A nihilistic sheep, who, like so many other sheep, just wants to watch the world burn, staring at me insouciantly, moments after it has set fire to a large portion of the United Kingdom.

A flock of sheep who had been trying to sneak up on me while I was asleep, with the intention of shaving off my beard and selling it on the black market as "weird wool".

A morbidly inclined sheep, who likes to hang around in graveyards, detests parties and owns original pressings of the entire classic run of Leonard Cohen LPs from 1967-1974.

A sheep who is dealing with the disappointment of hearing the news that I will not take it home and permit it to be my child.

Some young sheep who are trying to lure me into their weird sheep cult, which involves rigorous sobriety and the worship of old gates (the one at the bottom left of the picture was a particularly dangerous and disturbing character).

Two sheep who have just had "pre-drinks" and are on their way out, on a Saturday evening, with loose plans to fuck shit up.

A sheep who initially claimed to be a sheep but, on further interrogation, over a beer, admitted she was just posing as one and was in fact one of the UK's last surviving wild pandas.

What I at first thought of as a sheep but is actually a deadly bounty hunter from outer space who has been trying to track me down for many years, across several galaxies, and is feeling smug that he is finally going to receive the considerable fee, plus travel expenses, that he has been promised for his troubles.

Some sheep I threw an old football over to who were initially confused by the football but are now worshipping it as their new God.

Two friendly sheep I met on the coast path above the Atlantic, and attempted to stroke, only to find out they were ghosts and my hand went right through their stupid fake spectral wool.

Some sheep who have recently watched Reservoir Dogs and as a result have been inspired to go for an intimidating gang walk whilst listening to the song 'Little Green Bag' by The George Baker Selection.

A sheep who had mistakenly thought that the world was a genuinely happy place, entirely full of nice things, until I told him that the Toploader song 'Dancing In The Moonlight' exists.

A group of sheep gathering on a hillside before going to war.

A sheep who has experienced an extraordinary dip in its previously buoyant mood because I have just told it about exactly how much water data centres and AI consume and all the absolute wankers who think it's "progress".

Some cool and popular sheep I caught discussing my foibles behind my back.

A sheep with great taste in early 70s reggae who moved to the city and had a bad time on drugs and is now recuperating at a moorland farm owned by a kind uncle.

A two-headed sheep who finds it hard to make friends due to the prejudices of the local population, who base everything on the surface and not the genuine goodness to be found deep inside.

Two humans who initially just dressed up as a sheep for a village pantomime but have now decided to identify permanently as one sheep.

Some sheep who went to see a show on the 2024 Taylor Swift 'Eras' tour in a whole different region of the country to where they live and took a whole two years to walk back home, who are now extremely tired, but happy.

A sheep who has lost confidence in her sporting ability who I am now trying to psych up, prior to major sheep hockey match, by looking directly into her eyes and telling her what a brilliant one-off talent she is.

A sheep who is no longer extremely young but is still too young to know how to eat snow properly without getting it all over her face.

A sheep who is still drunk from the night before and trying to find its way home from the party it attended, whilst wearing some comedy antlers.

An uncharitable sheep who is laughing meanly after seeing a nearby woman fall off a horse and land in a small cold river.

Some sheep who have gone on holiday by mistake in a shit caravan, already deeply regret the money they have spent just to be near yet more grass and are wondering what they are going to do to amuse themselves for the next eight days.

A sheep I have met for the first time today who has already agreed to get in my car with me and go on a crazy trip over the border into Mexico, with no firm plans.

A stupid and gullible sheep who has been sadistically deceived by two small Satanic gremlins from the underworld who have made her believe they are really her children.

Some sheep who have already compromised their former punk rock ethics by making an album of lowest common denominator landfill indie rock purely for the money and have now caved to their record company's demand that they present a "non-threatening family-friendly image" for the cover photo.

A sheep who went on a walk because it wanted to see some pretty flowers for the first time and has become hopelessly lost, miles from home, with no idea how to get back to the house where it lives with an unimaginative family who have no appreciation of beauty.

Some well-organised fundamentalist sheep who live in a bygone era in their heads and are about to burn me for being a witch, just because I live with cats, am kind to spiders, sometimes listen to quite weird folk music and enjoy books by Sylvia Townsend Warner.

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Most of you hopefully know this but in early August last year I moved my newsletter from Substack to my own website via Ghost. Unfortunately when Substack promise that you can leave and take all your subscribers with you they fail to mention that none of the subscribers who clicked “read in app only” will any longer receive your newsletter. Those readers will simply think you have vanished. This has cost me much stress and money over the last ten months and I ended up having to go back into Substack and write a piece about it, in an attempt to clear the mess up and get the message to those subscribers who thought I’d evaporated. It also meant, quite painfully, that a lot of people who would have wanted to find out I had a new book out actually didn’t.

I’m keeping my Substack account open for now, with no paying subscriber option, solely to try to get the message (including via this post) to the last of the in-app only subscribers that I’ve moved, so please note that the place to sign up for my newsletters is here on my website www.tom-cox.com. All paying subscribers from the era when I was on Substack will be able to read all the writing there and you can log in and check/update your account using the email you originally used to subscribe on Substack. I’ve also kept quite a bit of the writing free and, since moving, introduced two low rate subscription levels, in an attempt to not exclude as few people as possible who are keen to read all my writing but are on a limited budget.

It’s now precisely a week until my third novel Everything Will Swallow You is published in paperback. You can read an extract from it here. And if you pre-order it from Blackwell’s you get FREE international delivery AND I’ll be heading up to the Blackwell’s warehouse next week to sign every copy they have (plus a fair bit of my backlist).

Apologies if you received two emails from me today. As I said, it’s just part of my last attempts to clear up a mess caused by Substack. There are still a lot of people in the dark about it and hopefully this message might find a few more of them. And if you are one of those who thought I’d vanished please subscribe to my writing HERE, and not on Substack.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Tom

Have a read here.

