Helen McCarthy
LightNews LightNews
banner
glider.bsky.social
Helen McCarthy
@glider.bsky.social
3.3K followers 1.1K following 7.5K posts
Glider in the night, dancer in the dark, lover of lost rivers and paths in the woods and libraries and half-open doors. Moonlights as a writer.

All images and poems mine unless credited elsewise. AI is only acceptable if it's consensual.
Posts Replies Media Videos
glider.bsky.social
Please share the now complete link for tickets to my book launch and livestream on 3 March. I really appreciate your support, sorry to chop off a vital bit of the link! tinyurl.com/2u9pcjfr
Poster and promo text for the Seed Talks event launching Helen McCarthy's new book The Manga Bible in London and on livestream on 3 March 2026. On the left, the poster is printed in black and white on a cream coloured background. The Seed Talks logo and the title of the talk, in bold black capitals, are centred above a band of manga-style images printed in black. Details of speaker, date and venue are centred in black sentence case type below. To the right is a bullet-point list of information about the event in black type, plus a URL for booking tickets in red.
February 3, 2026 at 4:39 PM
glider.bsky.social
Thanks to everyone who's sharing the news of my book launch! Spreading the word about new books is one of the best things you can do for an author. Buying the book is great, and talking about it is great, and social media shares can add many extra sales!
Poster for the book launch event for The Manga Bible features the book cover and a photo of the author (photo: Megaera Amis) with details of the launch event.
January 20, 2026 at 12:18 PM
glider.bsky.social
In London on 3 March? Why not book a ticket for my book launch? Hear about how - and why - the book came into being, some of the stories it contains, be among the first to get a copy, and if you like I'll sign it!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-manga-...
Poster for the talk "The Manga Bible: History, Hearsay, Facts" gives details of the talk and displays six manga style images, all in black on a pale cream coloured background.
January 20, 2026 at 10:27 AM
glider.bsky.social
Thrilled to receive an advance copy of La Bibbia dei Manga - Gribaudo's Italian edition of The Manga Bible. Many thanks to translator Paolo Silvio Poli for making my work accessible in Italian. #TranslatorsRock
Cover of the Italian edition.
January 8, 2026 at 2:12 PM
glider.bsky.social
Triffic Steve Kyte cover for the UK paperback.
Steve Kyte art showing Tom Baker at lower left
December 29, 2025 at 10:54 PM
glider.bsky.social
Since it is now Christmastide, we broke out the Fortnum
& Mason biscuits with our morning coffee today. We only have Toffolossus in the house at Christmas, because otherwise we'd be skint and the size of two substantial 1930s semi-detached suburban villas. Sin and depravity in biscuit form.
December 22, 2025 at 1:00 PM
glider.bsky.social
#SomethingBeautiful snow edition: this programme is now off BBC iPlayer but you can revel in some of its stunning stills of wild things in the snow.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a...
A portrait shot of the head and shoulders of an adult snow leopard in falling snow. The beautiful animal has a characteristic catlike face with shorter, blunt ears and pale green-golden eyes. its fur shades from white to soft beige with black markings.
December 22, 2025 at 8:59 AM
glider.bsky.social
Not the most constructive way to approach who might win SPOTY, is it? The i Paper's very own front-page own goal nominates a man to "break female dominance" when women and girls have less opportunity and get paid less than men in every field of sport.
December 18, 2025 at 3:40 PM
glider.bsky.social
Oh dear. Found by chance on Amazon: a dozen heavily illustrated books on very varied topics self-published by one guy in about a year. Sounds suspiciously like #AI - of course I could be wrong. Still, anyone who's published on yokai, horror, science of history for 8-12 year olds, check this out.
An advertisement for a new self-published book on Japanese monsters. heavily illustrated and rapidly produced.
December 11, 2025 at 2:40 PM
glider.bsky.social
Our tribute to the ancient pagan gods is now lighting up our halls. Every dinosaur and robot and angel and animal, every bit of laser cut plastic carved wood and fragile blown glass bauble, holds a memory of people and places we love. Wishing you all a joyous Yuletide.
