with me. An absolute treasure. (1)
This is absolutely wonderful. He is like an impish child genius in this interview. (This is also a masterclass in interviewing)
BBC Radio 4 - This Cultural Life, Werner Herzog
#wernerherzog
My sister Sheila (pictured here doing her homework while keeping an eye on me) keeps unearthing the most beautiful photos taken by my father of my siblings & I when we were young. (1)
The kid has just started wandering around east London taking photos (with an old Olympus borrowed from a friend) & is using the darkroom at school to print them. Her grandad would have liked nothing more than to sit her down and talk about her images and ideas. (1)
DAY 18.
Made it from Lake Ontario to the Pacific Ocean. Travelled 4,300 kilometres by Greyhound bus, on foot, on city buses and the odd taxi. This trip will be part of my next book for Fitzcarraldo Editions coming out in 2024… (1/2)
Some beautiful typography going on here on Harrow Road, Leytonstone. Font needs: is this Weiss, designed in 1926 by Emil Weiss? I walk past it several times a week and always wonder… Anyway, it’s gorgeous.
#typography
#fonts
#Weiss
#Leytonstone
#typographyinthewild
OMG. What a book. “The sight of my mother’s nakedness had jarred me. No body existed less for me: none existed more. As a child I had loved it dearly: as an adolescent it had filled me with an uneasy repulsion: all this was perfectly in the ordinary course of things and… (1)
My mother would be 95 today. Here she is having a cigarette in her hospital bed after baby number 5. She was an absolute force of nature. Complicated and beautiful and it's really sad she's no longer here.
#birthdays
#mothers
I was blown away by Joaquina Ballard Howles’ "No More Giants" — a fictionalised version of her childhood on a Nevada Ranch. A raw & beautiful book. This passage, ‘Grief does not move. Seasons move away from it,’ is just so perfect. (1)
This book came out in 2015 & for some reason I kept putting off reading it. There is a lot of ‘Nature Writing’ out there that I am just not too keen on. I thought this was one of those. Anyway, a friend gave it to me for my birthday and I’m 50 pages in. What a beautiful book. (1)
I defy you to read this book in more than one sitting. Such a fantastic, explosive, mesmerising read by Fernanda Melchor (brilliantly translated by Sophie Hughes). Thank you
@FitzcarraldoEds
And now for some good news: My booklength essay 'Surrender' about the American West has just been awarded the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize. Many, many thanks to
@FitzcarraldoEds
@MrHWM
The idea of transubstantiation requires that you question reality versus myth, the body versus the image – the tenets of narrative – from a very young age. The body as a locus for desire & creation can also be applied to bodies of text, imho.
This just came through my letterbox in London. What a long, strange journey it’s been... thank you
@FitzcarraldoEds
for helping turn these experiences into words.
#writing
#publishing
Last night I dreamt that scientists discovered ice could whisper. No surprise to me; I’d been conversing with it forever. Then sadness hit: as the Earth’s ice was disappearing, so was its whispered language. Ecomelancholia meets the death of Alice Munro in a dream.
#dreams
#ice
SURRENDER is being published in the US April 7 by
@HouseofAnansi
. My book tour has been cancelled, but I'm happy to discuss the people I write about - from rewilders & scavengers to trappers, militants & ecosexuals; or themes such as eco-melancholia.
#virtualbookclub
#surrender
While photographing this wall in Bushwood this morning, I felt someone standing behind me. I turned to look. An older man, very dignified wearing a Jubbah asked me what I was doing (not in an angry way, more in a curious way).
‘I just like the pattern and how …
This photo of my sister Mary just emerged from my father’s archive. I owe most of the good things in my life to her. She was beautiful beyond what is reasonable. It’s been 16 years since she died.
#sisters
#love
#grief
#photography
Absolute double sucker punch of memoir by two very different women. Sadly, Barbara Payton died in 1972 at the age of fifty-eight. Her voice is hard boiled, heartfelt and hilarious, whilst her life was dogged by tragedy. (1)
My blurb: “A necessary book. Read it.”
But on a more personal note: As someone born in Canada, who has lived in the US & now lives in the UK, I get increasingly frustrated when people look at political issues in the UK through an American lens. (1/2)
It’s hard to express the sheer pleasure of reading
@countyhwy
— each piece is so original. I am enjoying not knowing the end destination of the articles — just allowing them to take me places. Subscribe if you can. It’s a delight.
#countyhighway
In 1999, when I moved from Toronto to London I lived in a cold-water, unheated attic room in Kew Gardens. The 1st thing I bought was a tape player & Maurizio Pollini’s renditions of Chopin’s Nocturnes & Etudes. My soundtrack to landing in a foreign land.
#MaurizioPollini
@carolecadwalla
@Nigel_Farage
I have been so grateful for
@carolecadwalla
's uncovering of dishonesty and corruption. And well done for the Orwell Prize! But what I don't understanding is what happens next? Corruption in the US and UK are the new norm and no-one is being held to account. How do we change this?
@wordwestpress
They forgot: 'the planet is burning and the ice is melting and all our oceans are full of plastic and our rivers are toxic and in the time it took to tweet this, several species have disappeared...'
View from my window last night. The surface of my road was scraped off exposing the old cobbles. Strange to think those very stones would have seen centuries of carts & horses & soles of shoes. Soon to be covered in tarmac.
#roads
#eastlondon
#thepast
#BethnalGreen
#cobblestones
This is a dark, dark day. A matter of hours ago, the world lost Finisia Medrano. For anyone who has read SURRENDER, you will understand what a huge loss this is. I am beyond devastated. RIP Finisia. I love you.
Just noticed that at this time of year, around Spring equinox, the setting sun lands directly on a certain shelf containing some of my favourite books.