My latest piece, which you can read here, is not actually an in-depth history of the railways. As you might have noticed if you spend any time on my website, I have a self-sabotaging habit of often giving my pieces thoroughly unclickbait titles which often only abstractly, at most, describe what they contain (I think of it more as "clickwait"). This is the most lengthy and personal one I've written for a long time: it’s about my time briefly living in York in the mid-1990s, finding out I now have a disease I have to live with for the rest of my life, how I got my first paid writing job, time, transport, a great Norwegian film and many other things. Eightyish percent of it is behind the paywall but I'm not beating myself up for that because we all have to earn a living, I worked sodding hard on it, I have written quite a few free pieces lately, and I want to show my gratitude to the people who kindly support my writing here. If you'd like to become one of those people (and get access to this full piece and my entire archive), you can do so here for a minimum of £20 per year (or £2 per month if you prefer). If not, I still thank you for reading my work, and do rest assured there'll be another free newsletter or two along soon.

I normally wake just before 3am, get immediately into my tracksuit and go for a run around the bathroom, but not for long, since writing time is of the utmost value to me and I’m at the height of my intellectual powers early in the morning. If I’m going easy on myself I might grab a cup of coffee and a couple of houseplants from the living room and take them back to bed with me for a quarter of an hour or so. But after that it’s discipline time: no procrastination allowed through the doors. If you are like me you will discover that there’s a particular fizzing inspiration that needs to be bottled at this time of the day, lest it leak away. My own method is to squeeze it straight out of my pores into the jars from my fridge I save after I have scraped them clean of the chutneys and pestos they were made for. I then label these with my beloved Dymo Labelwriter 360. I am rather specific about the labelling because I place a high value on accuracy, and I always give the inspiration a star rating out of five. More recently I have started to permit half and quarter stars, which gives room for the greater nuance and self-criticism that I increasingly pride myself on. I have also taken the precaution of making the lettering bigger since the night in 1997 that Barbara Kingsolver stayed here, got up even earlier than me and, having mistaken the contents of one of the jars for homemade lemon curd, spread it liberally on three slices of sourdough then immediately went home and wrote The Poisonwood Bible.

So many authors will offer the advice “Write drunk, edit sober.” I would counter that by saying: remember everyone is made differently and do whatever works best for you. Lunchtime is generally the part of the day where I will crack open a couple of bottles of vodka, read over my morning’s work and inject it with some much-needed colour, mostly by boldly revolutionising the traditional role of the comma or trying to find needlessly complicated ways of conveying simplistic or overused ideas. Some writers find it impossible to listen to music while they work but I can happily say that I am not one of them. I find that, if I absorb the work of a composer enough times, its spirit and mood will quite literally enter my prose. I am not ashamed to aim well above the brow with this, mostly focussing on pieces that prioritise texture, sonic mastery and transcendental ambience over lyrics. The theme tune to the TV series Dogtanian And The Three Muskehounds is a particular favourite right now.

One of editing’s most underrated skills is, however, knowing when to stop. 2pm is always the cut-off point for me and that’s non-negotiable. I generally spend the rest of the afternoon chilling out in my favourite local cafe, repairing the lever-operated siphons on their rest facilities, or, if I’m still hungry for inspiration, heading out to shops and listening to the conversations of strangers in an attempt to sprinkle the dialogue in my writing with extra gritty realism. I find that B&Q, with its focus on life’s indispensables, its special warehouse intimacy and profusion of arguing couples is particularly rich hunting ground. You might remember the oft-celebrated line “Phil, do NOT just ignore me and piss off down the masonry aisle” from my 2008 novel The Empathy Of Owls. That in fact came near verbatim from a visit I made to the Sutton-In-Ashfield branch of the hardware chain. My one alteration was to change the name of the perpetrator to Phil since his real-life moniker, Goosepenis, didn’t seem to fit the character I’d spent the previous 850 pages painstakingly constructing, nor his day job as a neonatal nurse.

Sometimes I read about the intensely disciplined writing routines of rival authors and think, “Okay, super impressive, but who is taking the kids to school here? Who is doing the vacuuming and dusting? Who cooks your meals?” So, for total transparency, and to prevent anyone mistaking me for a combined artistic and domestic superbeing, I will pre-emptively answer each of these questions. My children were stolen during a holiday in Tunisia in 2019 and, although I have since tracked them down and been in touch with all eleven of them, they are adamant that they are doing perfectly fine there and assure me I don’t need to worry. I own a highly sophisticated waterproof robot vacuum cleaner who, with great patience and effort, over a number of hard yet rewarding years, I have taught to scale walls to heights of up to six feet. That leaves to me only the job of cleaning the few very lofty surfaces in the house and I find that I can wait to do that in the downtime between novels, as nobody ever really looks up there anyway and I don’t get many houseguests (Barbara Kingsolver was the most recent). I do all my own cooking with fresh ingredients from the local organic gardens of unsuspecting strangers and make my own water fresh from the tap, directly into the glass. Because this takes time and effort, my day is already so brimful, and thinking is scientifically proven to be the most tiring activity a person can do, I have long since accepted that evenings are not my Creative Time. I stagger into bed around 9pm, first being careful to move each of the houseplants I left under the duvet that morning, and soon find myself tangled in the reassuring drapery of sleep. Even in the deepest rest, though, my mind insists on telling itself the stories it thrives on, so I make sure I keep a notebook near the bed at all times. I hope I might write something in it one day.

This was a free post, but if you’d like to support my writing with a subscription, you can do so here and get access to everything new I write here, including this week’s paywalled post, plus my full archive, for as little as £2 per month (you can also make a one-off donation here).

