Alison Brackenbury
@abrackenbury.bsky.social
Poet & broadcaster. New non-fiction prose book, 'Village', OUT!
Witches and wheelbarrows: women's history in my village, 1841-1971: cheerful survival!
To buy, search for
ALISON BRACKENBURY VILLAGE AMAZON
Witches and wheelbarrows: women's history in my village, 1841-1971: cheerful survival!
To buy, search for
ALISON BRACKENBURY VILLAGE AMAZON
Powerful edition of Radio 4's The Verb. Rare insights from doctor, soldier & poet Tim Hodgetts. Eloquent Russian anti-war writing introduced by Julia Nemirovskaya and Robert Chandler. Inspiring, and finally warmed by a wise love-letter to experience from @holliemcnish.bsky.social! LINK IN COMMENTS!
November 29, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Powerful edition of Radio 4's The Verb. Rare insights from doctor, soldier & poet Tim Hodgetts. Eloquent Russian anti-war writing introduced by Julia Nemirovskaya and Robert Chandler. Inspiring, and finally warmed by a wise love-letter to experience from @holliemcnish.bsky.social! LINK IN COMMENTS!
Sorry this is so early- please accept as a gift of light on a dark day! Normally, I'd never name companies,but this generous present is via Bloom and Wild . Their flowers last ages,they pack with NO PLASTIC (even food sachets!) & some items like this come in a box which comes through the letterbox!
November 29, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Sorry this is so early- please accept as a gift of light on a dark day! Normally, I'd never name companies,but this generous present is via Bloom and Wild . Their flowers last ages,they pack with NO PLASTIC (even food sachets!) & some items like this come in a box which comes through the letterbox!
The Sellotape ritual in this house, each Christmas, runs: 'Oh, we haven't any sellotape.' 'Must buy more sellotape!' 'Oh, we had a new reel all the time..' I hope I've circumvented it this time, by finding the new reel! But I fear that the sellotape is already plotting its revenge... Good luck!
November 28, 2025 at 6:20 PM
The Sellotape ritual in this house, each Christmas, runs: 'Oh, we haven't any sellotape.' 'Must buy more sellotape!' 'Oh, we had a new reel all the time..' I hope I've circumvented it this time, by finding the new reel! But I fear that the sellotape is already plotting its revenge... Good luck!
'Village is a glorious, generous compendium...
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
November 28, 2025 at 10:14 AM
'Village is a glorious, generous compendium...
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
Village is a glorious, generous compendium...
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.‘
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.‘
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
November 28, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Village is a glorious, generous compendium...
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.‘
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
'Moving, funny and revelatory’ ...
Nicola Chester.‘
The Kindle edition of my non-fiction prose book, Village, also readable on phone or computer, is free this Sunday 30 Nov (from about 8 am) A Christmas read?
LINK IN COMMENTS!
Delighted by @nicolawriting.bsky.social's glowing thoughtful review @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social of my non-fiction book 'Village' (with Mary Chamberlain's 'Fenwomen' - recommended)! 'Village is a glorious, generous compendium'. 'Moving, funny and revelatory’. To buy 'Village' - LINK IN COMMENTS!
November 27, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Delighted by @nicolawriting.bsky.social's glowing thoughtful review @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social of my non-fiction book 'Village' (with Mary Chamberlain's 'Fenwomen' - recommended)! 'Village is a glorious, generous compendium'. 'Moving, funny and revelatory’. To buy 'Village' - LINK IN COMMENTS!
Delighted by this - heartily recommend 'Fenwomen' & @nicolawriting.bsky.social's engrossing 'Ghosts of the Farm'!The villagers & I are absorbing Nicola's very kind words and we will be back with a happy selection later! If you'd like to meet the villagers for yourself, here's a LINK IN COMMENTS!
[email protected]’s ‘Village’ & a re-issue of Mary Chamberlain’s ‘Fenwomen’ give voice to an otherwise largely silent corner of England, writes @nicolawriting.bsky.social, telling the evocative, hard-lived stories of rural working class women www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/vill...
November 27, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Delighted by this - heartily recommend 'Fenwomen' & @nicolawriting.bsky.social's engrossing 'Ghosts of the Farm'!The villagers & I are absorbing Nicola's very kind words and we will be back with a happy selection later! If you'd like to meet the villagers for yourself, here's a LINK IN COMMENTS!
