News – May 2026

Find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tania_hershman_writes/ and on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/taniahershman.bsky.social

I have just been sent a review of my poetry collection, Still Life With Octopus (Nine Arches Press, 2022) that Pauline Rowe wrote for Orbis magazine a few years ago that I hadn’t known about, thank you, Pauline! “Tania Hershman’s second poetry collection explores human relationships through defamiliarization and the metaphorical framework of octopuses, includes ‘strange meeting’ poems, philosophical poems and moments of magic. The octopus isn’t a gimmick but a leap of language into the world of science; a prism of metamorphosis through which the poet negotiates phenomenological experience, unknowingness and bodily imagination…Hershman has a clear, questioning style, an open heart and an engaging scientific curiosity; her poems provoke questions about perception, ways of knowing and the human imagination.”

Enormous thanks to Sam Grinsell for the very first official review of my latest hybrid book, It’s Time: A Chronomemoir! I was so moved by what Sam said: “This is a beautiful book, I found reading it quite a quite a profound experience… I would love more people to read this book. I think it’s an important work.” You can see the whole of Sam’s post here:

And if you like being read to, I’m reading my new book in audio instalments over on Substack here, or you can listen through Spotify, if you’d prefer – just search for “chronomemoir” under podcasts, or go here: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tc0XUVX19I2sloEzk9sT0?si=d845238385414aa8