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Katherine Stansfield

@kstansfield.bsky.social

340 followers 230 following 82 posts

Reader, writer, cat fan. Historical fiction, crime fiction, weird fiction, poems. I'm one half of D. K. Fields (fantasy crime series) & co-editor of Bending The Arc: A Thrutopian Magazine which imagines thriving & liveable futures into being

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Katherine Stansfield @kstansfield.bsky.social · Apr 15

NEWS! I've been hard at work with a fantastic group of fellow writers making a new online magazine about thrutopias. BENDING THE ARC launches 22nd April! Our aim is to write thriving, desirable futures into being. Pls subscribe & share!

bendingthearcmagazine.substack.com

Bending The Arc | Bending The Arc Magazine | Substack

publishing stories, poems and features that bend the arc of the possible towards a thriving future on Earth. Click to read Bending The Arc, a Substack publication.

bendingthearcmagazine.substack.com

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Tolka @tolkajournal.bsky.social · 14h

Submissions for Tolka Issue Eleven are now open until 6 November. We publish all kinds of non-fiction – essays, memoir, reportage, autofiction and the things that fall in between.
Full submission guidelines here www.tolkajournal.org/submit

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

University of Wales Press @uniwalespress.bsky.social · 2d

*Vacancy - Chair of Advisory Board (Voluntary)*

UWP is seeking to appoint a new Chair to the Advisory Board, responsible for ensuring the Board functions effectively in supporting our mission, vision and strategic objectives.

For more information, visit: www.uwp.co.uk/app/uploads/...

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Tania Hershman 🏳️‍🌈 @taniahershman.bsky.social · 4d

Do you have "Fear of Physics"? Let me cure you at my Zoom writing workshop, When Physics & Fairy Tales Collide, Mon Oct 20 7-9pm UK! We'll play with weird & wonderful physics words, celebrate female physicists and invent particles! Pay-what-you-can available: app.tickettailor.com/events/tania...

A screenshot where the top half of the screen has white writing on a green background, and it says When Physics and Fairy Tales Collide - Zoom Writing Workshop
Mon 20 Oct 2025 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM BST
Online, Zoom. Underneath is a picture of different coloured brightly lit lines, and the text: "Physics is philled with galaxies of inspiration for writers of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and hybrids, from delicious terms like 'charmed quark', 'gluon', 'boojum', 'superstring' and the 'luminiferous aether' to mysterious and magical concepts such as 'dark' energy', 'parallel universes' and 'quantum gravity". Writers have been using fairy tales as inspiration for centuries, borrowing characters, structures and general fairytaleishness. What might result from the collision of these two universes? Let's experiment, creating physics fairy tales, naming our own subatomic particles, and inviting Snow White, Goldilocks and all the dwarves into the lab!" On the right it says: When Physics and Fairy Tales Collide - Zoom Writing Workshop
Mon 20 Oct 2025 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM BST
Online, Zoom.

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Katherine Stansfield @kstansfield.bsky.social · 2d

There's a TV version of the same ad which is much clearer. Odd to just transpose it between such different media.

Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Paul McGrane @paulmcgrane.bsky.social · 2d

Got a poem about Weather (and/or its soundalike Whether)?
The Waltham Forest Poetry Competition, judged by the fabulous Lorraine Mariner invites you to send poems on the theme of WEATHER/WHETHER.
Hurry though. Closing date is MONDAY 20 OCTOBER.
www.bit.ly/wfpoetrycomp

2025 Waltham Forest Poetry Competition: WEATHER / WHETHER

Enter the Waltham Forest Poetry Competition

www.bit.ly

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

LSE Library @lselibrary.bsky.social · 2d

New online: The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) collection is now available on LSE Digital Library! We’ve digitised and published the GLF Diaries and the GLF newspaper Come Together. Further series from the archives will be added as digitisation continues.
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digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/...

Cover image of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) Diary, December 21-30, 1972. A purple and green poster-style image featuring text and a leafy plant design.