My latest book is Everything Will Swallow You. You can read extracts from it here and here. My other recent ones (all available from Blackwell’s with free international delivery) are - in reverse order - 1983, Villager, Notebook (republished in April!), Ring The Hill, Help The Witch, 21st-Century Yokel, Close Encounters Of The Furred Kind and The Good, The Bad And The Furry.

A few other pieces you might have missed:

January

Thinking About Thinking

Some Photographs I Have Taken Of Dogs During My Adventures In The British Countryside, And Some Important Details About Their Lives

At Home With The Actor, Influencer And Designer Philippa Islington-Smythe

A dog who has fallen out with her husband and step-children for the final time and is feeling the special kind of freedom that can only come from hot-wiring a vehicle belonging to a local tradesman and setting off into the mysterious core of a bright winter’s day, unencumbered by personal belongings, with no particular destination in mind.

A dog who has had far too much to drink at a party, watched his girlfriend kiss a rival, and announced “LEAVE ME ALONE MATTHEW, I’m just going to stay here in the middle of the road forever”, and who I am now trying to gently and sympathetically reason with, while I also try to decide whether it would be a good or bad idea to tell him I am not Matthew.

A dog I have found loudly singing to itself on some moorland near my house, after following the sound of what I had assumed was Liza Minnelli doing a note perfect cover version of the song ‘I Feel Free’ by the psychedelic 1960s power trio Cream.

A really stupid dog leaning on a wall, who is taking some time to think about bricks, and why they might exist.

A bunch of dogs who were bored of devouring mechanically recovered meat, being very long and looking quite posh and asked me if they could be sheep instead and are trying to make me feel bad for telling them they couldn’t.

A dog who is running excitably towards me across some wet grass, having heard a rumour that for one week and one week only I will do a cut, shampoo and blow dry for just £14.99.

A worried young dog from a posh family who, out on his own for the first time, has got lost at sunset at a notoriously haunted rural crossroads where I often like to dress up as the Devil for fun while sitting on a wall, idly rolling three six-sided dice around in my hands.

Two dogs who have borrowed their mum’s car for the first time and are trying to persuade me to drop what I’m doing to go and break into a tennis ball factory with them.

A dog with extremely poor vision who is attempting to climb all the way up to my summit, having mistaken me for a steep and challenging rock formation in his neighbourhood that admirable people talk about a lot.

A dog who has been cruelly filled with ten and twenty pound notes by her local bank, and is wondering what she is more annoyed by: people taking money out of her stomach, or the fact that I have just made the joke, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. On the plus side, you can sometimes withdraw cash.”

A dog whose door I have knocked on, asking directions to the nearest post office, who is now giving them to me, purely through the power of his desperately sad eyes, but tarnishing the full magic of this by neglecting to tell me the vital detail that the post office is now permanently closed.

A self-conscious dog who until this moment had never walked across a bridge, even though he is more than 40 years old, and is trying to remain cool about the whole situation and not fall over in front of anyone influential who might be watching.

A dog I am doing my best to console, after meanly quoting him some hard-hitting statistics about how many fewer people read for pleasure in America, by comparison to only a decade ago.

A dog who is in the process of being beamed up to a flying saucer piloted by aliens from a distant planet who are on a specialist top secret mission to boost that planet’s population of small insolent mammals with fur that looks like crap wool.

A rarely sighted dog who lives in a totally different dimension, who is good at leaping, but nowhere near as interesting or magical as she at first seems.

Subscribe now

This was a free post, but if you’d like to support my writing with a subscription, you can do so here and get access to everything new I write here, including this week’s paywalled post, plus my full archive, for as little as £2 per month (you can also make a one-off donation here).

My latest book is Everything Will Swallow You. You can read extracts from it here and here. My other recent ones (all available from Blackwell’s with free international delivery) are - in reverse order - 1983, Villager, Notebook (republished in April!), Ring The Hill, Help The Witch, 21st-Century Yokel, Close Encounters Of The Furred Kind and The Good, The Bad And The Furry.

I’m sorry if this is the second email you’ve received from me this afternoon and I don’t intend to make a habit of doing this, but since today is quite an important day, on which the audiobook of Everything Will Swallow You is released, I wanted to make sure everyone knew about that. I also want to alert new subscribers (and longer term ones who didn’t realise) that the place to sign up to my newsletter is now here at my very own website, NOT on Substack. If you want to upgrade, downgrade or change your subscription in any way you will be able to do so at www.tom-cox.com by logging in using the email address you used when you originally subscribed to my work.

I reopened a Substack purely because of the unanticipated difficulties I had (and am still having) with the process of moving my subscriber list away from the site, and that I needed to let people know I hadn’t simply “vanished”. I wrote an explanation about these troubles for Substack folk here (I am still getting the problem I mentioned of some banks blocking people’s subscription payments so, if you do subscribe, please can you check yours is still going through).

My writing, however, will continue to come from www.tom-cox. There’s a bit here explaining how I now do things. Here’s today’s newsletter, which is about many things, including a standing stone I found in the middle of a pub. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Tom

These are my bad weeks. It’s the same every year. If I seem reluctant to come out and see you on some kind of social occasion, don’t take it personally. I’ve just decided to save you the hassle of bothering with December Me, who bears a moderately close physical resemblance to Rest Of The Year Me but is grumpier and almost pathologically focussed on sleep. I’ll be ok shortly. I always am. But during this part of the year, in the diminishing grey-brown smear we laughably still refer to as “daylight”, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m in the trash compactor from Star Wars with the walls closing in. I’m always taken aback by how quickly the sensation arrives, typically around November 20th. One day I’m walking in the flaxen light of an exemplary autumn day, holding a gate open for an octagenarian horse rider, listening to her potted life story and thinking “Wow, I feel pretty good, considering, and look at the world and its intertwining magic: maybe early winter will be different this year!” then, in the dullest flash a flash can be while still being a flash, there it is: Survival Month, None More Black Month, Ghosts Of Rubbish Christmases Past Month. The feeling will go on, I know, approximately until Winter Solstice, when R2-D2 shuts down the system just in time to stop me getting completely crushed.

