Welcome back

Welcome to this new issue of the J Mail: REDUX.

I’ve had a substantial break and the J Mail is BACK - rebooted, rebranded, and relaunched on Substack. I’ve chosen to switch over to Substack as it’s the home of many of my favourite writers and creative thinkers - from Abigail Bergstrom to George Saunders. I hope you like the new vibezzz.

If you’re receiving this issue of the newsletter, it means either you were one of my previous subscribers and you don’t need to do anything - you’ll keep receiving the new issues every other Friday as they drop.

Each fortnight, I’ll be sending you the usual cultural recommendations. Books I’m currently reading, or would recommend. Artists I like and think you should know about. Events, podcasts, theatre and club nights - as well as a space to share with you what I’ve been working on. I’ll also drop in a few thoughts on the creative process: stuff that I’ve learned recently, or found helpful in some way. I hope it ends up being something you like too. Let me know your favourite things in the comments section.

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Why the long break?

I’ll be honest and say - I wound up having a bit of a strange time last year. From Covid finally catching up with me, and taking me out harder than I expected, to a weird matrix of health stuff, to other personal shit that was challenging, I found myself drawing back, circling in, finding it harder to share ideas and creativity. To borrow a phrase from Katherine May, I was in a ‘wintering’ period: a fallow time where I ended up more inward looking than outward facing. This ended up being a really rich time: resting, renewing, restoring.

No one knows quite how to rest as well as my whippet, Pan, prince of sunbathes and snoozes.

And yet. I often found myself feeling bad about not doing more. It’s hardly original to say we’re living in an age of productivity addiction. I’m 100% a part of this culture of endless achieving - I’ve had to fight hard with myself to resist it. Balancing between listening to what I need - not overworking, being gentler with myself, embracing the wintering energy - and resisting the temptation to drop back into usual habits. It all comes with a hefty dose of guilt and shame. I wasn’t doing what I’d promised (fortnightly newsletters, among other things). I was underachieving. I was BEHIND.

After many years of being a productivity addict, I’ve finally plucked up the courage to converse with these thoughts. What’s helped is this knowledge: that thoughts like this, from the chief inner critic of productivity, are only ever trying to help. Yes, this voice might sound like it’s haranguing and berating and at times making me feel pretty bad - it’s only ever trying to keep me safe. Somehow, along the way, in the age of late capitalism through which we are all living, ambition and productivity got all tangled up with self-worth - and therefore with safety.

Once I came to this realisation, that this very vocal inner critic was only doing their best, it became much easier to be compassionate with them - and therefore, to be compassionate with myself. I’m not gonna lie - it’s not always easy, and dealing with the inside of your own brain is never a linear process of up-ticking progress - but it’s certainly helped me. Helped to tune in to what I really want to do, or make, or say - rather than what I feel I ought.

Do you feel aware of a critical voice inside your head? Do they ever latch onto your creativity? I’m curious to hear.

And now… on to my cultural recommendations for the fortnight…

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Cultural recommendations: on the inner critic

Mo Gawdat on How to Fail: former bossman at Deep Mind (Google’s innovation arm), Mo Gawdat is a seriously great thinker. He’s also the creator of his own equation for happiness. With a gift for synthesising the most complex of ideas into short form without oversimplification, Mo’s well worth a listen.

The Maisie Hill Experience: women’s health expert and author of the best selling Period Power, Maisie Hill is also a life coach. Her weekly podcast has never disappointed me and is full of highly accessible, useful advice on how to manage your thoughts and brain better. My favourite nugget of hers: “What did you make it mean about you?”

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Cultural recommendations: a ripping yarn for a winter night

His first in several years, I’ve gotta say, BEE’s new one is a blinder. I raced through it in a couple of days while nursing a rotten cold, and it’s a real ripping yarn. Balancing on the delicious knife edge of credibility, it’s a serial killer thriller that uses elements of the real Bret’s life - a kind of deliberately obfuscatory auto-fiction, daring us to believe what actually happened in the last year of a posh LA high school in the early 1980s. Fun. Stupid. Gorgeously written.

I used to love BEE when I was a teenager and then really fell out of love since he produced a few duds and some even more rubbish opinions. He’s worn out the label of enfant terrible and now borders on the depressing provocateur-on-purpose. But this novel is a real return to form. Yes, it’s violent - but not in the wallowing gratuity of American Psycho, and if you’re squeamish like me, the violent sections are quite easy to skip and don’t damage the plot.

Even more enjoyable was devouring this novel after listening to Once Upon a Time at Bennington College: the wonderfully in-depth analysis of BEE and Donna Tartt during their time at the same small liberal arts college in the 80s. Some of the close reading of BEE’s prose in this podcast is truly second to none; and like the best lit crit radically enhanced my enjoyment of the way he puts words together, rather than dragging me down into academia.

The one thing I will say - I reckon the last 15 pages are a bit of a let down. The thrills are so tightly wound, that once they’re unravelled it’s slightly unsatisfying. But I’d say the weird pleasure of the reading experience is worth your time, even if the plot doesn’t wrap up in the most brilliant way.

It’s also the ideal antidote to the tail end of the winter - if you find yourself longing for warmer climes, the golden, sun-drenched, balmy Californian evenings in this novel are totally transporting: the best value holiday for your mind.

Hot take: Bret Easton Ellis’s very own Secret History, this sexy, thrilling, weird novel is worth it - even for the squeamish.

Cultural recommendations: a gloriously creepy short story collection

Parallel Hells - a brilliantly assonant title - was a book recommendation from one of my dearest friends and 100% does not disappoint. The debut of Leon Craig, this short story collection sizzles with writing that is both spare and luscious: all that is extraneous is pared away, leaving the most purposeful of prose.

It’s a blend of gothic, contemporary folktale, ghost story and body horror - in a fantastic queer landscape. The characters’ queerness is deftly handled - rather than being the source of their often ghoulish problems, it’s just a part of the patina of their lives. I’m currently writing something of my own which blends horror and folklore, all filtered through a queer lens.

I wanted every single story in this collection to carry on - they all feel so fully realised that they could be novels in themselves. (With only one exception - in which I found the body horror a little too grim, but as you’ve seen in my encouragements to skip the violence in The Shards, I can be a real wimp with body stuff. But you be the judge).

Craig is maestro for getting in late and leaving early - the characters you meet in these pages feel so fully realised, they travel with you into the next story. She balances warmth and humanity with eerie chills, making for a delicously complex read. I’ll be watching carefully to see what’s coming out next for her - apparently a first novel is in the works.

Hot take: If you’re looking for your 21st century Angela Carter, with a queer bent - Parallel Hells is for you.

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That’s it for this fortnight

If you’re happy that the J Mail is back, I’d love to hear - drop me a line or comment. I’m particularly curious to hear if you’d like recommendations in specific areas (books or theatre, events or podcasts, etc.) or if you like the more informal, noodling, range of bits. I’m also curious if you’re into the personal essays.

Is it too long? Is it too short? I’ve moved in favour of fewer recommendations, with the chance to dive a bit deeper into each one - the thinking is that this will make for a more satisfying reading experience, but you tell me what you prefer. I’ll mix it up these first issues back so you can have a taste of a few things. This is all an experiment for me - I just like writing - so any and all thoughts are welcome.

If you know someone you think might enjoy - please do share with them!

Til next fortnight. Thanks for reading right to the end. You’re brilliant.

J x