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SAM BLAKE

@samblakebooks.bsky.social

5.9K followers 760 following 1.4K posts

No 1 bestselling Irish crime writer (adult & YA) 💙📚 Chair Society of Authors, views my own. Agent: Simon Trewin https://linktr.ee/SamBlakeBooks

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SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · Jan 27

For anyone new to me, I write thrillers (www.samblakebooks.com 😊 #TheKillingSense No 1 bestseller, out now! 🎉) I founded Europe's biggest writing resources website @writing.ie, Ireland's International Crime Writing Festival @murderonefest.bsky.social & run a fab online writers group, Writers Ink 💙📚

Sam Blake on stage at Murder One with the red and black festival banner behind her. She's sitting in a red leather Chesterfield armchair and speaking to the audience. Sam has red hair and tortoiseshell glasses and is wearing a black and white striped shirt.

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Author Krishna Prasanth Guttikonda @krishna-author.bsky.social · 13h

#booksky
#bluesky
#blacksky

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SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 13h

That's gorgeous!

SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 13h

2nd event: Packed house for Prof Marie Cassidy, Andrea Mara & Catherine Ryan Howard at the Riverbank Arts Centre. Lots of laughs & fabulous insights into process and quite a lot on murdering people...

1st pic by Ger Holland. Books are on sale via Woodbine Books & they have lots of signed copies!

Sam Blake, Andrea Mara and Catherine Ryan Howard with Professor Marie Cassidy (Ireland's state pathologist, now bestselling fiction writer) against a green wall full of gold signatures

On stage: Sam Blake far left, sitting beside Marie Cassidy, Andrea Mara is laughing. On the far right Catherine Ryan Howard is listening intently . I have no idea what I was saying!

SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 13h

Two fab events today at @kildarereaders.bsky.social, 1st: debuts w Roisin O'Donnell & Brendan Mac Evilly- Roisin's Nesting was longlusted for the Women's Prize & Brendan's Deep Burn was launched this week! Copies at @woodbinebooks.bsky.social -do order, brilliantly original & beautifully written 🔥

Very blurry photo of Sam Blake, Roisin O'Donnell and Brendan Mac Evilly wearing headset mics, about to go on stage

Cover of Sunday Times bestseller Nesting - a black and white picture of the sea and rocks with a mother comforting a child far right. Title and blurb flashes are in a fabulous bright pink.

Sam Blake's hand holding a copy of Brendan's Deep Burn - the cover is a glorious red and cream chequered board with significant images from the book hand drawn in each square

Deep Burn has flaps! Text inside the cover says: in a small seaside village in South Kerry, Martha Knox develops an unlikely career burning emotionally charged objects and photographing the results. Her clients travel from far and wide with things they want destroyed... buy the book to get the rest!!

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Raven Books @ravenbooks.bsky.social · 1d

👇Happening tomorrow!

Raven Books @ravenbooks.bsky.social · 7d

A fabulous initiative from Blackrock Councillor @marthafanning.bsky.social - next Saturday at Urban Junction (just up the road from us) 👻🎃🧙‍♀️

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Miss Ann Thrope 🇬🇧🇹🇹 @ltellenripley.bsky.social · 2d

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SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 1d

Ooof.

Kit Yates @kityates.bsky.social · 1d

"Well it was nice while it lasted. We had an unprecedented 10 months of low and stable Covid levels in England - but this is now over. We are seeing a definite, significant wave of Covid infections across England."

England is now experiencing a significant Covid wave, after 10 months of relative quiet

The latest Covid situation in England and a look at where NHS services are as we head into winter

christinapagel.substack.com

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Simon McGarr @tupped.bsky.social · 2d

In 67AD the Emperor Nero entered as a competitor to the Olympic Games. He competed in a number of events, most of which he had made up, and then declared himself the winner of each.

The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · 2d

Norway braces for Trump’s reaction if he does not win Nobel peace prize

Norwegian Nobel Committee said before Gaza deal was agreed that it had reached a decision about 2025 laureate

www.irishtimes.com

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omg spees @spees.bsky.social · 2d

okay I'm almost done with the second book in @maryrobinettekowal.com's Lady Astronaut series and I cannot recommend it enough to all you incident response and human factors nerds

the first book had me hooked from page one, which is a rare thing for me:
bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel

A Lady Astronaut Novel

bookshop.org

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dr. caitlin m. green @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social · 2d

the portland chicken guy 🥰

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 2d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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Hazel Pinner @hazelmpinner.bsky.social · 2d

@louiestowell.bsky.social my class had personal reading time and I went out to the class library to discover a child being introduced to Loki by another classmate and has now started the 1st book on that recommendation! 🙌 This kid is going to love Loki! #UKKidLit #BookChat #EduSky #ScoEdu

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SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 2d

🤔

Jamie Smart @jamiesmart.bsky.social · 2d

I will never understand American names.