The knowledge that these bars of darkness, closing in on the day from each side, will not continue their progress forever is there within me, owing to what I have learned over 50 previous Decembers, but that doesn’t mean that my body does not respond to this time of year with primal terror, an instinctive need that makes me want to run and tidy myself away in a drawer. I suspect it would be a bit different if I didn’t also feel like such an alien when confronted, from all sides, by the consumerist pretence that this is actually the best time of year. “Are you ready for Christmas?” If by that you mean am I poised to do all I can to avoid shops and the gormless lying face of festive celebrity capitalism then thank the Goblin Animist Gods that these dispiriting mopwater days are getting lighter then yes, you bet, I am absolutely 100% fucking ready.

Paying subscribers can read the rest of this piece here. For as little as £2 per month (or more if you want to pay more) you’ll get all my new pieces in your inbox from www.tom-cox.com, and full access to my archive.

As I’ve said here, I now run my subscriber list from my own website www.tom-cox.com (please subscribe there if you’d like my newsletter in your inbox) but I’m posting this in full here on Substack as a sample of my work for those new to it. It’s a chapter from my novel Villager, told entirely in the form of an online village message board. This is also my attempt to rehabilitate Villager, which was the victim of the collapse of my publishers early this year, which meant it went out of print for a while and I was not paid for my final year of earnings for that book or six of my others. Thankfully it’s now been republished by my new publishers Swift Press.

THE VILLAGE MESSAGE BOARD

Judith Sparrow: Has anyone spotted a horse rug on their travels? Purple, with red stripes. Last seen up near Hood Gate. Any information appreciated. My Thomas is getting cold.

Terence Black: Fantastic fish and chips tonight at the Stonemason’s Arms. Just right. Mushy peas.

Diana Wilson: I had some last week. Overcooked.

Gary Oliver: Everyone keep their eye out there’s a drone around in the night sky been seen looking for something worth pinching.

Gary Oliver: Don’t suppose anybody has two concrete slabs they don’t need any more?

Terence Black: Be vigilant about scam phone calls. A number has been calling me. International. Says I have been in a car crash nonsense I haven’t.

Jennifer Cocker: Are Roger and Sheila OK? Haven’t seen them for a while. They’re very old and having trouble getting around now.

Sheila Winfarthing: We are fine. Thank you, Jennifer.

Jennifer Cocker: Someone should go round and check on them. I can’t. I have the kids.

Sheila Winfarthing: I’m right here.

Gary Oliver: Anyone who has any engine oil they don’t need please let me know. It shouldn’t go to waste and can be used for heating my stone sheds.

Alan Rockwell: TALK ON OLD WOODCRAFT. WHAT HAVE WE LOST? UNDERHILL VILLAGE HALL. September 8th. 7 p.m. Alan Rockwell discusses woodland arts. SAMPLES FROM TALK: Sawn elm is often used for the partitions in cowsheds and other places where animals live, as it can cope with the kick of any beast. Cleft oak is often used for the rungs of ladders and can be trusted for its resilience. What does trimming a cleft with a froe mean? Find out. Snacks and non-alcoholic drinks. Entry £3.50.

Penelope Ralph: We have some oil you can have, Gary. But please can you return the drum afterwards.

Judith Sparrow: Congratulations to everyone on last week’s cakes and plants at the Old Chapel. Over £300 raised for RNLI. A splendid effort for all concerned. Any village would be proud to raise half as much.

Diana Wilson: Well done but lemon drizzle cake was dry.

Mark Laggs: Heard a wheelie bin is on fire down near the Molesting Station. Think it belongs to the Cooks. They’re not on here. I’m told they know.

Diana Wilson: So why did you write it on here?

Mark Laggs: Wanted people to know. In case it happens again. Could be kids. Only trying to help.

Judith Sparrow: Molesting Station??

Mark Laggs: The MOT Testing Station. Looks like it says Molesting Station. Because of the tree.

Judith Sparrow: You have an overactive imagination, I think, perhaps, Mark?

Jennifer Cocker: From a news report last year: ‘RESURGENCE OF BURNING BIN CRAZE AMONGST TEENS. Wheelie bins are constructed from high density polyethylene, which when set alight releases carbon monoxide and dioxide. Such gases starve the brain of oxygen, and can be misinterpreted as a high, when in fact the burner of the bin is quickly and irrevocably destroying their own mind and body. Different coloured bins give off different fumes. Brown bins are believed to give off the most potent false high.’ Useful?

Judith Sparrow: Does anyone have a horse rug for sale? Second- hand? Still haven’t found the one belonging to my Thomas and the nights are drawing in.

Alan Rockwell: Thank you to all who came to the talk on old woodcraft last night. The total attendance was nine but I believe it was a case of quality over quantity.

Gary Oliver: There’s a white goose on the grass at Riddle Bridge. If it belongs to anyone. It’s OK it’s just sitting there.

Megan Beaker: When I was a child my mother and father had many geese. As well as being eventually good for the pot, they provided a guard for the house and a deterrent when thieves were abroad. We did not lock our doors back then, of course.

Gary Oliver: Those were the days. My mate Rob in Stepsford never locked his door. Last August couple of junkies from Plymouth came up and cleaned him out. Left the whole house bare. Even took the family photos.

Mark Laggs: Old chair up for grabs if anyone wants it. Smells a bit of fags but not much. Will dump if no takers. Don’t call on phone. No reception in the combe.

Diana Wilson: When you say ‘dump’, I do hope you mean at the Household Waste Recycling Centre.

Mark Laggs: FFS

Megan Beaker: I believe chairs do us more harm than good in the modern age. Squatting is excellent for the posture. We have forgotten this, as a race.

