Dr Joanna Nadin
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joannanadin.bsky.social
Dr Joanna Nadin
@joannanadin.bsky.social
2.9K followers 890 following 810 posts
Professor of writing books, Sunday Times bestseller, Essex Girl. Autistic. Never knowingly underdressed. She/her. Here for ALL the witches. And the pigeons.

https://joannanadin.com/
https://instagram.com/jonadin
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joannanadin.bsky.social
Sixth time a charm is… something they never say. But I am over the moon about this. Thank you to the librarians and readers who are championing Birdy, and to the inimitable @foxandinkbooks.bsky.social for their belief in me and all the Mannerings.
The cover of Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of Yes against a blue background with the title ‘Nominated: Carnegie Medals for Writing 2026’
November 3, 2025 at 9:41 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Constantly staggered that we haven’t just hit the ‘Monkey Tennis’ level of commissioning, but long since jumped it. I present: The Velocipastor.
The Velocipastor (film precis): After losing his parents, a priest travels to China, where he inherits a mysterious ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. Although he is horrified by the new power, a sex worker convinces him to use it to fight crime. And ninjas.
October 19, 2025 at 8:40 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Really tired of people pronouncing on em dashes when they can’t even identify one.
em/en dash explainer – EN DASH – (in UK English, typically used as brackets or commas) — EM DASH — (in UK English, used to indicate interrupted speech, with no space before it) And then there’s the little - hyphen - (used for compound words)
October 6, 2025 at 5:16 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Trying to focus on the small brilliant things and today that’s Jesus, the three-legged goat, who is new at my local animal rescue, and who has lost his mum. Everyone take a minute to appreciate goat Jesus.
A black and white goat with three legs looking into the camera. He has horns and a beard. He is a fine goat.
September 29, 2025 at 6:29 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Peak punctuation pedant? Or admirable defender of the underappreciated en dash?
An email reading: Dear Review John Naughton rightfully raises the issue of em dashes in this week’s Review, and whether their proliferation in writing is an AI giveaway. His final flourish is to reveal he has used 11 em dashes in the article. But he hasn’t. He has used, correctly, en dashes (the width of a letter ‘n’). In UK English, em dashes tend to be restricted to fiction, used to indicate interruption in dialogue. En dashes stand in for parentheses or colons. Best wishes Dr Joanna Nadin (writer, editor, proofreader, lover of correctly used en and em dashes)
September 14, 2025 at 5:55 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
La rentrée. Stuck on a number 18 bus because tube strike. Paris but a distant memory already.
A small middle aged woman with reddish curly hair and black oblong framed glasses appears to be crouching in a crowded bus. She is wearing a striped t shirt and green bead necklace and holding a USB. Her face is stoic but slightly pained. Irritated at the heat, the strike, and yet another UTI.
September 8, 2025 at 6:05 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
And this, people, is why you don’t use AI.
An AI overview reading: ‘Ozzy Osbourne, the English singer and media personality, is still alive as of August 18, 2025. He was born on December 3, 1948.’
August 20, 2025 at 6:20 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Could it be these?
Nickel catalysts - small grey octagonal cylinders
June 6, 2025 at 6:45 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
So very pleased to see this beautiful man and his beautiful book out in the world. I would snap the index but it’s utterly filthy and I can’t type all those words out on Alt Text without blushing.
A slim middle aged gay man speaking into a microphone in front of a stack of orange and purple books entitled It Used to Be Witches by Ryan Gilbey. Two middle aged Essex kids. One slim and male in a black short sleeved shirt, one female in a black enormous dress and glasses, with chunkier upper arms than she previously gave herself credit for. They are looking stage left at something unknown.
June 5, 2025 at 7:35 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
May you have an island of strangers… by @michaelrosenyes.bsky.social
I lay in bed hardly able to breathe but there were people to sedate me, pump air into me calm me down when I thrashed around hold my hand and reassure me play me songs my family sent in turn me over to help my lungs shave me, wash me, feed me check my medication perform the tracheostomy people on this ‘island of strangers’ from China, Jamaica, Brazil, Ireland India, USA, Nigeria and Greece. I sat on the edge of my bed and four people came with a frame and supported me or took me to a gym where they taught me how to walk between parallel bars or kick a balloon sat me in a wheel chair taught me how to use the exercise bike how to walk with a stick how to walk without a stick people on this ‘island of strangers’ from China, Jamaica, Brazil, Ireland India, USA, Nigeria and Greece. If ever you’re in need as I was may you have an island of strangers like I had. I lay in bed hardly able to breathe but there were people to sedate me, pump air into me calm me down when I thrashed around hold my hand and reassure me play me songs my family sent in turn me over to help my lungs shave me, wash me, feed me check my medication perform the tracheostomy people on this ‘island of strangers’ from China, Jamaica, Brazil, Ireland India, USA, Nigeria and Greece. I sat on the edge of my bed and four people came with a frame and supported me or took me to a gym where they taught me how to walk between parallel bars or kick a balloon sat me in a wheel chair taught me how to use the exercise bike how to walk with a stick how to walk without a stick people on this ‘island of strangers’ from China, Jamaica, Brazil, Ireland India, USA, Nigeria and Greece. If ever you’re in need as I was may you have an island of strangers like I had.
May 13, 2025 at 8:19 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Singing this since in my head since I woke up.
The shop hoarding at Rough Trade East reading: AND YOU CAN MARK MY WORDS I’LL MAKE TINY CHANGES TO EARTH (the lyrics to a Frightened Rabbit song)
May 9, 2025 at 7:34 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
If you liked The Final Year you will love this. Twice the size, twice the feels, all the beauty. I cried at least three times. An antidote to toxic masculinity and a must read for young boys.
The cover of The First Year by Matt Goodfellow and illustrated by Joe Todd Stanton. It shows four 11-year-old schoolchildren at a desk looking out of a window across a playground at the cityscape behind them.
May 7, 2025 at 6:30 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
I love green things. (Birdy Arbuthnot out on May 15th). Preorder here: mrbsemporium.com/shop/books/b...