December 8, 2025 at 8:45 AM
glider.bsky.social
Still no justice. But if this photomontage of the unjustly killed, and the names and pictures of all 12 officers who leveraged the glacial
Enquiry to retire before justice found them, went up outside both Anfield and Hillsborough, and stayed there, that would be something.
December 3, 2025 at 2:39 PM
glider.bsky.social
Somewhere people are arguing over whether you put the jam or the cream on the scone first; here it's a case of how highly spiced you want your scone and whether you prefer mango chutney or lime pickle.
November 11, 2025 at 5:18 PM
glider.bsky.social
I love that @irishali13.bsky.social reposted this glorious Chagall sketch. But with my costumer's hat on it takes me back to all the times designers would come into the workroom with one of these and expect us to make it into fully functioning dance costumes that wouldn't slip or reveal all onstage.
Marc Chagall, costumes for 'Daphnis et Chlöe', designed for the Paris Opera Ballet production set to the music of Maurice Ravel and choreographed by George Skibine. A young man and woman sketched in Greek drapery and flower garlands of red, green and purple on a beige ground, with a small figure resembling a satyr wearing a green curly wig with horns and playing a pair of auloi. The aulos is a Greek reed pipe seen in many classical images and often played as a pair, creating the appearance of a single forked instrument unless one looks closely.
October 26, 2025 at 12:38 PM
glider.bsky.social
I remember when The Sun was a real campaigning newspaper - but it still has away with a nudge, a wink and a killer headline.
October 18, 2025 at 1:09 PM
glider.bsky.social
The sheer magic overload of Ryde's #ChristmasImaginarium made me six years old again. Located near the pier and the epic comic shop #FantasticStore - so convenient for carting your shopping back to the ferry!
Fabulous kings and legendary heroes - a whole brigade of nutcracker toys in Ryde's Christmas Imaginarium. The larger nutcracker toys stand on the floor, glittering in uniforms or red and blue and green, with fur shakoe hats or golden crowns. Christmas fantasies of all kinds - gingerbread houses, mechanical toys, oh my! An Angel of Peace amid Santas, robins, snowmen and kings.
October 12, 2025 at 9:03 AM
glider.bsky.social
I just can't get over how beautiful the Bangor coast and countryside are. Or how lovely the people are. Or how good the food is.
A huge old tree in Strickland Glen, many-branched and surrounded by woodland that filters the sunlight into dancing, magical patterns. Gorse in full golden-yellow bloom along the coast, looking down Belfast Lough to the sea on a perfect blue-and-golden day.
October 2, 2025 at 1:28 PM
glider.bsky.social
Hello my darling butterflies - I hope your weekend is as beautiful as it can be and leaves you feeling as contented as these adorable pigs, living the life of Riley at the Ulster Folk Museum.
Two beautiful pigs enjoying the life all pigs should have in their own natural space with water, shelter and lovely mud to wallow in if it gets too hot. The Ulster Folk Museum is home to animals as well as buildings. They live as farm animals used to, in natural surroundings with plenty of space to behave however they like. Pigs are social animals and these two are enjoying another lovely quiet day in an open field with hedges to keep Museum visitors at a distance and food, water and shelter close at hand.
September 27, 2025 at 12:23 PM
glider.bsky.social
Jonathan Freedland's brilliant Guardian opinion piece has this photo and the reminder that #NigelFarage thinks #VladimirPutin is fab and that #LizTruss 's economy wrecker was a great Budget.
#Clacton MP #NigelFarage smiling at the camera and wearing a MAGA baseball cap at a Donald Trump rally in the US on 4 November 2024.
September 20, 2025 at 9:54 PM
glider.bsky.social
This is a good day to watch a film that says don't give in to fascism. Maybe stream it on a big background, like the walls of Windsor Castle?