Penelope Ralph: Very true, Megan. Indigenous cultures know this.

Gary Oliver: Goose is still down at Riddle Bridge. Seems fine. Wonder if it sleeps there.

Megan Beaker: I named my favourite childhood goose Grunwald. When it came time to cook Grunwald, I was sad, but entirely accepting that this was the way of things. The fire was in the centre of the room which was what you would nowadays call ‘open plan’. My sisters and I sat and watched the flames, with two oxen, who were also in the living room, as it was a very cold night. This was not long after my parents died.

Jennifer Cocker: Anyone getting cloudy water after issues the other day?

Sheila Winfarthing: And here I was thinking Roger and me were the oldest on here, Megan!

Mark Laggs: Keep it running and it will clear.

Penelope Ralph: Not strictly relevant because not quite geese but has anyone seen the door in the house up above Brent Moor, on the lane, which says ‘DUCK’ on it? I always think, ‘That must be a really big duck who lives there.’

Diana Wilson: No.

Terence Black: Terrific steak last night (medium rare) at the Steam Packet in Wiliford.

Alan Rockwell: TALK ON THE HISTORY OF LETTERBOXES. HOW LONG WILL THEY REMAIN? UNDERHILL VILLAGE HALL. October 25th. 7 p.m. Alan Rockwell discusses the evolution of the posted letter in the UK. SAMPLES FROM TALK: Like Santa Claus, the first British post boxes were green, not red, but it was decided they were too camouflaged in their surroundings. The first red post boxes appeared in 1874 but it took another decade before all the green post boxes in the country had been repainted. The first British post box of all appeared in Wakefield in 1809. Snacks and non-alcoholic drinks. Entry £3.25.

Penelope Ralph: I have always admired the small Victorian post box in the wall down near Summersbridge. I recently found out that the reason it has a kind of soft brush in its mouth is to stop snails and slugs getting in and damaging the letters.

Gary Oliver: The way the world is going, some bastard will probably pinch it one day.

Diana Wilson: Post keeps getting later in the day all the time. Nearly 3 p.m. the other day. One day soon it will be so late it will be early again.

Alan Rockwell: In fact, Gary, you might find now is a relatively benign time, in terms of the theft of items in the custody of the post office. Attacks from robbers were so common in the late 1700s that the post office would advise customers sending money to cut all banknotes in half, send them at different times, and only send the second half after receipt of the first half had been acknowledged. I will also be covering this in the talk. Snacks and non-alcoholic drinks. Entry £3.25.

Judith Barrow: The post box in the wall of Linhay Farm also has a soft brush in its mouth. They put it in because some bees nested in there.

Alan Rockwell: The one beneath the Black Tree? Also Victoria- Regina, that one. I believe it’s the oldest on the entire moor.

Diana Wilson: That tree has always been full of slugs and snails.

Megan Beaker: The Black Tree has always been what everyone in the village has called it. Nobody alive remembers a time when it wasn’t there and wasn’t black. A perplexing runt amongst its tall confident siblings, it never gets bigger, never dies, never withers. It is a tree of perpetual winter, a tree devoid of the relief of seasonal change. When people walk past it they often find their electronic devices misbehaving. Watches stop. Torches catch fire. Phones zap embarrassing photos to half-acquaintances, unbidden. It is said that many centuries ago a robber of the road – possibly one of the gang they called the Gribblins – was left to die in an iron cage attached to an earlier, blacker tree on the same spot, his last meal being three candles fed to him by a local resident, but that is just a story, teased and tickled by time. What is known for certain is that sheep have often been found dead on the boulder beneath the tree, rivulets of blood spilling from one eye. When lightning hit the tree during the early 1960s, a disgraced limping clergyman in his final half-decade of life, who’d settled here from up country, saw the entire trunk change to white and a face wag its wet tongue at him from the bark, but when he recounted the tale in the Stonemason’s Arms later that evening, its authenticity was discredited because of his reputation, but also because he was quick with gin at the time and wearing an item of knitwear back to front.

Alan Rockwell: Thank you for this, Megan. Most edifying, and largely new to me. I have made a note in my journal.

Sheila Winfarthing: I remember that lightning strike well. 1962. Or maybe ’63. I wasn’t aware you were here as well back then, Megan.

Megan Beaker: I had already been here a long time by then.

Ted Wentworth: Sheep know 99 easy ways to die but are always searching hard for the 100th.

Gary Oliver: Stone sheds now toasty on these chillier nights. Thanks again to Penelope for the oil.

Mark Laggs: Ted some of your wall has come down up by Nettle Field. I saw a ewe on the road. Could be yours too?

Ted Wentworth: Thanks, I’ll check. Could be Cavendish’s.

Megan Beaker: A drystone wall should not have too much weight low down. The weight of the stones creates the adhesion that makes it trustworthy. Ventilation is important, especially in areas frequently subject to frost. The foundation of the wall is extremely important. Many walls are of double thickness. There is often a gap in the middle for what is called ‘hearting’: the placing of smaller stones, as a sort of filling. Even so, no mortar is used. This double thickness was echoed in many walls of actual dwellings on the moor, giving ample room for the interment of totemic objects and charms. Common plants that grow on drystone walls in the area include stonecrop, maidenhair spleenwort, wall rue, leafy dog lichen and – less often – the rare lanceolate spleenwort and parsley fern. Sheep – particularly the Blackface – will often seek out a weak spot in the walls, although a sheep that sees a hole in a wall will leave the wall well alone, for she senses it is in danger of collapsing on her.

Penelope Ralph: Whereabouts are you based, Megan? I don’t believe we have met. Are you anywhere near Riddlefoot Lane?

Megan Beaker: Not far from there.

