Peter Parker

@TheTLS Ackerley Prize 2025 shortlist announced. Catherine Coldstream, Cloistered @ChattoBooks Clair Wills, Missing Persons (@AllenLaneBooks) Jeff Young, Wild Twin (@LittleToller) Join us @Foyles on 23 July 2025 at 7.00pm foyles.co.uk/events/tls-ack… @michaelscaines @claire_harman

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hopes seem hardly worth having, just mount a bicycle and go for a good spin down the road, without thought of anything but the ride you are taking.” Arthur Conan Doyle, died 7 July 1930

“I am thirty this day. I felt a certain irritation upon receiving congratulatory letters from the Hutton girls, for one thing I can never remember theirs. They told me of poor Kathleen Hutton, dead at nineteen.” Beatrix Potter, 28 July 1896

“The young man rushed into the red-gold over-ripe corn and shouted to the girls, ‘Now, you just turn your backs.’ He fumbled about, evidently pulling down his trunks and drying between his legs... but I saw them both turn round and stare too.” Denton Welch, 27 July 1943

“At dusk we viewed the view and the searchlights. Hardy, standing outside one the windows, had to put a handkerchief over his head.” Arnold Bennett dines with Thomas Hardy and J.M. Barrie, 25 July 1917 #arnoldbennett #thomashardy #jmbarrie

Many congratulations to Jeff Young on winning the 2025 #TLSAckerleyPrize for his wonderful memoir ‘Wild Twin’. And thanks to all three shortlisted authors for writing such marvellous books and making last night’s prize event such a success. Please buy and read all three books.

“People will say anything to appear interesting.” Olivia Manning, died 23 July 1980 #oliviamanning

Tomorrow night at @Foyles – @PParkerWriting in conversation with the shortlisted authors for this year's @TheTLS Ackerley Prize (Catherine Coldstream, Clair Wills and Jeff Young).. foyles.co.uk/events/tls-ack…

O how familiar it is, this little room! Once here, by the door, stood a sofa. . . . Somewhere all these old sticks of furniture Must still be knocking about. . . . I would have never Believed those seven days could last forever. — Cavafy tr. Lawrence Durrell Yannis Tsarouchis

“Some homosexuals are born queer, some become queer and some have queerness thrust upon them. For various reasons those in the latter two groups will always live in a kind of private hell.” Robert Pitman, Daily Express, 22 July 1964 #gutterjournalism #queerhistory #dailyexpress

“And so it was I entered the broken world, To trace the visionary company of love, its voice An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled) But not for long to hold each desperate choice.” Hart Crane, born 21 July 1899 #hartcrane #poem

“Each narrow cell in which we dwell Is a foul and dark latrine, And the fetid breath of living Death Chokes up each grated screen, And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity’s machine.” Oscar Wilde finishes writing ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’, 20 July 1897 #oscarwilde

“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.” William Makepeace Thackeray, born 18 July 1811 #thackeray #writing

“The Anschluss, Guernica? all the names At which those poets thrilled or were afraid For me mean schools and headmasters and games; And in the process someone is betrayed.” Donald Davie, born 17 July 1922 #donalddavie #poem

“The guns spell money’s ultimate reason In letters of lead on the spring hillside. But the boy lying dead under the olive trees Was too young and too silly To have been notable to their important eye. He was a better target for a kiss.” Stephen Spender, died 16 July 1995

“My hard was on his knees, after a bit. We discussed Sodomy. He said he, finally, thought it was wrong…. We got undressed there, as it was warm. Flesh is exciting, in firelight.” Rupert Brooke recalls seducing Denham Russell-Smith, 10 July 1912 #rupertbrooke #queerhistory

“A bad composition carries its own punishment—contempt and ridicule; a good one excites envy and entails upon its author a thousand mortifications; he finds himself assailed by partial and ill-humoured criticism...” M.G. (‘Monk’) Lewis, born 9 July 1775 #mglewis #gothicnovel

“I admire people who have no sex life, or at least appear to have none, which is why I approve of circumspection, or hypocrisy if you prefer. For sex should be solely an individual’s concern…” James Lees-Milne, 8 July 1971 #jamesleesmilne

“When the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.” William Faulkner, died 6 July 1962

This looks to be good. After the three volumes of Chips Channon, another tombstone set of diaries. Amusing review in @thetimes by @PParkerWriting

'The judges are guided by Ackerley’s own qualities as a writer.' Peter Parker (@PParkerWriting) on the TLS Ackerley prize for autobiography and memoir the-tls.com/lives/the-tls-…