#books
#equinox
#light
#spring
In 1966 my brother, who was 11 at the time, travelled on his own from Canada to Japan. He was put in the VIP lounge and this is one of his photos. I love it. Photo: Philip Pocock.
#photographyinthefamily
Yesterday at Tobago airport my husband took this photo of me photographing this light fixture. Apparently he has a whole series of photos of me taking photos. Not sure what this means but I think it’s a good thing.
#photography
#partners
#photosofpeopletakingphotos
Just finished Sheila Heti’s ‘Alphabetical Diaries’. A book that will stay with me forever & one I will return to. She is that rare writer who is both playful and very profound. One of the best books I’ve read this year.
#SheilaHeti
#AlphabeticalDiaries
#FitzcarraldoEditions
On May 11, I’ll be teaching the 1st short course in Nature & Environmental Writing at the University of the Arts, London
@UALShortCourses
- I have had to leave so many brilliant books out of the syllabus, but here are a few we’ll be discussing.
#environmentalwriting
‘When grief and shock surpass endurance there occur phases of exhaustion, of anesthesia in which relatively little is left and one has the illusion of recognising, and understanding, a great deal.’ (1)
My phone tells me that on this day 7 years ago, I was here, outside Philipsburg, Montana. There must be a word for the nostalgia one feels for certain light frequencies?
#Montana
#westernlight
It's a strange week to feel any joy, but I can't contain the feeling of gratitude that the wonderful people at
@Erratanaturae
have just published SURRENDER in Spanish as RENDICIÓN. Beautifully translated by
@teresalanero
It's been one heck of a journey!
#environmentalwriting
«Rendición» de Joanna Pocock ya está en librerías. Y qué libro... En respuesta a su propia crisis existencial, Pocock explora la Gran Naturaleza americana y los movimientos ecologistas radicales que se enfrentan a la crisis climática.
I have retreated to the hammock. Just me, the new Olga Tokarczuk and Pumpkin. I’m 150 pages in to ‘The Empusium’ and completely gripped. It’s brilliant. Thank god for art and artists.
What’s going on now in the UK is horrific. (1)
A bit of insight into what crossing the US by Greyhound bus looks like these days. Part glorious, part very, very sad... Thank you to
@GuardianJessica
and
@GuardianUS
for letting me tell this story.
#Greyhound
The last woman who famously wrote about traveling across America by bus was Simone de Beauvoir. Quite a different sight in 2023, but
@joannaofottawa
traveled 2,800 miles on a Greyhound and wrote a beautiful piece about it
For those of us who have read 'that' Guardian article on plummeting insect numbers and are feeling utterly despondent about the collapse of healthy ecosystems, here is an organisation that we can support
@Buzz_dont_tweet
I'm not sure why I love this photo so much. There's something about my sister Kate's cupped hand over the receiver that seems to pull me in.
Taken by my father in Ottawa, 1966.
#photography
#sisters
#1960s
An enormous thank you to
@FitzcarraldoEds
for sending this book out into the world & to
@thebbookshop
for your support & a wonderful pre-publication party ... books need so much love & time ...
#Surrender
I don’t normally talk about the editing & proofreading I do alongside the teaching & writing, but had to break cover to shout out about the wonderful new Vigdis Hjorth novel (translated by Charlotte Barslund) & published by
@VersoBooks
coming out soon!
#workintranslation
His and hers top 10 books we’ve read this year. The husband & I compared notes. Our one overlap is Richard Wright’s ‘Black Boy’ which is heart-stoppingly good.
#topten
#favouritebooks
#amreading
#2021books
Trying to make room in my computer by deleting stuff & came upon this photo taken by my father of my mother, who absolutely loved all creatures great and small. We had a complicated relationship but I owe her so much. She was beautiful & fierce.
#mothers
#daughters
#photography
Many years back, I was asked by my father-in-law Joe Massot to redesign the poster for a rerelease of his film WONDERWALL (directed in 1968). It is a mad, wonderful film starring a young Jane Birkin. The photos below are of the premiere at Cannes with George Harrison… (1)
He’s called Pumpkin. I said ‘no’, but was overruled by the kid who brought him home today. Looks like he has no intention of leaving.
#kitten
#gingerkittens
April 7 is this year’s brightest Supermoon. On a less cosmic note, it’s also the day that SURRENDER appears in the US. For anyone interested in land & subcultures in the American West, please order from
@HouseofAnansi
in Canada & US &
@FitzcarraldoEds
in the UK.
@padrigmcg
“Ermaux” and “Hoellebecq”. Says it all, really. Careless and lazy and that feeling of “those foreign writers with their pesky foreign names”. 🙄
What an exquisite book. Linn Ullmann’s UNQUIET weaves in meditations on love, cinema, familial relationships, the act of writing, aging and how we navigate life. Her writing manages to capture the essence of things.
#amreading
#unquiet
#livullmann
#linnullmann
#ingmarbergman
A painting of leeks by the Danish artist Niels Peter Rasmussen (1847–1918) in honour of St David's Day.
My mother was born in Monmouthshire & some of my father's family ancestors were Welsh miners. Here's to St David & the beginnings of spring!
#StDavidsDay
#Wales
#spring
Werner Herzog's film 'Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin' takes us on a journey to Patagonia and beyond. These stills show some of the nomadic Selk'nam people. Beautiful, but very sad, film. (On BBC iplayer for 23 more days.)
#Nomad
#cinema
#BruceChatwin
#WernerHerzog
@Docstockk
Why would anyone want to gloat over making someone lose their job? If one is fighting injustice, the prize is not the ability to preen and gloat, the prize is seeing equality and fairness achieved. This is just horrible.
The husband and I looking through our books deciding our top 10 of 2020. Here’s mine in no particular order. Lockdown fun....
#LondonLockdown
#BookLovers