Sophie Hardcastle @sophie_hardcastle

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  2 hours ago

  I started off this decade in hospital in the midst of my first psychotic episode. I’m ending it living on the other side of the world, with a new hair cut, people I love, and my third book going into print! 🥰💥🎉🎊 (Hair by @nowayjoseuk )

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  1 weeks ago

  🌹

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  2 weeks ago

  ‘At first I thought I would make the earth, and the sky, and the underworld’ - Kiki Smith. I’ve wanted to see this work in the flesh since I was at art school writing essays about the abject, the surrealist revival and Kiki Smith. Thank you, @clairedoserro for the recommendation. #kikismith

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  2 weeks ago

  Flesh seeping. Into the before. Out into after.

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  2 weeks ago

  Happy birthday to my person. You’re my hero and best friend. Every moment with you is deep belly laughing joy. I’m immensely proud of the woman you’re becoming. You’re a magical nurse, and I know you’ll be an equally amazing midwife. I simply love doing life with you.

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  3 weeks ago

  ‘We choose to breathe, don’t we?’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It’s been one hell of a week. But here’s my silver lining. Advance Reader Copies of my forthcoming novel, Below Deck. (These are just proofs - COVER REVEAL COMING SOON! 💘 )

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  3 weeks ago

  Last Wednesday, my nan, Bunny passed away. A fiercely intelligent, fiercely independent woman left suddenly, with no fuss, on her own terms. Today, I finished the final pages of Below Deck. A story about bodies and ancient ice and meetings at the river mouth. A story about powerful women at the end of the earth. A story she inspired. Tomorrow we’ll say goodbye. Though it isn’t goodbye. Not really... Because everything is already here. Just changing form, shape and colour. A whisper, becomes a rib bone, becomes a turn in a river, becomes an embrace, becomes a mountain, un-becomes in a kiss, becomes a spark, becomes a cloud, rains down, becomes a mother, becomes a deep-sea current. And though my heart aches, I find comfort in knowing she will live on in seashells and in stars and in rain. She’ll live on in this book. In this story with no real beginnings and no real ends. Because the universe hasn’t lost her. She’s just become something else.

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  4 weeks ago

  Another one from our ‘Liminality’ Isle of Skye collaboration. @kateballis We’re so excited to share the whole series with you in 2020.

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  4 weeks ago

  Happy birthday, darling. 🌹

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  last month

  On Monday I start work again as a research assistant at the University of Oxford. We’re looking at literature set in the Southern Ocean and/or beneath Southern skies ✨ My obsession with the Deep South and ancient ice continues... 🌊 (picture is of an iceberg I painted back in 2017 )

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  last month

  I’ve completed my proof read of Below Deck. Just like that, it’s finished. I felt like my heart was in my throat for most of the edit, terrified I wasn’t going to get it right. But now that it’s over, I feel relieved. Excited, even. Because, fuck, I’m actually pretty proud of it. 😅Thank you to all the magical people who made writing this book possible. I can’t wait to share it with you all xxxx✨✨✨✨ pic by the wonderful @clementine_ford

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  last month

  I’m proof reading remotely this week 😅✨❣️

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  Oct 2019

  I’m back at my desk writing poems today to accompany Kate Ballis’ photos for our Liminality collaboration show, coming 2020. @kateballis #fairypools #isleofskye

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  Oct 2019

  I proposed to my best friend today. For the first time in my life, I feel robbed that our human lives are this short, because I want even longer. You’re fucking hilarious and kind and so smart it blows my mind. Thanks for showing me how magic an open relationship can be. I utterly adore you. 🌹🍒💌📕❣️

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  Oct 2019

  I have no words to describe how much I loved this book. Perhaps, only that I feel lucky to be alive and writing at the same time as @ocean_vuong #onearthwerebrieflygorgeous @vintagebooks

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  Oct 2019

  Heading to @atlanticbooks today for my first ever Q&A about Below Deck. ✨✨✨✨✨✨ pic by @tash_alyce #author #BelowDeck #atlanticbooks

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  Sep 2019

  I’m sitting in the library finishing @clementine_ford ’s #boyswillbeboys I’ve devoured it in a matter of days, which, for anyone who knows how slow I read, says A LOT! This book is as brilliant as the woman who penned it 🌸🌷🌹🌻 It’s honestly been such a pleasure hosting you in Oxford, Clem. I feel so incredibly lucky to call you my friend.

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  Sep 2019

  Happy #bipride , my loves! I celebrated by making art with some people I adore. #bivisibility 💘

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  Sep 2019

  Tash 💫

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  Sep 2019

  Feeling humbled, hopeful and inspired 💕💜💙 #globalclimatestrike

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  Sep 2019

  During this most recent trip to Australia, I felt all the feels. Relieved that my surgery diagnosed me with endometriosis. Finally, I had an answer to my chronic pain. Then grief. Because this disease is underfunded, under researched, and still without a cure... Then an odd blend of elation and anxiety, handing in my final manuscript to @allenandunwin . Excitement that soon, Below Deck will be a real book. Nervousness wondering how it will be received. Now, arriving back in the UK, I’ve developed some photos and my heart is exploding. Because I’m remembering all the in-between moments. When the pain was less intense. When I belly laughed. When I swam in the sea. When I was around people I love with all of me.

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  Sep 2019

  Happy 4th book birthday to ‘Running Like China.’ Thank you to everyone who has read and shared this story over the years. It’s incredible to see how widely spoken about mental health is now, and how much the conversation itself has changed. What a joy it’s been working in this space, watching more and more people open up and own their stories. We do, of course, still have a long way to go. But I, for one, am hopeful. #runninglikechina (pics by @thebookcube & @coconutandlime )

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  Sep 2019

  I found this photo this morning, just moments before I sent off the final draft of Below Deck to my editor at Allen & Unwin @allenandunwin . I remember so clearly the moment I took this photo. How the sky and snow blended together, so that it looked as if these tiny people were walking into something else. Something unknown, yet utterly beautiful. How magic it had seemed, at the end of the earth... The same awe and sense of wonderment engulfs me now. With my novel a near finished book. I find myself wandering, into something else. Something unknown, yet utterly beautiful.

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  Aug 2019

  Here’s another work from my Isle of Skye collaboration with Kate Ballis. I’m excited to be working today on the poems that will accompany Kate’s photographs 💕❤️💖🍒🎀💘 @kateballis #isleofskye #scotland