Stephenjohn Holgate
@mistaholgate.bsky.social
Writer type person. Professional immigrant. PEN/Dau Prize winner. MA from the IIML, Wellington. Contramestre of Capoeira Angola. #author 🇯🇲 ➡️ 🇳🇿 https://open.substack.com/pub/jackmandorastory
Pinned
In the Queue for Ice Cream - takahē
In the queue at the cafe, four people are in front of me. All enjoying the usual delights of the English seaside when the sun comes up at the beginning of June. They all look pickled somewhere from br...
www.takahe.org.nz
New story out in @takahemagazine.bsky.social www.takahe.org.nz/in-the-queue...
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
About ten years ago I had lunch with a well-known Hollywood actress and when she saw Russell Brand in the restaurant she literally slid down from her chair to hide from him - said he had recently saw her in a cafe during a meeting and barged in to demand she gave him her number. (she did not)
If you had come to me twenty years ago and said “in 2025 Russell Brand will be a far-right pundit spreading antisemitic conspiracies and accused of multiple rapes” I would have said “seems entirely plausible, how about those future cars, are they cool?”
December 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
About ten years ago I had lunch with a well-known Hollywood actress and when she saw Russell Brand in the restaurant she literally slid down from her chair to hide from him - said he had recently saw her in a cafe during a meeting and barged in to demand she gave him her number. (she did not)
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Any advice where the writer gives it as an absolute and not just something that specifically works for them. A lot of us - most of us? - don’t know exactly what will work before we write it. And then when it works, some of us will pretend that it was the result of our eternal Wisdom.
what is your least favorite piece of writing advice and why? 👀
December 23, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Any advice where the writer gives it as an absolute and not just something that specifically works for them. A lot of us - most of us? - don’t know exactly what will work before we write it. And then when it works, some of us will pretend that it was the result of our eternal Wisdom.
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Narco Rubio is back.
yeah I mean it’s genuinely sad that the “reasonable old school” Republican (who Dems eagerly and unanimously voted to confirm) is out here doing pressers blatantly geeked out coke and it’s not subtle
December 23, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Narco Rubio is back.
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
These are concentration camps. No other way to describe them. Truly horrific, and none of it surprising in the least.
30 minutes. Some deportees described sexual assault. Detainee describes the guard sexually assaulting most detainees. Lights left on all day. Prisoners not given clean water.
Now the DHS tour. Nobody spoke to the detainees. Noem's video was in a different area of the prison.
Now the DHS tour. Nobody spoke to the detainees. Noem's video was in a different area of the prison.
December 22, 2025 at 11:56 PM
These are concentration camps. No other way to describe them. Truly horrific, and none of it surprising in the least.
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
!! Here’s a link to full video of the 60 Minutes segment that Bari Weiss killed last minute, via @jasonparis.bsky.social:
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
December 22, 2025 at 10:39 PM
!! Here’s a link to full video of the 60 Minutes segment that Bari Weiss killed last minute, via @jasonparis.bsky.social:
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
absolute genius maneuver from bari weiss spiking this story now an exponentially higher amount of people will care about this and watch it anyways
!! Here’s a link to full video of the 60 Minutes segment that Bari Weiss killed last minute, via @jasonparis.bsky.social:
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
December 22, 2025 at 10:47 PM
absolute genius maneuver from bari weiss spiking this story now an exponentially higher amount of people will care about this and watch it anyways
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
On of the many privations of the UK, and moral failings, is their maniacal commitment to semi skimmed milk.
December 22, 2025 at 10:11 AM
On of the many privations of the UK, and moral failings, is their maniacal commitment to semi skimmed milk.
lol. lmao, even
🚨 Andrew Tate has been BATTERED and comprehensively beaten by a novice boxer, Chase DeMoor
December 21, 2025 at 10:08 AM
lol. lmao, even
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Mr. Beast, all my friends and I were saying how good at boxing you’d be
December 21, 2025 at 6:04 AM
Mr. Beast, all my friends and I were saying how good at boxing you’d be
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
"It blows my mind that 2020 saw one of the greatest uprisings in modern history, and our novelists and short story writers are acting as though…we were all just inside talking about fruit ninja. Solely because they are afraid of being called didactic."
countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...
countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...