Gary Oliver: He’s not on here so I’m posting for him but Steve Clayton’s whippet Len had a seizure yesterday and ran off. Was seen by Cavendish’s farm this morning at 7am but not since. Can everyone keep a look out.

Terence Black: Does anybody know if the Stonemason’s Arms are still serving food in the afternoons? Can’t seem to find it on their wwwbsite.

Jennifer Cocker: I spoke to Jim at the post office who saw a whippet running alongside the dual carriageway today. He said he stopped on the hard shoulder and ran after it to try and catch it and steer it away from the traffic but it ran off into Parker’s Woods.

William Williams: I have some old sheet music here. Classical, but also some old broadsides and ballads. I keep holding onto it but it’s just taking up space so if anyone would like to have a look and make me an offer, let me know.

Megan Beaker: The lyrics are mostly wrong.

Gary Oliver: Steve Clayton’s whippet Len now been seen by Dimple Bridge, Fox Lane and Stumper’s Cross. Nobody can get near him. Just runs in circles. The cancer has spread to his brain. Steve says best to just leave him now.

Jennifer Cocker: Oh, poor poor dog. Is there nothing that can be done?

Mark Laggs: Gary, do you still have that spare coving from last year?

Penelope Ralph: Funny story for everyone, going back to post boxes. I dropped Mike off at Modbury post office earlier where he was posting Sophie’s birthday present and while I was waiting I drove around the block a few times to kill time. As I was coming back the last time I saw Mike coming out the door and, as he did, an Astra, exactly the same colour and model as ours, driven by an elderly lady, pulled up right outside the door, and Mike opened the passenger door and got in right next to her. She almost had a heart attack. I pulled up a moment later and we both apologised. She was shaken but we all laughed in the end.

Diana Wilson: Why did you go all the way to Modbury? It’s miles away. There are at least nine post offices closer than that, all with reasonable opening times.

Mark Laggs: My mate Craig drove all the way from Devon to Robin Hood’s Bay with a loaf of bread on his car roof. That was a Vauxhall Viva, though. They hadn’t started making Astras yet.

Pete Micklewhite: Who does everyone use for logs and who is best (dry)?

Mark Laggs: I use Lloyd Warner down over the back side of the Tor but he’s not the cheapest.

Diana Wilson: Surprising that Lloyd turned out the way he did. When you consider his father.

Jennifer Cocker: Can anyone hear the fireworks this evening? I have a lurcher and two cats, petrified, beside me. How can people be so inconsiderate?

Mark Laggs: Coming from the Rectory, I think. Sounds like war.

Diana Wilson: Call the police.

Judith Sparrow: Yes, I can hear my Thomas outside whimpering. He only neighs like that when he is very scared.

Pete Micklewhite: Thanks Mark. Lloyd is indeed a top lad. Bit different to his old man.

Alan Rockwell: TALK ON THE HISTORY OF VILLAGE NAMES. HOW DID WE GET TO WHERE WE ARE? UNDERHILL VILLAGE HALL. December 1st. 7 p.m. Alan Rockwell discusses the evolution of place names in the UK. SAMPLES FROM TALK: Did you know that Payhembury is called that because it was owned by a Saxon named Paega, and that Hembury once meant ‘high fort’? Who was Totta and what was her ness (Totnes)? Who was Wineca and what was her leigh (Winkleigh)? Why is Underhill (Underhill) called Underhill? PLUS GUEST SPEAKER COLIN STAPLETON FROM BIDEFORD. Snacks and non- alcoholic drinks. Entry £2.75.

Diana Wilson: I’d have thought it was called Underhill because it’s under a hill.

Megan Beaker: I know who Totta was. I met her and she was a supercilious prick.

Sheila Winfarthing: When was this, Megan?

Jennifer Cocker: So pleased to announce that our daughter Melanie has been selected to represent Britain at the Olympics in diving. This is the culmination of years of hard work and dedication for our Mel and we could not be more proud.

Mark Laggs: Well done Mel!

Megan Beaker: I used to dive, on frequent occasions. That was one of the reasons they selected me to take charge of our settlement, after my mum and dad died. I knew where the big sharp rocks in the river were and I knew how to pick my spot. I was able to stay under a long time, and I tickled trout out from under the granite. Within a year I could grab two at a time. Unatha and Joan (she wasn’t called this but that’s what you’d call her) were waiting for me above with my thick warm coat, which only I was allowed to wear. I was not alive much longer and believe my diving would have only improved, perhaps to Olympic standard, if that had been a thing. Later, when I had a different face and body but the same name, I remembered how, even though it was so many years later, and then again, and again. I never took the river for granted, as those who do rarely live to tell the tale. We said it had a voice. We called it Jack. But Jack’s voice was many voices. It was the voice of my mum and my dad and my other mums and dads, and it is my voice too. I hear myself when I get close to it.

Penelope Ralph: Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I am enjoying Megan’s stories a lot. Who was it who invited and confirmed you here on the message board, Megan? I don’t think I have seen you around the village or the combe.

Megan Beaker: It was me. I did it. I invited me. I confirmed me.

Dave Busley: HAPPY DAVE’S GARDENING SERVICES. NO JOB TOO SMALL. COMPETITIVE RATES. CALL 01364 782435. INDOOR JOBS CONSIDERED ALSO. ALWAYS HAPPY TO HELP.

Rebecca Potts-Wellington: Bonfires are fine, but be considerate. Please check with your neighbours before lighting one. And DON’T do it on a windy day. Very antisocial. Naming no names.

Mark Laggs: There’s a black lad running around Cavendish’s top field. Not sure if anyone knows anything about him.

Penelope Ralph: Mark, this seems a bit racist. I don’t see why it’s cause for concern or that the colour of the skin of the running boy is relevant.

Mark Laggs: Typo! Black lab. Saw him on Squeezebelly Lane before that. Maybe was tied up outside Spar and broke his leash.