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Alastair Horne @pressfuturist.bsky.social · 2d

You’d think the education minister might be busy dealing with this crisis rather than spending all their time fishing for a promotion, but no.

bsky.app/profile/prem...

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 2d

UK Universities cut 12,000 jobs, more on the way.

40% of Unis in financial crisis.

Major exporter destroyed by successive govts

Obstacles for foreign students.
Low fees in England, lack of govt funding.
£267bn student debt.
Home student numbers down.

How will the UK compete with other nations?

Thousands more university jobs cut as financial crisis deepens

University workers will vote on national strike action this month over a 1.4% pay offer made in the summer.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 2d

I am dealing with a “thorny problem” right now, today. It is hard and scary because IT IS ALWAYS HARD AND SCARY. But it is also where you do your best work. It is where stories go from “meh” to “WOW”. When I fix it - because that is the job - I will be that much closer to something worth reading.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 3d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Chris Packham @chrisgpackham.bsky.social · 2d

Amber in the shadows . Thanks to @BELLEGREENWICH for this morning's #FoxOfTheDay

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 3d

Many congratulations to my colleagues in the Forms of Labour project team on the publication of their new monograph! 🗃️👏🎉

Brilliantly, The Experience of Work in #EarlyModern England is available open access:

www.cambridge.org/core/books/e...

news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-h...

A woman’s place was not in the home: New book challenges assumptions about women’s work in early modern history

New research has revealed that women played a fundamental role in the development of England’s national economy before 1700. Far from being the unpaid homemakers and housewives of traditional historic...

news.exeter.ac.uk

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SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 2d

👇👇👇

The Times & Sunday Times @thetimes.com · 2d

Leo warns of the dangers of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of ‘junk’ information in a post-truth world

Pope tells journalists to fight back against the ‘art of lying’

Leo warns of the dangers of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of ‘junk’ information in a post-truth world

www.thetimes.com

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 2d

The one and only Sword Dragon.

Fossil found on UK coast is unique 'sword dragon' species

Scientists say the newly discovered species of marine reptile probably met a grisly end.

www.bbc.com

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 2d

"The best way to read him would be with all your devices on the other side of a locked door."

Me on Nobel literature laureate László Krasznahorkai, a writer who "fits into the Nobel mould so fully that if he didn’t exist, the committee would have had to make him up."

Who is Laszlo Krasznahorkai, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature?

Everything you need to know about this year’s winner and his apocalyptically gloomy novels

www.thetimes.com

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Louie Stowell @louiestowell.bsky.social · 2d

I absolutely loved Spirit Warriors! Ashley writes incredible adventure fantasy stories, and I love how he asks questions about what it means to be a hero - and embedding heroes in a collective, not idolising the Single Hero. #KidsBooksFriday

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Marianne Doherty @mariannedoherty.bsky.social · 2d

With the IBC Excluded Voices report making for sober reading this week, let’s use #KidsBooksFriday to celebrate brilliant books from global majority writers.
#KidLitUK #UKKidLit #KidLit

www.inclusivebooksforchildren.org/excluded-voi...

Book cover for Spirit Warriors by Ashley Thorpe

Book cover for Nush and the Stolen Emerald by Jasbinder Bilan

Book cover for Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past by Maisie Chan

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SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 2d

🤣🤣 Love this!

🇮🇪🏳️‍🌈🩶AndreUh @andreacannady.bsky.social · 2d

I read"Three Little Birds" as fast as possible... Loved it so much. and now I really want to do facial reconstruction sculpture in my art class tomorrow. My beginner art class. I... Don't think my teacher will appreciate this... 😆

SAM BLAKE @samblakebooks.bsky.social · 2d

Oh wow thank you!! So delighted that you enjoyed it!! Finding a skull for your class could be tricky!!! 🤣🤣

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d

Here’s a primer on ‘primer.’

It’s pronounced ‘PRIMM-er’ if you mean “a small book” or “a short informative piece of writing.”

It’s pronounced ‘PRY-mer’ if you mean “an initial coat of paint.”

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Zeyi Yang 杨泽毅 @zeyiyang.bsky.social · 2d

And I really really enjoyed writing this opening lol

A screenshot of the first two paragraphs of the article, which reads: "The following sentence might make a globalist cry out for joy: A toy that is manufactured by a Chinese company in Vietnamese factories, designed by a Dutch artist in Belgium, inspired by indie toy culture in Hong Kong, and made viral thanks to a Thai K-pop star, has turned into the biggest Gen-Z cultural trend of 2025.

That abomination of a sentence is the story of Labubu, the creepy-cute stuffed monster that swept the world this summer. You must have seen the trend by now, but most people are still unaware of the global, decade-long story that led up to it. Last week, I published a feature story about my journey into the heart of Labubu, how this cultural mania moment was created, and where it may go from here."

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