Field Notes
A letter every other Sunday
One idea, one thing I read, one thing I made. About six hundred words. Free, and it will stay that way.
What arrives
One idea
Usually something I have been turning over for a fortnight and have finally found the words for. Occasionally something I am still wrong about, marked as such.
One thing I read
A book, an essay, a plaque on a wall. Not a link dump: one thing, with a reason.
One thing I made
A photograph, a paragraph, a badly repaired wall. And honestly, what went wrong with it.
What does not arrive
- No advertising, ever.
- No sponsored sections, no affiliate links, no “in partnership with”.
- No algorithm choosing which parts you see. You get the whole letter or none of it.
What two readers said
The only newsletter I read on the day it arrives rather than in a guilty batch on Sunday night.
Devon A., subscriber since 2021
I have started keeping my own version, which I think is the point.
Priya R., subscriber since 2023
Recent issues
Full archive-
The middle is where the work is
Every project has a long, unglamorous stretch after the idea stops being interesting and before the end is in sight. That stretch is the job.
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Reading forty books a year, honestly
How many I finish, how many I abandon, and the rule that changed both numbers.
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What I got wrong about mornings
It is 4:52 in the morning in February and I am standing in a cold kitchen waiting
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What the stonemason said
Nineteen years on one cathedral, and one sentence that reorganised how I think about a desk.
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Interviewing people who go slowly
Fourteen conversations in, a method has emerged, and most of it is about the first hour.