Mark Laggs: It’s OK, he’s Sue Pearson’s. I just heard. She got him last week from Berry Pomeroy.

Anne Cherry: Free pair of Crocs. Size 6.

Jennifer Cocker: Has anyone seen Roger and Sheila recently? It might be worth going over to check on them.

Sheila Winfarthing: We are right here. Still walking and speaking in intelligible sentences without dribbling and making our own meals and everything. Some have described us as a miracle of modern science.

Anne Cherry: High-waisted jeans. Barely worn. Bought in Next sale, 2008/09. £7 ONO.

Megan Beaker: I lost my maidenhead around the back of the tor. It was the day of the fair. A French boy was responsible. He wasn’t the age of a boy and didn’t think he was a boy but he was. There were lots of French on the moor, then. They had been in the prison, then were released, on the condition they stayed within the parish. At the fair there were heads on sticks, carved and painted black, and people threw rotten apples and onions at them and cheered. Mr Oldsworthy, Underhill’s baker, played the fiddle. I could smell the nutty aroma that always lingered on Oldsworthy’s dusty jacket as the French boy led me on past him by the hand and I knew the song from a long time ago and knew it was part of me. After that I could hear them start to play ‘The Bonny Bunch of Roses’. Young dogs were wrestling, looping and twirling on the grass, out of breath. We went to the barn. It’s still there. The cuckoo was crying from the tor top and as I looked into the stone in front of me and the French boy tried to find me and breathed hot breath into my ear I felt like I was the stone and I felt 15,000, not fifteen. The stone was full of stories and there would be more. But about this story I never told a soul. On the way home the words to the song were in my head: the roses one, not the one I felt was part of me. ‘One morning in the month of June. While feather’d warbling songsters. Their charming notes did sweetly tune. I overheard a lady. Lamenting in sad grief and woe.’ I stopped at a fallen tree and collected kindling, looking for the drier bits caught on branches above, like my father had told me. It had rained that morning but it was easy to forget that had ever happened.

Judith Sparrow: Terence Black, in case you are wondering, the Nissan Micra who you didn’t thank when it made quite an elaborate manoeuvre down a farm track to let you pass the other day on the lane up to Hood Gate just beyond the sharp right- hand bend was driven by me.

Anne Cherry: Selection of old board (and other) games. Kerplunk, Downfall, Scrabble, Monopoly, Pictionary, more. All in excellent condition. £20 the lot. Individual prices considered if no takers.

Mark Laggs: When I was playing Downfall as a kid a bee once went in one of the holes on the turny bits, thinking it was a flower. I will always remember that.

Diana Wilson: Turny bits?

Megan Beaker: Someone said I once turned a man to stone. People retold the story, then embellished it. Even the unembellished version is untrue. I could not have done that if I wanted to (and I did want to, at times). But that doesn’t mean the stones don’t have a voice of their own.

Jennifer Cocker: Is Gary OK? I haven’t seen him on here in a while.

Mark Laggs: He’s been having a hectic time I reckon. Sorting the insurance and everything after his stone outbuildings burned down. I think he lost a lot of stuff.

Penelope Ralph: This year’s Ball In The Hall will take place on June 22nd. Outdoor catering will be provided by Miranda’s Kitchen. We are also very pleased to welcome Adverse Camber from Torquay, who will be enlivening proceedings with their mix of sea shanties, rock, ska and what the Plymouth Herald described as ‘solid peninsula reggae pop’ in a glowing 7/10 review. Tickets will be £10 and must be purchased in advance from the Stonemason’s Arms or the community shop.

Mark Laggs: In case anybody is going up by Riddle Bridge, the road is closed. Massive fuck off elm has come down.

Judith Sparrow: Brilliant news! Thomas’s horse rug has been found. Angela Paley from Wentworth Country Cheeses discovered it caught in a tree, a full half a mile from Hood Gate, and handed it in to Jim Swardesley at the post office. Jim called me and I went in and picked it up yesterday. Amazingly, it is only slightly torn. Of course, I’d got my Thomas a new rug in the meantime, because he can’t go cold, so now he has two. He’s an exceedingly happy horse!

Megan Beaker: Do you all sometimes hear me sing to you in your sleep? Do you notice how it intensifies when you are feverish and sick, how it becomes everything? Do you ever realise, as my song scores your dreams, that it has been the soundtrack to so many dreams in the past, too, but you never remember it when you wake up and are back in your surface world, which you laugh and shrug and joke your way through and pretend is the real story?

Order Villager with free international delivery from Blackwell’s UK.

Subscribe to my writing.

My ex-husband’s landlady is 77 years old, five feet nine and a quarter inches tall, with broad shoulders, size seven feet and hair as wild as the kind of unidentifiable weed that you might one day find growing at the top of some steps. She lives at the crest of an important-looking hill in a tall thin house, which I personally believe is far too big for her, even though she, herself, is bigger than most women of her age. Directly below the important-looking hill is a much smaller hill. Balanced precariously on top of that is a squat, undistinguished building which also belongs to my ex-husband’s landlady and which, for the last couple of years, my ex-husband has called home. I think I am correct in saying that, at some point in the mists of time, prior to my ex-husband’s landlady converting it, the building was used to protect goats from the rain. It could, however, have been sheep. You would have to verify this with my ex-husband or his landlady. Both of them have spent time with numerous animals and are good with information.