For #OnePlaceWednesday , high & mysterious, in the church of Willoughton, Lincolnshire. A very rare ‘Tuba stentorophonica’, perhaps brought inland from a ship. Our 'vamping horn', of which we were very proud. Legends about it are told in my prose book 'Village'. LINK IN COMMENTS
November 26, 2025 at 12:17 PM
For #OnePlaceWednesday , high & mysterious, in the church of Willoughton, Lincolnshire. A very rare ‘Tuba stentorophonica’, perhaps brought inland from a ship. Our 'vamping horn', of which we were very proud. Legends about it are told in my prose book 'Village'. LINK IN COMMENTS
It's a joy to have my lapwings- however endangered- in this choice feathered company from @candlestickpress.bsky.social! Clare,Hardy.. I particularly commend @jmatkin.bsky.social's regal chough &Lynne Wycherley's dazzling Bewick swans! Do you need a small gift for someone who loves poetry - & birds?
November 25, 2025 at 3:24 PM
It's a joy to have my lapwings- however endangered- in this choice feathered company from @candlestickpress.bsky.social! Clare,Hardy.. I particularly commend @jmatkin.bsky.social's regal chough &Lynne Wycherley's dazzling Bewick swans! Do you need a small gift for someone who loves poetry - & birds?
'Antonia vowed so frequently nevermore to think of Lorenzo that she thought of nothing else'... From a radio version of 'The Monk: A Romance', published 1796,dramatised by Allan McClelland.
If this sentence is from the original, Gothic novels are franker & funnier than I knew..
If this sentence is from the original, Gothic novels are franker & funnier than I knew..
November 25, 2025 at 1:12 PM
'Antonia vowed so frequently nevermore to think of Lorenzo that she thought of nothing else'... From a radio version of 'The Monk: A Romance', published 1796,dramatised by Allan McClelland.
If this sentence is from the original, Gothic novels are franker & funnier than I knew..
If this sentence is from the original, Gothic novels are franker & funnier than I knew..
Last night's moon says Good Morning!
November 25, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Last night's moon says Good Morning!
Good news- a 4th print of'Map', Worple Press,the anthology celebrating William Smith, pioneering geologist. Editor @michaelmckimm.bsky.social showed poets Smith's map at the Geological Society. Here's the start of my poem 'Strata', reprinted in my own book 'Skies',still with Smith's mysterious wife!
November 24, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Good news- a 4th print of'Map', Worple Press,the anthology celebrating William Smith, pioneering geologist. Editor @michaelmckimm.bsky.social showed poets Smith's map at the Geological Society. Here's the start of my poem 'Strata', reprinted in my own book 'Skies',still with Smith's mysterious wife!
Just read a post elsewhere by the excellent @dranniegray.bsky.social who is not a slave to the notion of a fixed date for 'Stir Up Sunday' for making Christmas puddings! If you agree, here's my grandmother's - and a neighbour's - recipes from a century ago. You do, of course, need SIX puddings?
November 23, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Just read a post elsewhere by the excellent @dranniegray.bsky.social who is not a slave to the notion of a fixed date for 'Stir Up Sunday' for making Christmas puddings! If you agree, here's my grandmother's - and a neighbour's - recipes from a century ago. You do, of course, need SIX puddings?
Reposted by Alison Brackenbury
Some weekend reading from me. An absolutely delightful edition of the Writer's Bookshelf with the great @abrackenbury.bsky.social. mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-writer...
The writer's bookshelf: Alison Brackenbury
Eight questions about writers, books, and reading…
mathewlyons.substack.com
November 22, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Some weekend reading from me. An absolutely delightful edition of the Writer's Bookshelf with the great @abrackenbury.bsky.social. mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-writer...
Two days of frost on the grandly re-named hylotelephiums... then my newest members of the primrose family wake (startled?) to rain. Very best weekend wishes from the garden!
November 22, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Two days of frost on the grandly re-named hylotelephiums... then my newest members of the primrose family wake (startled?) to rain. Very best weekend wishes from the garden!
Listened to Lucinda Williams' gripping 'The World's Gone Wrong'. Mistaking 'signs' for 'songs', I heard 'there are bad, bad songs all around'. True, I think. Luckily there are many good ones too! As in my source, @jamesfagan.bsky.social 'Thank Goodness It's Folk', Sheffield Live Radio, Fri 10-12 am.