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 6d

Are you free on the evening of December 16th? 🎄 Join me for this masterclass all about finding multiple (infinite?) ways in to the same subject matter. We’ll write a ridiculous amount of poems in 2 hours…with brand new exercises ⁦‪‬⁩
www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

Masterclass: Infinite Ways in to Writing Poems | Tackling big subjects with wonder | Arvon

For the third year running, with all new prompts and exercises, Arvon favourite Caroline Bird returns for our final Masterclass of the year, which promises to be a bolt of creativity to kick-start som...

www.arvon.org

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Faber Books @faberbooks.bsky.social · 3d

Introducing The Log Books, an intimate history of LGBTQ+ life over four decades, discovered in a stash of forgotten, handwritten notes.

'Bursting with humanity and real life on every page.' Dan Snow

Out January 2026: linktr.ee/TheLogBooks
Photo credits: Switchboard Archive, Bishopsgate Institute

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

British Association for Romantic Studies @bars.bsky.social · 6d

The BARS President’s Fellowship is open to scholars from Black, Indigenous and other minority ethnic backgrounds working on any aspect of Romantic Studies to support research, teaching and/or public outreach expenses of up to £1500. Deadline 7th Nov 2025.
www.bars.ac.uk/main/index.p...

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Lynda Clark @lyndac.bsky.social · 9d

We're seeking a prose writer to cover my colleague's research leave. Academia as a whole is a shit show but we're a friendly team in a lovely department and as a part-timer you'd still have writing time. Imagine that! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOY206/t...

Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing (Prose) at The University of Edinburgh

Looking for a new job opportunity in academia? Check out this job opening for a Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing (Prose) on jobs.ac.uk!

www.jobs.ac.uk

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 10d

Friends, with the world on fire, it feels useless to be here selling my services. But I do need to keep the lights on, and the #maps pay the bills.

So...if you need a map(s) for a book project, let me know! I have space for new commissions.

Here are a few of my favorite maps I've done lately:
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Grayscale map of the Atlantic showing most of the Americas, Europe, and Africa. There are arrows showing the direction of trade, and each arrow has at least one number attached to it. The numbers match a key on the side that lists the products being traded and their place of origin. There are 15 different sets of commodities listed:
1:Midlands & Birmingham: Guns, Gunpowder, Metalware, Silks
2: Liverpool & Lancashire: Cotton-linens
3: Lancashire: Linens, Cottons, Cotton-linens
4: India: Cottons Cowries
5: Midlands & London: Metalware, Silks, Ceramics, Glassware, Guns
6: London & Glasgow: Credit, Shipping Insurance
7: New England: Beef & Pork, Fish, Rum, Wood, Whale products
8: Mid-Atlantic: Grain
9: Chesapeake Colonies: Tobacco
10: Carolinas, Rice, Indigo
11: Caribbean: Sugar, Molasses
12: Brazil: Coffee
13: Brazil: Gold
14: Mexico / Peru: Silver
15: Britain: Grain, Manufactures

The map has a set of grey arrows going from West Africa to the Americas showing the number of enslaved workers transported. The arrows are sized relative to the numbers. The largest arrow shows 6 million enslaved workers going to the Caribbean. 3.5 million went to Africa, 650,000 to the Spanish colonies in Central and South America, and 400,000 to North America.

A key in the bottom right lists a set of African kingdoms that participated in the selling of enslaved workers, including Benin, the Oyo Empire, Dahomey, the Ashanti Confederacy, the Kingdom of Allada, the Kingdom of Whydah, and the Nupe people. These kingdoms are outlined on the map.

Greyscale drawing of a floor plan of what looks like the first floor of a house, with ten rooms and a flight of stairs. The title at the bottom reads: "The Magic Bookshop." There are two exterior doors: a front door and a back door. The floor plan is on a tattered piece of paper that looks as if it is being unrolled from the top, so there is a curl of paper, or a scroll, at the bottom. Around the floor plan are four animals. A cat, labeled Angel, is resting on top of floor plan, dangling a paw down. To her left is a huntsman spider named Drusilla. At the bottom of the page on the left is a golden retriever named Willow, sitting behind the scroll like a good boy. On the right side is a cat named Spike, who is sitting on top of the scroll and crushing it like an jerk. Typical dog and cat stuff. There are four piles of books around the outside of the floor plan: two large, and two small

