Craft
On the practice of writing, the discipline of cutting, the things that make a good sentence good, and what to do on the mornings when none of it works. I revisit this topic more than I planned to.
Recent: The two-week practice of leaving things unfinished · A working argument for the letter
Reading
Slow re-reads, mostly. Lispector, Berger, Didion, Ernaux, Carson, Levy. The occasional argument with a writer I love about a sentence I do not. Often slightly too long.
Recent: Re-reading Lispector's Hour of the Star · Notes on a small bookshop
Life
Family, friends, the small embarrassments. The things my older sister Hannah says that I think about for weeks. Letters from people who write back. The closer I get to forty the more I write under this heading.
Recent: A long lunch with my sister · The case for keeping a paper diary
Place
Lisbon, mostly. Sometimes Manchester, Edinburgh, Mexico City. Always — and I am noticing this — pieces about small streets, small kitchens, small apartments. Almost never anything about a landmark.
Recent: The week the boiler broke · A morning at the Feira da Ladra
Loose ends
Pieces that didn't fit anywhere else. A defence of buying paperbacks twice. A list of the things I would, if pressed, take if I had to leave the flat in five minutes. The occasional list of small annoyances.
Recent: A list of nine small annoyances · Things I have re-bought
Letters back
A separate, occasional series — published with the writer's permission — of letters readers have written back, and the small thread of a conversation we then had. Always a little embarrassing, always worth it.