Ailsa Ross

Writing about art and nature at Outside, Guardian, BBC / First novel, HOVEL, out with Strange Light – Penguin Random House 🌙

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

Also I'm writing a novel!

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

I have an essay in @globeandmail today about why it is quite nice to leave a notebook on a bench and see who writes in it.

May we leave notebooks and pens in random places until they're more full of nonsense than an ancient burial ground.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

I tried to make an unboxing video for HOVEL, out next week. Then I realised my address was in all the frames. I was glad of the mistake, for the video I made was quite bad.

This video I took with my dog (I froze the book for reasons that no longer make sense) is also bad.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

Do you like free giveaways? HOVEL is currently available in a free giveaway at 49th Shelf.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

For the algorithm to love me, I need to be posting videos captioned, 'why does Emma Stone's face look so different?'

But I do not want to post a video of Emma Stone's beautiful face.

Of course the algorithm will love me for this. An algorithm is not capable of love.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

Sheep are everywhere. They are in the fields and they are on the cover of many books. I can think of at least three books with sheep on the cover of them. Are there more?

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

I used Pinterest to make a mood board for the potential HOVEL cover that I could easily share with my editor.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

Out in 2.5 weeks with Strange Light / @PenguinCanada

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

My novel HOVEL, out in March, is a little dreamlike. Recurring images include silk, rats, plums, foxes, spiders, wolves, apples, ice, snow, shadows, stars, mould, candles.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

My novel HOVEL, out mid-March, is a book that feels both funny and sad – maybe reading it is like being with a person who is laughing and crying all at once.

Here's a copy living on top of an old birds' nest.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

It's still very cold and it's been a while since I took this photo

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

Do you have the flu?

Do you need a remedy that may or may not work?

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

@_amina_khan 'I think we're all underestimating the effect of it on the human brain and spirit.' Truly. It is such a lonely feeling I get, reading a post by a friend and realising it has not come from their heart/head, but from AI.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

@_amina_khan It's really gross. I want to do something each time I see it. Something coded like commenting "em dash." But really, I think there should be some kind of regulation so that people have to write "written using ChatGPT" just like they technically have to say "gifted/AD/PR" etc.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

@_amina_khan I get especially sad when I see my nice friends posting meaningful things on Facebook – their baby turning one, their tenth wedding anniversary – and their caption has so obviously gone through the ChatGPT mill.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

@ferrifrigida Reading now (because I'm with you)

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

Wild strawberry season

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

It can feel awkward and strange, asking your favourite authors (who you do not know, but whose work you love) for blurbs.

I recommend it.

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

Trying and absolutely failing to understand some of the notes my past self made to my future self in my notebook.

As in: journey to a hut where the knee of a drunken Finn was awaiting one's small, warmed buttocks

[#WOMENSART @womensart1]

Photographer Kathryn Cooper captures the fluid movement of birds, particularly migrating starling murmurations at roost sites across the North of England UK #WomensArt

[Ailsa Ross @ailsa_writes]

It's still far from spring, where I live