Thanks again to everyone that has supported The Last Canary on @libraro_books .
It really means the world to me that people took the time to read my work and leave their feedback.
I’m supper excited for what happens next and I can’t wait to see all the other shortlisted writers at @hachetteuk HQ for the awards ceremony!
And congratulations again to the other shortlisted writers. 🎉
@tjw_creatingworlds@brewedwriting@b.robinson.official@natgordonwrites@minnock.mary
#libraroprize2026 #outerhebrides #scifibooks #bookstagram #ineedmediatraining
📣I’m so excited to share that I’ve been shortlisted as one of six authors for The Libraro Prize
2026!
In 2016 I lived in the Outer Hebrides for a year. North Uist is where I started writing and it forms the setting of my book. Swipe to see how much hair I had a decade ago!
My book, The Last Canary, was selected from almost 2,000 entries by Libraro’s community of over
15,000 readers and writers, and is now in the running for a book deal with international
publisher Hachette UK.
A huge thank you to Libraro for this opportunity, and to everyone who has supported my efforts so far.
The winner will now be decided by the judges, but it means a lot to have your support and for
people to discover my work.
If you’d like to take a look, you can read it for free from the link in my bio.
Thank you so much 💛
@libraro_books@hachetteuk
#LibraroPrize2026 #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #BookAwards
As someone who lives in a little village in Czechia 🇨🇿 I’ve got to soak up (high?) culture when I can.
The morning before the Libraro awards was spent at the Tate Modern. I saw the new Tracy Emin exhibition which, save for the video on the way in, left me a bit cold. Maybe on another day it would have struck a different chord but I wasn’t in the mood to wade through her trauma.
The best thing I saw was a video by DANICA DAKIC (no pics I’m afraid you’ll just have to go see it!)
The island in the wallpaper is a kind of paradise - no architecture, no trace of people. ... I wanted to connect this imagined island with the people of a socially isolated one. — Danica Dakic
In the installation ISOLA BELLA, Dakié presents a single-channel video projection in a cinema space. Also on view are a selection of theatrical Victorian-style paper masks worn by the filmed performers, handwritten notes, three film posters and a photograph.
Dakié worked closely with a group of 40 participants to develop performances in front of a reproduction of a 19th century panoramic wallpaper featuring an ideal landscape. Titled Isola Bella (‘beautiful island’ in Italian), the wallpaper inspired Dakic’s work.
The video was filmed at the Home for the Protection of Children and Youth, a residential care home for people with disabilities in Pazaric, a village in Bosnia. While the home caters primarily to children and young people, many residents stay on into adulthood, forming a tight-knit community. During the Bosnian War (1992-95) the home became increasingly isolated from outside contact.
Dakic collaborated closely with the residents, who appear in the film as both audience and actors - singing, dancing, playing the piano and reflecting on their lives and dreams. Together with her team, she created a stage for the participants desires and fantasies, giving them the opportunity to step into a utopian ‘Isola Bella’ on film.
I also got a kick out of the photographs by Josef Koudelka. A kind of full circle moment seeing a Czech photographer in London present photos from Ireland. So many places from my life wrapped up in a few frames.
The @libraro_books awards at @hachetteuk was an absolute ball.
Congratulations to @brewedwriting for taking home the prize. Well deserved, it’s a great book with an important theme and I hope it finds a wide audience.
Thank you to the Judges: @ellygriffiths17@thebobpalmer@joannechocolat@zubscovered and Deborah Maclaren @lovereadinguk
Apart from my mum (who I need to stop mentioning so much 🙈) you are the only people to have read the entire book. Your positive feedback and encouragement means the world to me.
The judges said that the book was; bold, ambitious and funny, compared it with Black Mirror and said it would do well adapted for the screen. Most pleasing to me was that the big twist at the end of act 2 landed and felt fresh and exciting.
They also mentioned that the writing was well polished considering that it is my first book and hasn’t gone through a full professional edit.
I’m feeling incredibly proud and motivated to keep pushing The Last Canary and to get started on the next one!
Thank you to Libraro for creating this opportunity and congratulations to all of the other finalists who made the evening so enjoyable.
@natgordonwrites@tjw_creatingworlds@b.robinson.official@minnock.mary
Watch this space 👽🚀
Here’s a little Instagram friendly version of The Scotsman article that came out last week.
I still can’t quite get over being on page 3 of Scotland on Sunday during an election week! My grannie in Inverness purchased 3 copies 😂
Roll on the awards ceremony on Wednesday! Looking forward to meeting up with all the other @libraro_books shortlisted writers at @hachetteuk HQ.
