Thursday, 27 November 2025

Poetry: Today Hurts

 

This poem was originally published in the The Brain Is A Noodle publication on Medium, in response to the prompt 'coping by producing' from the lovely Lucy Dan



Today Hurts


‘Now don’t drown in your tears, babe
Push your head towards the air’
— The Editors, Push Your Head Towards The Air.




illustration of a woman staring moodily out of a window
Image by Lucija Rasonja from Pixabay

Sunday, 2 November 2025

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: A Writer Is Not...

 



Title: A Writer Is Not...


A writer is not replaceable — each voice is their own.

A writer is not tameable — each is wild, each answers the call the way that they must.

A writer is not something definable, not something that an algorithm can create, not someone who can be easily pushed aside, not a simple money-making cog, not someone who exists to generate a profit for Capitalism’s insatiable beast.

A writer is someone you pay — art is not a disposable item; writers need to eat.

Friday, 31 October 2025

The 11 Year Blog Anniversary Post!


Warning: brief references to grief/loss and mental health problems



Title: 11 Years of Blogging! Background: artsy stars



Yes! Dora Reads is now eleven years old.

...Somehow I've made it this far!

Sunday, 19 October 2025

Poetry: Dawning

 

This poem was first published in the publication The Brain Is A Noodle on Medium, in response to the prompt "It'll feel easier in the morning" from the lovely Lucy Dan 蛋小姐.



Dawning

‘Day’s dawning, skin’s crawling
Pure morning
Pure morning’ 
— Placebo, Pure Morning



Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

Sunday, 5 October 2025

Nerd Church - Shout Out To Those With Mental Health Problems In This Clusterf**k Timeline!

 


Shout Out To Those With Mental Health Problems In This Clusterfk Timeline!



Sh**'s messed up.

...Like, it's been messed up for a while, I know. But our current level of 'historical' is feeling more like 'biblical' (in terms of scale, rather than religion,) every day.

It's one thing on top of another on top of another. 

I came across a blogpost I wrote in 2018 where I was like 'the world is bad at the moment,' ...and I genuinely can't remember what I was talking about. That was 2 years before 2020, and none of us really know what normal is any more.

Maybe, five to ten years from now, I'll look back and think, 'what was I complaining about in 2025?' but I really hope not.



Against that backdrop then, I, like many people, have mental health problems. And have for 10+ years at this point.

And it's f**king tough.



So to all of those with mental health problems, or anyone struggling, right now - this is a shout out to you.

Sunday, 7 September 2025

Nerd Church - Stephen King's IT Is F**ked Up

 ...which probably isn't that surprising.


Warning: this post contains discussions of drugs and addiction, and brief references to one of the most notorious scenes in IT (the child sex scene.)


Title: Stephen King's IT Is F**ked Up

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Stephen King

        - or so the meme goes -

                    did not write Stephen King's IT 

                                - he co-wrote it, alongside IT's primary author: 

                                            Cocaine.


Wednesday, 20 August 2025

Poetry: Click




Originally published in The Brain Is A Noodle publication on Medium, in response to the prompt 'a simple click - what can you do with a simple click?' from the lovely Lucy Dan




Title: Click. Sub-title: A poem by Cee Rhiannon


Click