UnSpun Nuggets?
Nuggets covers the little useful pieces of information I hope to share with you along the way, woven into the form of newsletter personal essays (or blog posts we might have said in the ‘old’ days!). UnSpun because that informs the essence of a brand new world of woven art I am making and corresponds somehow (to my mind at least!) to the always non-niche approach to the things I like to share and write about.
A Little Background
Fresh out of university from Scotland in the early 00s, I started out in London in academic book publishing – philosophy books as that is what I had studied to postgraduate level. After a few years, I took a journalism course and a job at a contract magazine publisher where I wrote features and started to edit small publications. I went freelance in 2005, editing a new online magazine (quite before its time!) and eventually writing for Elle, Pyschologies, ES Magazine, Mixmag, Shape, local London magazines/newspapers and various digital publications. By 2012 the world of blogging was beckoning and I started a blog which included personal style and soon became my main focus workwise, and then of course Instagram took over.
What now?
In 2019 I received an unwelcome health diagnosis I couldn’t ignore. This triggered a whole stop-start slowing down of my life and work as I tried to process and manage what was going on and how I was going to go forward. Having decided on an approach, I knew I had to initially scale back what I was doing to allow for healing. This in part informed a decision to relocate up to Scotland where we now find ourselves in a breathtakingly beautiful part of the Highlands. These last four years I have found a way to not only manage my health but to improve it. Lots of outdoor busy-ness and fresh air have been a huge part of that. But while taking on occasional one-off freelance jobs, I have mainly put aside the work that once fuelled, sustained and excited me. I have kept a presence on Instagram but crucially I have stopped writing in any real longform. And this has left a hole. A writer, dare I even still call myself that now, needs to write.
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
