What is Limpet Bay?
Limpet Bay is a newsletter about how texts make worlds. Fortnightly posts explore themes of space, time and world building in literature, history and film. So far, this has taken me from artificial caves to mise en scéne, from the history of rhododendron to children’s literature. Always, the question is how our real and imaginary worlds come into being and come to influence one another.
Luke Bateman lives between the mountains and the sea in the Lake District. He read Ancient and Modern History, and later for a Masters in Medieval History, at Merton College, University of Oxford. His poetry and fiction has been published by Fifth Wheel Press, Ink Sweat and Tears, and the Oxford Review of Books.
Where Should I Start Reading?
For its first year, Limpet Bay published short miniseries, providing lots of good places to hop on. Here are the series published so far:
#1-5: Space Time Machine
What do poems do? This miniseries features close readings of poems by Seamus Heaney, Ada Limón and others, thinking about how poems serve as containers for snippets of time and space, enlivening us to other possibilities and worlds.
#6-10: Unnature Writing
What do we mean when we talk about nature? This miniseries explores the unnature of West Cumbria, from caves in crumbling slagheaps to the knotted histories of rhododendron in search of an elusive idea of ‘the natural world’.
#11-15: Paragraphs on Ice
A paragraph is a novel in miniature: more intimate than a scene, grander than a sentence. This miniseries looks at how five legendary writers (including Katherine Rundell, Vladimir Nabakov and Toni Morrison) construct paragraphs to amaze.
#16-19: Belongs In A Museum
I explore the history of the region where I live, asking what it means to be local through the lens of Roman inscriptions, medieval lynxes and games of no rules football.
#20-23: Film Column
How does cinema teach us to see? Through four essays, I track the way films construct imaginary worlds that shape our experience of reality.
How can I stay in touch?
Join the mailing list to get every edition straight to your inbox. Dispatches go out on Friday mornings.
Everyone’s Invited to the rock pool
If you know inquisitive and curious people that you think would enjoy Limpet Bay, please let them know about it! The more the merrier.
