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Latest
  • [ 4th July 2025 ] Island City Voices: Symbolic Phonecalls from Gaza Culture
  • [ 2nd July 2025 ] Protestors Picket Stephen Morgan’s Office After Vote to Proscribe Palestine Action as ‘Terrorists’ Politics
  • [ 27th June 2025 ] Welfare not Warfare: Protest Against Benefits Cuts in Portsmouth News
  • [ 23rd June 2025 ] Portsmouth UCU Branch Votes to Divest from Tesla, Starlink and X Politics
  • [ 18th June 2025 ] Portsmouth UCU branch votes for democratisation of University Politics
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Blackwells

Poetry

Requiem for a Bookshop

6th April 2018

In my innovation hub I Innovate with my hub I Redesign designs I Rebrand brands I Generate smart content and have smart lunches with smart people I Influence the influencers I Promote, advertise, personalise I [… read more ]

Culture

The Price of Blackwell’s and the Value of Nothing

6th March 2018

Portsmouth-based author, publisher and S&C regular, Matt Wingett, argues that last week’s closure of Blackwell’s bookshop bears the mark of a wider malady: the corporatisation of art, culture and higher education in our time. Sadly, [… read more ]

Editorials

Your Top 10 Picks of 2017

11th January 2018

To celebrate the arrival of 2018, we’re looking back this week at the most popular 10 articles published on S&C in 2017. From tactical voting to therapy with horses, from the right to protest to [… read more ]

Culture

What Makes Portsmouth Blackwell’s Special? Its Manager, Jo West

15th December 2017

S&C contributor and Coordinator of Portsmouth Writers’ Hub, Tessa Ditner, talks to local writers following recent news that Blackwell’s Portsmouth may close on 22nd December.  I run the Portsmouth Writers’ Hub, a community of writers [… read more ]

Culture

Dickens and Doyle Wouldn’t Stand for Closing Blackwell’s Portsmouth

11th December 2017

Following recent news of the proposal to close Blackwell’s Portsmouth, and confirmation from the bookshop’s team last week that ‘negotiations are ongoing’ between Blackwell and the University of Portsmouth, local writer Tom Harris highlights the [… read more ]

Culture

Closing Blackwell’s Portsmouth: The Real Cost of Cheap Books Online

7th December 2017

Reviewer and student Emily Priest investigates the recent announcement that Blackwell and the University of Portsmouth have decided to shut Blackwell’s Portsmouth. Additional reporting by Sarah Cheverton. Following a period of commercial struggle, the University [… read more ]

Culture

Bookshop Bliss: How Portsmouth Blackwells Supports Local Writers

4th December 2017

Following recent news that Portsmouth Blackwell’s is under threat, local writer Will Sutton explains the huge difference the team there have made to his own career and to the wider writing community in the city. [… read more ]

Fiction

Portsmouth Writers’ Season: Fletch Mallory

6th October 2017

S&C presents a story by local author Fletch Mallory, part of a collection that make up his recently released novel Stranded Foxes, inter-linked stories that jump through history and speak through a myriad of voices, [… read more ]

Fiction

Portsmouth Writers’ Season: Tom Harris

4th August 2017

S&C presents an excerpt from Portsmouth author Tom Harris‘ new novel, The Amber Moon, Part 1: Of Shadows & Dragons, the third book in his Wings, Wands and Weird Worlds series for young adults. The [… read more ]

Culture

Merlin, Time Travel and Comfy Chairs

18th April 2016

Portsmouth University librarian Lizzie Wildgoose had a surreal surprise when she dropped in to her local branch of Blackwells the other day.  A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, or should that read [… read more ]

Latest News

News

Welfare not Warfare: Protest Against Benefits Cuts in Portsmouth

27th June 2025

Portsmouth and District Unite Community is calling a protest against the savage cuts to Personal Independence (PIP) Universal Credit and Employment Support Allowance (ESA), reports trades unionist and activist Alan Burgess. The protest will take [… read more ]

News

What’s Missing from Local News in Portsmouth? And How do we Fix it?

11th June 2025

S&C Editor Dr Sarah Cheverton shares insights from her PhD research on the local news crisis in her second article for Indie News Week (9th-16th June 2025). Building on her first article about the local [… read more ]

Indie News Week 9th-16th June 2025. No news is bad news.
News

What’s Happened to Local News in the UK and What Does it Mean for Portsmouth?

8th June 2025

This week, to mark Indie News Week 2025, S&C Editor Dr Sarah Cheverton is drawing from her recent PhD research on the local news crisis to talk about the dramatic changes to local news over [… read more ]

Post shows logos for Indie News Week, reading: Indie News Week, 9th-16th June 2025; No news is bad news; and support local news.
News

Local News Crisis, Portsmouth: Sign the Petition to Help Regenerate Independent News

8th June 2025

This week – 9th-16th June – is Indie News Week, showcasing the importance of funding community-based journalism across the UK. The campaign’s organisers, the Public Interest News Foundation, has launched a petition calling on the government to support independent local news publishers and even up the playing field between independent local publishers and the large news corporations that own most of the UK’s local news titles.  [… read more ]

News

Record Breaking £11 Billion is Still Not Enough to End the Special Educational Needs Crisis

17th May 2025

Parents and teachers left ‘overwhelmed’ by the failing SEN system in England’s schools, reports University of Portsmouth journalism student Ivana Domozetska. ‘I will do everything and anything for my daughter to get the support she [… read more ]

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We are an independent news website written for and by the people of Portsmouth. We believe in journalism to create social change. Read more about us here.
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