November 21, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Listened to Lucinda Williams' gripping 'The World's Gone Wrong'. Mistaking 'signs' for 'songs', I heard 'there are bad, bad songs all around'. True, I think. Luckily there are many good ones too! As in my source, @jamesfagan.bsky.social 'Thank Goodness It's Folk', Sheffield Live Radio, Fri 10-12 am.
From the new Prinknash Bird & Deer Park! How many donkeys? Have you ever seen a bigger chicken? Or a formidable swan with better footwear for an English autumn?
November 21, 2025 at 3:05 PM
From the new Prinknash Bird & Deer Park! How many donkeys? Have you ever seen a bigger chicken? Or a formidable swan with better footwear for an English autumn?
Coming back over Cheltenham tonight 18.01! The International Space Station...
November 20, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Coming back over Cheltenham tonight 18.01! The International Space Station...
The International Space Station passed over our darkened suburb last night, amongst the flashing planes, bright, steady and purposefully. I caught it by accident just before the clouds took it...
November 20, 2025 at 11:12 AM
The International Space Station passed over our darkened suburb last night, amongst the flashing planes, bright, steady and purposefully. I caught it by accident just before the clouds took it...
Frost's rosy skies... and frozen roses! Warm best wishes from an icy Gloucestershire!
November 20, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Frost's rosy skies... and frozen roses! Warm best wishes from an icy Gloucestershire!
As the November sun breaks through, this is what we all need...a diptych dial, from the Whipple Museum, Cambridge: our own portable sundial! Brightest wishes!
November 19, 2025 at 1:10 PM
As the November sun breaks through, this is what we all need...a diptych dial, from the Whipple Museum, Cambridge: our own portable sundial! Brightest wishes!
A great year for nerines! At last...I planted most of these bulbs in 2002. Slugs & snails happily devoured them each autumn until 2024, when I fended them off with grit & nets. This year, early drought saved their glory! Do you grow them?
November 18, 2025 at 2:25 PM
A great year for nerines! At last...I planted most of these bulbs in 2002. Slugs & snails happily devoured them each autumn until 2024, when I fended them off with grit & nets. This year, early drought saved their glory! Do you grow them?
Sorry! A fine R4TheVerb expires 4.54 pm Tues-Quick! Ian McMillan hosts Sinead Morrissey, with a luminous R.S.Thomas poem, @profdavidmorley.bsky.social with his perfect ear for insects, Daniel Sluman & new anthology 'Versus Versus',Arthur Sze, US Laureate, with wise & spacious poems.LINK IN COMMENTS
November 18, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Sorry! A fine R4TheVerb expires 4.54 pm Tues-Quick! Ian McMillan hosts Sinead Morrissey, with a luminous R.S.Thomas poem, @profdavidmorley.bsky.social with his perfect ear for insects, Daniel Sluman & new anthology 'Versus Versus',Arthur Sze, US Laureate, with wise & spacious poems.LINK IN COMMENTS
It was a delight to answer the skilfully-chosen literary questions of @mathewlyons.bsky.social! Would you like to discover (or rediscover) 'National Velvet'? Deplore my taste for ridiculous 1940s detective drama (with a cool unlikely heroine called Steve)? Find new poetry recommendations? Read on...
New on the Writer’s Bookshelf this morning: eight questions about writers, books, and reading with the wonderful @abrackenbury.bsky.social.
The writer's bookshelf: Alison Brackenbury
Eight questions about writers, books, and reading…
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 3:52 PM
It was a delight to answer the skilfully-chosen literary questions of @mathewlyons.bsky.social! Would you like to discover (or rediscover) 'National Velvet'? Deplore my taste for ridiculous 1940s detective drama (with a cool unlikely heroine called Steve)? Find new poetry recommendations? Read on...
Killed in action... 28 April, 1915... somewhere in France.' That was all that was known of my Great-Uncle's death by his family, in 1919, or by me when I wrote my prose book, 'Village'. Now I know more! I've written a Word document about Arthur's story,including moving local newspaper articles.
November 17, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Killed in action... 28 April, 1915... somewhere in France.' That was all that was known of my Great-Uncle's death by his family, in 1919, or by me when I wrote my prose book, 'Village'. Now I know more! I've written a Word document about Arthur's story,including moving local newspaper articles.