Reading time: 3.41 874 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Coroner’s report stated the cause of death was puffy sleeves underneath a tight cardigan. My mother made me wear it aged approximately four years, on our summer holiday in Betws-y-Coed. She paired this horror with slippy sandals for picnicking and messing around by the river, thus ensuring my inability to leap from rock to rock like the gazelle I clearly was. This is my first memory of dying. There were many more. Cause...
3 days ago • 4 min read
Reading time: 1.05 257 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, In 1945, Dorothy Parker sent the following telegram to her editor Pascal Covici at Viking Press: “This is instead of telephoning because I can’t look you in the voice. I simply cannot get that thing done yet never have done such hard night and day work never have so wanted anything to be good and all I have is a pile of paper covered with wrong words. Can only keep at it and hope to heaven to get it done. Don’t know why...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Reading time: 1.08 266 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Do you keep a notebook? I have lots. They’re labelled and dated and in order on my bookshelf. I have at least five unopened ones on a shelf in my cupboard, too. What? I don’t have a problem. YOU have a problem. muttermutter. I also have my Notes app on my phone and Trello, for screenshotting stuff I find online and want to keep for future reference. This is where my memory lives but it’s also important. For instance,...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Reading time: 1.19 312 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, I’d like to bring back telegrams and here’s why. Telephoning people is awkward and stressful and very, very sweaty. Sending letters is delightful and I do it a lot but it takes too long when you have something urgent to say to someone. Texting or WhatsApping can feel very abrupt and a misplaced full stop or thumbs up emoji can end friendships. SnapChat is for children and criminals. Meeting face-to-face is lovely but...
7 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 4.29 1,064 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, 4.29You say “hack” — I see a hatchet covered in gore and Jack Nicholson’s blood-streaked face grinning through a splintered door. HERE’S YOUR SHORTCUTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!! he screams. Run. RUN AWAY. The shortcut looks so tempting. Go from obese to a slinky size 10 with just a little prick? Jump from a blank page to a first draft with just a little AI prompt? Create a whole aesthetic for your home with just a little click...
10 days ago • 5 min read
Reading time: 2.42 640 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, I’m reading Ben Elton’s autobiography at the moment — What Have I Done? — and it’s making me see my childhood completely differently. I picked it up at the library because I’m a big fan of Blackadder and I vaguely remember the genius of The Young Ones and so much more brilliant comedy that shaped my childhood. But what surprised me was how much I’d forgotten about the way the world was. I mean, I wouldn’t have noticed a...
11 days ago • 3 min read
Reading time: 3.10 751 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, If you’ve ever felt like you had to sandpaper your edges to fit in, think again. If you’ve ever caught yourself shrinking your voice, dampening your presence easier so you’re easier to digest, making your truth more palatable — please, think again. The world needs your voice. Unfiltered. Unsandpapered. Unapologetically yours. If you’re any kind of misfit — if you don’t fit the straight, white, male, cis-het,...
12 days ago • 3 min read
Reading time: 2.10 512 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, I choose joy for 2026. You know that thing where people choose a word for the year? I don’t usually do that. Not sure why; something to do with how literal and binary my brain can be, I think. It’s like I believe the entire year must then only feature that word, and how can that possibly be? Because I, like you, contain multitudes. But this year, I said balls to all that and chose JOY. Because lawd knows we all need a...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 1.27 345 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, I’ve been asking people why they joined January Uncaged and wanted to share another answer that I thought might resonate with you. J joined because they’re facing a juggling challenge at the moment — family, studies, and leadership — without losing their wellbeing or giving up all the space to think and write. “Everything feels non-stop, so having time to pause and get my head straight is the thing I’m really struggling...
14 days ago • 2 min read