Rabbit egg slicer not included
A stack of green books. The cover features a girl in a sixties minidress swinging from a lamppost A green plastic egg slicer about to slice a rabbit-shaped egg
May 1, 2025 at 1:55 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
No YOU just got an academic chapter accepted on representation of 1980s class lines in Rivals.

*does happy dance*
Danny Dyer with a moustache looking like a 1980s golfing middle manager. Also somehow hot.
March 27, 2025 at 2:10 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
‘You’d take me with you… on an adventure?’
‘We are the adventure, Felicity.’

A brilliant mathematician with an aversion to debutante society, a piratical gambling club owner, a suave but dastardly villain, plus all the Aviary faces, and Cambridge. Reader, I laughed, I cried, I swooned.
The covers of Laura Wood’s Agency for Scandal series, the latest, A Game for Scandal, face out on top. It features a blonde white woman with red lips peeking out from under a red hat. The spines of the books are floral with gilt lettering.
March 22, 2025 at 8:57 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
#ProofOfCat This is not my cat. It is Marilyn the neighbourhood eejit, who howls at anyone and everyone to be let in, only to then howl to be let out again. No one knows what she wants, or if she will ever find it.
An orange and white cat yelling through a back door
March 8, 2025 at 8:55 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Went back to my old uni (Hull) to do a guest lecture and had ALL THE FEELS, especially in the old drama dept lighting booth (my home).
A series of lighting connection plugs of black Bakelite attached to blue cable.
March 7, 2025 at 8:54 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
If moths are so excited by bright lights, why aren’t they gallivanting around in the sunshine?
A meme that reads: The Smiths: There is a light that never goes out. Moth: Where?
March 3, 2025 at 3:36 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
On the plus side, it’s meteorological spring! Which I celebrate with extra gusto in the knowledge that somewhere my ex will be losing his shit because ‘it isn’t real spring yet stop talking about spring’. Ha. No.
A bath stone wall against a bright blue sky with a wisp of white cloud. On the wall in red paint are the words ‘I DON’T WANNA WAKE UP…’
March 1, 2025 at 7:34 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this cover, by Anna Morrison who did Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren. Out May 15th but you can preorder a signed and dedicated copy from @mrbsemporium.bsky.social mrbsemporium.com/shop/uncateg...
A drawing of a woman in a pink minidress holding onto to a lamppost against a green background. The title of the book is Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of Yes. The tagline is ‘In Soho anything can happen, and frequently does.’ Back cover blurb reads: ‘1960 is knocking on the door, and eighteen-year-old Margaret ‘Birdy’ Arbuthnot, presently of Surbiton, wants more than her current existence in the dull suburbs. She wants to LIVE – in capital letters! Could Soho, with its bright lights and dark corridors, hold the key to a life more novel-like and less… Surrey? (Even if Mummy thinks it is a square mile of vice, full of men with overly shiny shoes.) At the cusp of the new year, Birdy resolves to only say ‘yes’ to everything for the next twelve months. She can’t possibly realise that her biggest ‘yes’ will launch her directly into the London orbit of the aristocratic Mannering family, and transform her life into one worth writing novels about.’
February 26, 2025 at 10:58 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Repost with the first album you bought with your own money. (On cassette and I wore it out.)
The cover of North of a Miracle by Nick Heyward. It features the side profile of Nick - a young white man with short blond hair - looking up to the left. A guitar is shadowed in the background.
February 23, 2025 at 3:26 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
If you’ve been a musician, loved a musician, or just loved liner notes, then this is for you. A will they/won’t they romance with note-perfect dissections of rock and indie hits set against early 2000s SF and NYC. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow meets Daisy Jones and High Fidelity but better.
The cover of Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley. A red vinyl imprint of a close up of a couple embracing, under which the chapter titles are laid out like track listings.
February 23, 2025 at 6:45 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Super excited to tell you that Waterstones are offering 25% off preorders for Disaster Diaries 2 The Worst Show Ever! this weekend. Contains: a goose magnate, trombones, Colin, a cow called Barbara and apocalypse soup.

Offer runs 22nd - 24th February
Use code PREORDER 25
Only available online
Super excited to tell you that Waterstones are offering 25% off preorders for Disaster Diaries 2 The Worst Show Ever! this weekend. Contains: a goose magnate, best beans, trombones, Colin, a cow called Barbara, apocalypse soup, and much more mayhem. Important information below: 🦅Offer runs 22nd - 24th February 🩰Redeem 25% off RRP at checkout using code PREORDER 25’ 🐧Only available online 🦜Use #WPreorder (Optional)
February 22, 2025 at 6:39 AM
joannanadin.bsky.social
I finished this today and holy feck it’s good. Sharp, hilarious, terrifying. You will question everything you read in it by the end, and everything you ever read henceforth. And if you’re a Bath person, I’ll be chairing Natasha at Mr B’s on March 11th.
A gold bar embossed with the title Universality, tilted diagonally across a black background. Underneath is ‘NATASHA BROWN’ the author’s name in block gold lettering.
February 20, 2025 at 4:34 PM
joannanadin.bsky.social
Currently reading The Best of Everything by @kitdewaal.bsky.social and am at that level of besotted with the writing and with Cornelius that I cannot be responsible for my actions if anything happens to him. Brava, Kit. Just gorgeous.
A book cover divided horizontally into three brightly coloured sections of red, yellow and purple. Two black and white photos of boys appear to run across the cover, one Black with short hair, one white with longer hair.
February 13, 2025 at 7:32 AM