Japanese poster for Studio Ghibli's film Porco Rosso. the lower half of the image shows a closeup of the cockpit of a scarlet plane with the pilot, a flying ace in beige jacket, white scarf and gloves, flying helmet and goggles on his head and sunglasses over his eyes. He has the face of a pig. He's giving a 'thumbs up' sign with his right hand. behind the plane we see white clouds and the top of the image shows a pure blue sky with the Studio Ghibli logo and name in katakana and Romaji, and the film title in large white letters.
September 17, 2025 at 9:00 AM
glider.bsky.social
Back in the day when ICE stood for something better: Iron Crown Enterprises' Tolkien game books in the Oxfam bookshop, Greenwich.
Two Iron Crown Enterprises Lord of the Rings game books offered for sale in Oxfam's Greenwich bookshop. A list of titles and prices for Iron Crown Enterprises Lord of the Rings books offered in the Ixfam Bookshop, Greenwich. Iron Crown Enterprises (I.C.E) Lord of the Rings game book with vividly painted fantasy cover in Oxfam's charity bookshop, Greenwich.
August 30, 2025 at 2:27 PM
glider.bsky.social
#SomethingBeautiful August is a great month for spotting harvest mice. These endearing rodents, less than 5cm long (though the tail more than doubles that) and weighing just a few grams, survive despite loss of habitat to humans and mechanised farming.

www.rosshoddinott.co.uk/images/uploa...
Two harvest mice on an ear of corn, their tails twined around a second cornstalk behind them for stability. The background is a soft unfocused gold, suggesting a cornfield, but the tiny, agile mice are quite rightly the centre of attention. They gaze out to the top right of the image, alert but not alarmed.
August 20, 2025 at 11:24 AM
glider.bsky.social
Hello my lovely butterflies, just a reminder that you were all born as lovable and adventurous and fascinated by life as this kitten, and on the inside you still are. Love you all.
PHOTO: Beata Miro – www.bemiro.com
Beata Miro – www.bemiro.com - took this photo of a gorgeous black-and-white kitten sitting in a brown wooden tub lined with soft white fabric. Their darling little white paws and black forelegs are resting on the rim of the tub, and their white front is visible under their white chin. Their face is black from just below the nose upwards, and they have beautiful white whiskers and pale green eyes.
August 19, 2025 at 9:48 AM
glider.bsky.social
What a greeting this morning! The garden has drunk in the rain of the last few days and made a rosy rainbow. This inspired today's #haiku over at helenmccarthy51.bsky.social
At bottom right of this picture is a gorgeous spray of soft raspberry Comte de Chambord, a beautiful multpetalled old rose with big, soft green leaves. To the left a chime of bells from penstemon Hidcote Pink, a shade or two softer and streaked inside each bell with baby pink. Bees love them. More of those in the centre of the frame, and spreading above them two sprays of pink-flushed golden Peace roses in full bloom with buds crowding among their glossy dark green leaves. A world of beauty and life on two square metres of London clay.
July 25, 2025 at 10:50 AM
glider.bsky.social
After three nights and early mornings of rain, these gorgeous navy blue petunias in pots on the front doorstep are holding up well.
Navy blue flower trumpets against bright green leaves - rain soaked petunia flowers looking glossy and gorgeous. Some of the flowers on this pot of navy blue petunias and bright green leaves stayed dry and others got wet. The difference is clear - the dry flowers look like deep soft velvet, the wet ones are shiny as satin.
July 21, 2025 at 10:18 AM
glider.bsky.social
My wish for all you beautiful butterflies this Friday: an abundance of Peace
A fully open Peace rose in a cluster of buds - flowers for days to come, against a background of glossy dark green foliage. Peace rose buds are streaked deep pink and yellow, and open with different degrees of pink tint around the edges of petals that are golden yellow at the base. The blooms fade through soft pink to pale gold. This was my mother's favourite rose and I love it too.
July 18, 2025 at 7:20 AM