A few weeks ago only my family and close friends knew that I had written a book. I still can’t quite bring myself to say that I’m a writer. I don’t have an agent, I’ve never published anything in fact, before The Last Canary I’d never written anything. So it’s quite surreal to see an article like this out there in the real world.
Thank you again to everyone who took the time to vote for me in the @libraro_books prize. And thank you to the guys at Libraro for picking my story from the two thousand submitted entries. There are so many great pieces of work on the platform and the rest of the shortlist is incredibly strong.
It was great chatting to the lovely Jane Bradley at the @the.scotsman . Thank you so much for sharing my story!
Fingers crossed for the awards ceremony on the 13th at @hachetteuk
Here’s the first 4 minutes of the prologue from the Last Canary. Apologise for my narration skills.
The story starts with Sidney Lemmon, the most famous man in a dying world, being dragged on a date by Dr Julia Stewart, the grandmother of AI.
When a storm hits the island they are forced to turn their car around and return to the Seed Station. Then Julia gets a surprise call.
#libraroprize2026 #outerhebrides #scifi #readersgonnaread #newwriter
The last week has felt like living in a simulation. I keep scrolling through the same three articles to make sure it’s actually real. But then if the simulation was real enough how would I know … and why would I care … what is real anyway. … I need to lay off the Phillip K Dick … or read more I can’t quite remember how it works and I’ve lost the instructions.
@libraro_books@hachetteuk
#libraroprize2026 #scifi #outerhebrides #pkdick #newwriter
Before I started university I asked my, child of the 60s psychologist mum, to recommend 3 books that shaped the way she thinks about the world. Reviews of the other two to come, but let me start with the one I found the most revolutionary. I was 19, playing rugby in a small market town in East Yorkshire, the ideas in Walden 2 blew my head off.
Written by American psychologist and social philosopher B. F. Skinner in 1945, Walden Two lays out a vision of a utopian society built not on ideals or politics, but on behavioural science. 80 years on its depressing to see the how behavioural science has been coopted by corporate interests towards ends that are antithetical to what Skinner imagined. But that makes reading it today feel increasingly urgent and radical.
At its core, the book asks: what if we could design a society that actually works for human happiness? Less work, shared responsibility, and systems built around cooperation rather than competition. Why should every family unit own its own lawn mower? Organised properly communities can consume less, save on unnecessary work and provide more time for leisure.
But it’s also a controversial book. Skinner’s vision is rooted in behaviourism, where human actions are shaped and controlled by environment. That raises some uncomfortable questions:
⚠️ Is this utopia… or soft authoritarianism?
⚠️ Where does individual freedom fit in a “designed” society?
⚠️ Who gets to decide what the “ideal” human behaviour looks like?
Critics have long argued that Walden Two downplays individuality and leans toward social engineering in a way that feels unsettling, even dystopian. And that tension is exactly what makes it so interesting. Yes we can use behavioural sciences to design society but who is in control of the blueprints, to what end are we being driven.
For sci-fi writers, this is gold. Books like this sit right on the edge between utopia and dystopia—showing how the same system can be read as either, depending on perspective.
#bookreviewers #utopia #bfskinner #philosophy #psychology
Like any normal person, I like to wait until we have been talking for an uncomfortably long period of time before introducing myself.
Hello 👋 I like your moustache, have you per chance tried one of the pineapple and cheese sticks? No I didn’t make them, tell me how many Phillip K Dick novels you have read and in what order. My name is Ben. Let’s be friends.
Mabel, my grandma on my mums side died the night before my sixth birthday. I discovered her body the next morning when I burst into her room wanting to show her the gift she had wrapped for me the day before.
Three decades later my mum decided to type up Mables hand written memoir. I read it a few days ago and while I knew many of the stories, it was a powerful experience to hear them told in her own words.
Reading all of this has made me think about the stuff I’m seeing on the news every day at the moment. The headlines do no justice to the human stories. The ripple effects of war cascade through time and in all the chaos so much is lost.
I’m glad that my grandma took the time to write out her life story. It will never be published and maybe only a handful of people will ever read it. But it is a document I will cherish. I will read it to my daughter one day and she will know that her great grandma was a hell of a woman.
Write because it’s important.
#familyhistory #WWII #memoir #redcross #jersey
The prologue follows two geriatrics driving through a storm in the Outer Hebrides.
Sidney Lemmon, the most famous person in a dying world is on a first date with Dr Julia Stewart, the grandmother of Artificial General Intelligence.
They have opposing outlooks on the ‘end of the world’ Sidney, pampered and complacent feels like he is getting out while the going is good. Jules knows there is still work to be done.
Let me know what you think. Would this pull you in? Any ideas for edits?
#firstpage #scifibooks #libraroprize2026 #readersgonnaread #outerhebrides
