Claire Dean

eBay users! Don't ignore today's email, even though it looks like a boring standard update to the User Privacy Notice. They want to use your data to train AI models. If you click the link over the words "the right to object", it takes you to a page with a toggle button letting you opt out.

SoA members, if you haven't filled in the feedback form, here it is

Some more useful reading for you here @societyofauthors.bsky.social from the always insightful Arundhati Roy:

As a marginalised author, how does it help me when thieves tell me they're being 'inclusive' as I'm being robbed? There's no purpose to your charter other than saying to thieves, "We understand you want to steal. Here's some social justice terms to dress up your theft with." It's worse than useless.

Dear @societyofauthors.bsky.social there is no ethical use of AI. Please read: www.amnestyusa.org/reports/unla...

We were in beautiful Silverdale for #MorecambeBaySketchClub today.

Found myself a sea staff on the beach yesterday

Great to see M. John Harrison on the Booker shortlist. We were honoured to have him contribute to A Personal Anthology, picking and introducing a dozen favourite short stories, with some writers you'll expect, some you won't and some you just love to see: apersonalanthology.com/category/m-j...

I've shared this before. It was set up by my friend Tori after a hospice cared so well for her husband Richard. Re-sharing in memory of my wonderful mother-in-law who received hospice care at home this last week. Hospices are so vital, please sign & share: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

I've shared this before. It was set up by my friend Tori after a hospice cared so well for her husband Richard. Re-sharing in memory of my wonderful mother-in-law who received hospice care at home this last week. Hospices are so vital, please sign & share: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

Loved Christa Gattringer's practical workshop on making her K2 book covers at #ARA2026. I accidentally left two bits unfolded in my first attempt but I quite like the fact the book ended up with wings!

Today, I feel like I achieved peak conservator-conferencing by using a handy free nail kit (thank you Ancestry exhibition stand) in a great workshop on remoistenable repair tissues by Lou Blackmore from TNA #ARA2026

Niche post, but this was such a satifying tear repair on fragile 100-year-old tracing paper at work today (remoistenable microfibrillated cellulose film with gelatine - it will be pretty much invisible from the front) #conservation

When the story of why humanity didn't stop climate change is written, it will feature front pages like this. Even as the skies blacken with climate change-induced wildfires, right wing media continue their relentless crusade against measures to tackle it.

My friends' daughter made me this lego Claire and I think she captured me perfectly ❤️. I had no idea you could get lego heads with hearing aids!!

#MorecambeBay looking beautiful (and feeling lovely on my toes)

So we’ve been cooking up some thoughts on Gen AI at @amnesty.org and I’m ecstatic to finally see it out in the world! Our 🗝️ conclusion: standalone gen AI systems, built on unlawful web scraping, constitute mass invasions of privacy by design & should be prohibited www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...

This is an excellent resource:

Very excited to have made it onto the letters page of this week's New Statesman. I think this means I'm a proper grown up now! #MorecambeBay

A bit of boat washed up on the beach in Morecambe yesterday carring barnacles. If you look very closely, you can see it has also become a kind of photograph of seaweeds over time. #MorecambeBay #AlternativePhotography

If you're in the UK, please consider signing and sharing this petition set up by a friend whose husband died last year. He received wonderful hospice care and it made a huge difference to him, her and their two young children. Proper funding is needed. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

If you're in the UK, please consider signing and sharing this petition set up by a friend whose husband died last year. He received wonderful hospice care and it made a huge difference to him, her and their two young children. Proper funding is needed. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

Two of my favourite short story collections of all time by indie presses on #indiepressday #indiepress by @dumb-belles.bsky.social and @clairedean.bsky.social

1/ Spotted a yellow leg flag on a Curlew? Please share the sighting with us, as this could be one of our headstarted birds. 😀 Report via bit.ly/ReportACurlew #Ornithology #WorldCurlewDay

Finding it quite hard to readjust to normal life after a wonderful scholarship week living and writing in a library @gladlib.bsky.social

Peepshows, paper theatres and zoetropes at the Bowes Museum (got to introduce my 19-year-old to some lovely old plastic View-Masters too!)

Lepus leaping. From the Aratea, a 9th-century manuscript on astronomy featuring constellations comprised of words. More here: https://buff.ly/34uIsEa

Ok, with the new book properly underway, I guess I'm going to embrace 'narrative art' as a description for...[waves hand]. www.simongroth.com/marginalia/2...

A wet and windy #MorecambeBaySketchClub at Half Moon Bay

First commute of 2026 (miraculously there are still trains to Barrow today despite them seemingly going nowhere else!) #MorecambeBay

An attempt at drawing the last of the light #Morecambe #Solstice

Lantern parade in the rain #Morecambe

#MorecambeBay

Sketching stone on stone paper at #MorecambeBaySketchClub today

Sand patterns

In the attic at Salts Mill, Bradford

My new short story colllection The Building Inspector is now available from @nightjarpress.bsky.social on nightjarpress.weebly.com

It was an absolute joy to be at the launch of Myriam Frey's (@dustynewrose.bsky.social 's) first collection, 'The Building Inspector', published by the indomitable @nightjarpress.bsky.social

A podcast has just been released of my story 'Feather Girls' read by MyAnna Buring: wordtheatre.org/weekly/

October commute

Barrow looking beautiful on my dinnertime wander yesterday.

At my dayjob in an archive today, workmen started bringing me the retro rubbish they found in the loft, including a 1960s fag packet and a 1990s coke can. There was also a 1980s page 3 (not pictured 😂)

Drawing the seaweed pools on Hest Bank Wharf at today's #MorecambeBaySketchClub

Moved my eldest for university yesterday. He's still in the north but right across at the other side 😭

This is a bit exciting :) Tickets available here: www.brasseriezedel.com/events/wordt...

Sometimes my dayjob brings niche excitements, like how ridiculously happy I was to get a reduction in rat wee staining with minimal moisture migration using low cost, cut-to-size gellan gum gel yesterday.

Thrilled that an old story of mine 'Feather Girls' is being performed at this event!

Pls stop what you are doing and read this entire report on Israel's murder of journalist Anas al-Sharif and five colleagues in Gaza City. "He characterized Israel’s threats as 'Silence or Death,' and he vowed not to be silent." It ends with his final message. www.dropsitenews.com/p/anas-al-sh...