Processing: How Brandon Taylor Wrote Minor Black Figures
The author on embodied characters, writing process, and how “a novel should show people fighting and striving against and with and for and alongside each other.”
countercraft.substack.com
December 20, 2025 at 3:37 PM
"It blows my mind that 2020 saw one of the greatest uprisings in modern history, and our novelists and short story writers are acting as though…we were all just inside talking about fruit ninja. Solely because they are afraid of being called didactic."
countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...
countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Tech guy watching Planet Earth III and shaking his head the whole time to let everyone know he thinks it would be more efficient to burn down the forest, build a data center, and generate the documentary with GenAI.
December 19, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Tech guy watching Planet Earth III and shaking his head the whole time to let everyone know he thinks it would be more efficient to burn down the forest, build a data center, and generate the documentary with GenAI.
wtf, again
December 19, 2025 at 10:02 PM
wtf, again
wtf??
December 19, 2025 at 10:02 PM
wtf??
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
David Walliams. Wow. It’s always the ones you most suspect.
December 19, 2025 at 4:52 PM
David Walliams. Wow. It’s always the ones you most suspect.
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Every time there's a breaking story about a celeb's treatment of women, everyone in the book world asks, "Is it finally Walliams?" Well, it finally is.
Exclusive: David Walliams dropped by publisher over inappropriate behaviour towards women
Telegraph investigation into best-selling children’s author uncovers claims that he ‘harassed’ junior female employees at Harper Collins
www.telegraph.co.uk
December 19, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Every time there's a breaking story about a celeb's treatment of women, everyone in the book world asks, "Is it finally Walliams?" Well, it finally is.
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Russell Brand will be baptising David Walliams before the end of 2026
December 19, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Russell Brand will be baptising David Walliams before the end of 2026
lol
Not David Walliams!!
December 19, 2025 at 9:59 PM
lol
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
The Epstein Files, everybody!
December 19, 2025 at 9:13 PM
The Epstein Files, everybody!
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Hitler was a failed painter. Vance is a failed writer. Trump is a failed film star. Levitt is a failed broadcaster. Miller is a failed Hitler.
December 19, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Hitler was a failed painter. Vance is a failed writer. Trump is a failed film star. Levitt is a failed broadcaster. Miller is a failed Hitler.
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Not getting less suspicious that a huge part of the problem here is a big increase in the purity of cocaine sold in London over the 2010s
December 17, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Not getting less suspicious that a huge part of the problem here is a big increase in the purity of cocaine sold in London over the 2010s
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
'New Zealand literature is an active and passionate industry. It keeps on keeping on, and acts as opposition to stupidity as a way of life.' The Readingroom 'best of 2025' includes Damien Wilkins, Joanna Cho (MA20) and this year's Letteri Creative Nonfiction Prize winner Niamh Vaughan.
Oho! The 2025 ReadingRoom literary awards
Celebrating the best things in New Zealand writing this year
newsroom.co.nz
December 17, 2025 at 8:46 PM
'New Zealand literature is an active and passionate industry. It keeps on keeping on, and acts as opposition to stupidity as a way of life.' The Readingroom 'best of 2025' includes Damien Wilkins, Joanna Cho (MA20) and this year's Letteri Creative Nonfiction Prize winner Niamh Vaughan.
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Antisemitism absolutely is on the rise from both the left and the right. The answer is to take it seriously in both places & combat the weaponization which undermines our efforts. We can’t limit immigration or shut down Palestinian resistance to genocide
December 17, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Antisemitism absolutely is on the rise from both the left and the right. The answer is to take it seriously in both places & combat the weaponization which undermines our efforts. We can’t limit immigration or shut down Palestinian resistance to genocide
Reposted by Stephenjohn Holgate
Spent some time yesterday reading the Substack and the Twitter account of someone saying that the Left should spend more time on Twitter, and I came away thinking: "this is a mean-spirited individual with fixed opinions who is addicted to arguing online, where is the benefit of engaging with them?"
December 16, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Spent some time yesterday reading the Substack and the Twitter account of someone saying that the Left should spend more time on Twitter, and I came away thinking: "this is a mean-spirited individual with fixed opinions who is addicted to arguing online, where is the benefit of engaging with them?"