Archives
Sexual experimentation while watching Scream
It’s some time in the late nineties, and a friend has brought round a video: the first film in the Scream trilogy. The film is already infamous for its blood-soaked scenes of gory, violent murders, but its eighteen rating and reputation only makes it all the more enticing.
Read more
Making things, loving them and letting them go
Lately, I’ve been incubating some big changes. After eleven years as founder and director of For Books’ Sake, I’m stepping down to focus on other things.
Read more
Chaos and adrenaline: on being two years sober
Lately I’ve needed to take things slow, and that’s something I haven’t always been good at. Chaos, on the other hand…
Read more
On darkness and light: winter to summer solstice
Let’s rewind to six months ago. Deepest, darkest December. It’s bitterly cold and black outside. My alarm goes off, signalling 6am, and I creep out of the bedroom so I don’t wake my partner, then put on the clothes I’ve collected in the bathroom the night before.
Read more
In the Dream House
“The Dream House was never just the Dream House. It was, in turn, a convent of promise (herb garden, wine, writing across the table from each other), a den of debauchery (fucking with the windows open, waking up with mouth on mouth, the low, insistent murmur of fantasy), a haunted house (none of this can really be happening), a prison (need to get out need to get out), and, finally, a dungeon of memory. In dreams it sits behind a green door, for reasons you have never understood. The door was not green.” — In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado
Read more
Loved list: 2020 💖
Welcome to the loved list for 2020, a partially reconstructed assortment of recommendations of things to watch, read, listen to or otherwise explore that were shared in my newsletter throughout the year.
Read more
In praise of platonic intimacy
As we stand on the edge of another national lockdown, there’s a lot of things I’m finding hard. But one of the hardest is how much I’m missing a certain level of intimacy with my nearest and dearest pals.
Read more
More comfortable being in my body than numb: a second sober birthday
It’s my birthday this weekend, and we’re in lockdown, so the celebration plans so far involve takeaway, homemade cake and rewatching Hackers for the millionth time. Which, y’know. Pretty good. Here’s another thing: this will be the second birthday I’ve spent sober.
Read more
Let me write you letters
Babe, I want to write you letters. I want to write you letters because it’s a one of the most direct and authentic ways I know of for us to keep in touch, one that can’t be limited by Insta algorithms or caption character counts.
Read more