From top left down in a switchback pattern, the rooms are labeled:
Yellow: Books with gold covers
Possibility: Mystery, Crime (where they do the spell)
Exeunt Omnes: Older books (where Kennedy finds the magic book)
The Office (where hazel makes tea)
Bathroom
Gurgler: Sci-fi, Fantasy (where Hazel goes to hide out)
The Scriptorium: More modern books (where Hazel sends Luke to find a book for his niece)
Taboo
The Fishbowl: Romance (where Luke makes a pink and purple bookcase)
Pooh Corner: Children, Young adult (where Bob has his armchair and the silent book club happens)

A label in the central hallway reads: "(where they put a bookcase for Today's Donations). Another label on the stairs reads "Hazel's loft apartment" and there is an arrow pointing up the stairs.

Art. A greyscale map of southern Africa showing different biomes. The map map key indicates 7 different biomes: Succulent Karoo; Fynbos; Albany Thicket; India Ocean Coastal Belt; Mixed Woodland; Grassland; Nama-Karoo; and Kalahari Savanna. Each is represented on the may by a different shade of grey, with areas of more rainfall being darker, and areas of less rainfall being lighter. Several of the rivers are labeled, as is the Indian Ocean.

Art. Colored map showing the locations of Alderely Edge, done in a fantasy style. The map is drawn to look like an old map done on parchment, with torn edges curling up. Two bars with ribbons wrapped around them form a frame at the top and right sides of the map. The ribbon on top is blue, the one on the right is a dusty red. On the right side of the map, between the frame and the edge, the map is colored turquoise and does not show any land forms. Written in large vertical letters in this space is the maps' title: "The Edge".

The main part of the map is cut with forests and cliffs, and has 13 locations noted. Each location name is in a small frame that looks like a torn piece of parchment. Two roads cut across the map, one labeled Macclesfield Road and the other labeled Artists Lane. They meet in the bottom 3rd of the map by a location called "The Wizard Tearoom." An arrow at the top left points up one of the roads and has a label reading "to Alderely Edge (village). An arrow a the other end of the road, at the bottom of th emap, reads: "To Macclesfield."

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Katherine Stansfield @kstansfield.bsky.social · 13d

I'm a big fan of Ellis Peters' Cadfael novels. Book 1, A Morbid Taste for Bones, is a great insight into monastic life, the role of religious institutions in day to day life, and the veneration of the saints. I also love The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader

Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 15d

Will is one of the best people I know to talk to about poetry: £20 for 2 hours of his time is a bargain

Clare Pollard @poetclare.bsky.social · 15d

Shocked to discover we still have places for this online workshop with WILL HARRIS next Thursday. 2hr session, small group, fun exercises - join him for some rule breaking! £20
#poetry #winchesterpoetry

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/canon-or-c...

Canon or Cannon?: online workshop with Will Harris

What happens when new rules in poetry are invented? Find out in this online workshop. As part of Winchester Poetry Festival 2025.

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 21d

Calling Scottish #writers!

Apply for the 2026 Scottish Writing Fellowship at the @universityofotago.bsky.social’s Centre for Irish & Scottish Studies in Aotearoa New Zealand, from 1 Aug–30 Sept 2026. Includes flights, accommodation & stipend. Deadline 31 Oct!
#writing
www.otago.ac.nz/ciss

Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies

The Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies provides an opportunity to study the literature, history, politics and culture of Ireland and Scotland – and of the Irish and Scottish diasporas – over the pa...

www.otago.ac.nz

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 21d

I'm starting the reading for my upcoming online book group, 'Reading Like A Writer', which kicks off on Thurs 9th Oct with Catherine Lacey's BIOGRAPHY OF X - described by the Guardian as “an impressive and enchantingly strange novel”. A few places left - details here: victoriamackenzie.net/teaching/

Photo of book, BIOGRAPHY OF X by Catherine Lacey.

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 23d

And hey, as it happens there's a gap in the Personal Anthology schedule THIS FRIDAY – so if you love short stories and feel like you could pick and introduce a dozen and get to me Thursday, then just let me know!

Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 23d

What me, lazy? I've just updated the apersonalanthology.com website with @gabrielflynn.bsky.social's excellent pick of a dozen favourite short stories. Check them out here!

A Personal Anthology

Writers, critics and others dream-edit a personal anthology of their favourite short stories

apersonalanthology.com

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

RJ Barker @rjbarker.bsky.social · 27d

Opportunity here for a writer on a low income to get access to a nine week novel writing course taught by the great @silvanhistorian.bsky.social

www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/course/break...

Breakthrough Scholarship for Fantasy Writers with Low Income

This scholarship will award one talented speculative writer with limited financial means a place on our new nine-week online Writing Fantasy course.

www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk

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Arachne Press @arachnepress.bsky.social · 27d

We are preparing a new UK/RoI #queerpoetry anthology. Up//Roar: Poems of Queer Resistance.
call out is live until 1st Nov. arachnepress.submittable.com/submit/33689...
pls share with any #queerpoets you know
@hazardpressuk.bsky.social is editing with me
@mxfrankduffy.bsky.social is doing cover

cartoony rather sad looking pink tiger face

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Helen Grant @helengrantsays.bsky.social · 27d

If you are ever in a fantasy novel and meet a handsome prince who's been turned into a magpie, DON'T KISS HIM.
I just saw one on the back lawn, eating dog poop.

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 27d

It's Friday morning, and if it's not quite the weekend yet, it soon will be... which means A PERSONAL ANTHOLOGY! This week's guest editor, picking and introducing a dozen favourite short stories, is Amanthi Harris.

Hitting inboxes at 2pm. Sign up here if you don't already, RT if you do!

About - A Personal Anthology

A weekly guest-editor picks and introduces a personal anthology of twelve favourite short stories. Click to read A Personal Anthology, by Jonathan Gibbs, a Substack publication with thousands of subsc...

apersonalanthology.substack.com

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

British Centre for Literary Translation @bcltuea.bsky.social · 29d

📣 Applications are OPEN for BCLT Translators-in-Residence 2026! ✨ We're offering two BCLT translation residencies for UK-based literary translators.

Find out more: www.uea.ac.uk/groups-and-c...

#LiteraryTranslation #Translation #CallForTranslators

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Reposted by Katherine Stansfield

Hellebore @helleborezine.bsky.social · 29d

Ready for a new issue? Pre-orders for The Mirror Issue are now open worldwide! ✨🪞✨

Mirror magic, ritual masks, films that cast a spell, doppelgängers and fetches, changelings, evil portraits, spirit traps and much more.

👉🏼 helleborezine.com

Cover of Hellebore: The Mirror Issue, showing a woman with eyes closed and her reflections in two mirrors, both with open eyes

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Small Publishers Fair @smallpublishers.bsky.social · 29d

Small Publishers Fair returns to London's Conway Hall
next month, with 66 UK & international publishers, a special exhibition, and readings & talks. More details soon.

Fri 24 & Sat 25 October (11am-7pm)
FREE, all welcome
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL smallpublishersfair.co.uk

Promotional card for the 2025 Small Publishers Fair, with a full list of the 66 participating artists and publishers. Full details at https://smallpublishersfair.co.uk/publishers-2025/

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Stephen Frost @sfrost.bsky.social · 29d

Almost 900 fewer people have been injured on Welsh roads since the default speed limit was lowered from 30 to 20mph two years ago

Casualties on 20 to 30mph roads between July and September 2024 were the lowest for the three month-period since records began in 1979

👏 Evidence-led policy

Nearly 900 fewer people injured since 20mph introduction in Wales

Figures show a 25% reduction in the number of injuries on Wales' roads in the past 18 months.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Bert’s Books @bertsbooks.bsky.social · Sep 16

I’m having a tidy and have found I’ve got 3 second-hand mystery boxes left. Each one contains 3 hardbacks, used but in good condition.

Want to surprise yourself with one? - Michael

bertsbooks.co.uk/product/seco...

Second Hand Mystery Boxes

I’m having a clear-out – that includes finding new homes for some books that just don’t fit on my shelves anymore. Here’s your chance to get hold of a mystery box of books t…

bertsbooks.co.uk

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