The day my ex-husband moved into his landlady’s house was one characterised primarily by sunlessness and the kind of cloud that has nowhere to fall because it is already all around you, sagging against the ground: not the kind of day that seems to herald any bright new beginning in a person’s life. My ex-husband was not yet a whole season past his nervous breakdown by then and I helped him move his things, although, to be honest, this was not an arduous or lengthy job, due to what he called his “new minimalist approach” to life. “Have it all,” he had told me, during the final death rattle of our marriage. “I am past caring at this point.” A more mercenary person than me might have taken him at his word but, knowing that my ex-husband has a habit of making spur-of-the-moment decisions he later regrets, I was careful, while dividing our possessions, to separate some for him: a cake tin, an outdoor dining set once belonging to his late parents and a couple of my least favourite armchairs, amongst others. As my ex-husband and I moved all this paraphernalia through the clammy air from his small rental van to his new home I was struck by how diminished and stringy he seemed, in his moist clothes, as if now he was no longer propped up by my larger personality and income, all that was really left was a scarecrow in a pair of spectacles. I had just noted what an impractical my-ex-husbandish position he’d placed his new dining table in and was starting to move the table when, at the kitchen’s threshold, I saw the unusual amalgamation of hair, eyes and herbal tea smells which I soon understood to be the building’s owner.

“What is it that they say?” said my ex-husband’s landlady. “’Parting is such sweet sorrow’.”

“Keep your nose out of it, bitch,” I thought. But what I said was “Hi, I’m Donna. Good to meet you”, after which the three of us exchanged some awkward pleasantries and observations - not all of them accurate - about the weather. Then my ex-husband’s ex-landlady explained that some rampant ivy on the back wall was at present perilously close to entering the building’s heating system but she had someone coming out to see about it in a couple of days.

You can read the rest here, for a minimum of £2 per month, which will also give you access to my full archive and everything new I post.

You can read the full story of Jim’s amazingness here.

After several months out of print, due to the collapse of my ex-publisher, Unbound, Villager went out of print, but is now reavailable via my new publisher, Swift Press.

You can read another extract here.

And Blackwell’s UK will send you a copy with free international delivery.

If you’d like to order it, I recommend using your purchase to support independent bookshops, using Bookshop.Org (which will do the same thing) or - if you’re outside the UK - using Blackwell’s, who, amazingly, offer free international delivery (if you’re quick, you might also be able to get a signed one from them).

You might like Everything Will Swallow You if you like at least one of the following:
1. Old dusty objects (especially records)
2. The power of friendship
3. Quieter forms of magic - especially the kind found deep in beautiful (and some distinctly less beautiful) landscapes
4. Folklore (the kind we know, and the kind still to come, after we are all dead)
5. Walking
6. Knitting
7. Long complex stories of 50-plus years of life told in a not insanely large number of pages
8. Crows
9. Grannies
10. Stand-up comedy
11. Dogs
12. Psychedelia
13. Dorset
14. Cornwall
15. Hills
16. The sea (and its timeless mystery)

It’s definitely not a book for everyone, but a few people already seem to be enjoying it…

I’m very excited because Justin Avoth, the narrator of my all-time favourite audiobook, Erotic Vagrancy by Roger Lewis, has just completed the recording of the audiobook of EWSY. It can be pre-ordered here.

Five of the other books I wrote for my defunct ex-publishes Unbound have now also been republished by Swift Press (the sixth, Notebook, is coming in April). They are:

1983, available from Blackwells with free international delivery.

Villager, available from Blackwells with free international delivery.

Ring The Hill, available from Blackwells with free international delivery.

Help The Witch, available from Blackwells with free international delivery.

21st-Century Yokel, available from Blackwells with free international delivery.

Help The Witch, available from Blackwells with free international delivery.

If you’re one of those who’ve not been receiving my writing since August, for the worrying reasons I wrote about here, I have been writing a lot of short fiction recently. Here’s a little sample from a story I had a particularly large amount of fun with:

Today, as we are all only too aware, a ringing phone is invariably something to hide from. Who, of our friends, actually calls us any more, unless it is to convey bad news? As for the other people who use the phone, unscheduled, to speak to us, what do they fundamentally boil down to? Scammers, digital rogues and - arguably more dreadful still - strangers who wish to encourage us to fill in some form of paperwork. Soon, it occurs to me, I and all the individuals I have known and loved will be dead, and there will be nobody left who remembers the time when a ringing phone was something to run ecstatically towards… something, even, to fight with close family members for the privilege of reaching first.

When I was a child, being raised my grandma Lillian, the two of us never technically came to blows in our efforts to beat one another to the telephone, but I will not sugarcoat my recollections of life of that time and pretend that, where the phone was concerned, we did not edge perilously close to animalistic violence on a number of occasions. I was renowned as the third best sprinter in school and my bedroom was a full four yards closer to the phone socket than Lillian’s but, even so, I knew that, once that healthy analogue bell began to trill, my best efforts to reach its source before her would always be futile. When I fumble for my most enduring mental picture of Lillian, in her prime, at around the time of her 60th birthday, it is Phone Lillian that wins through, rather than, say, Baking Lillian or Pressed Flower Lillian or Compost Lillian: Lillian in mid-stride across the hallway of our small cottage, skilfully ducking roof beams, with a luminous anticipatory smile on her face as she wonders who will be waiting on the other end of the line this time: her best friend Mindy Bagthorpe, from Breadsall, with more gossip about the new couple who have cohabited, out of wedlock, in the converted piggery behind Old Staythorpe’s turf farm, or Tutminster, the woodsman, with news of an imminent delivery of his most pungent and well-seasoned ash.

Mindy Bagthorpe, of course, had been at the hub of events from Day One, joining the two of us, along with Mr and Mrs Hendrickson from number 32, for what Lillian called her “little phone party” on the glorious June day in 1981 that the phone company came over to install the line. I was six, these were the innocent days long before caller ID, the nationwide paranoia of 1471 and my reductive concept of the telephone as a device primarily designed to facilitate flirtations with members of the opposite sex, and I was learning more of life and its many dizzying facts almost hourly. The night of that party I couldn’t sleep for sheer excitement and, around midnight, ventured downstairs to mix myself a glass of underdiluted budget brand lime squash. Mindy Bagthorpe, who I hadn’t initially noticed was still awake, on an armchair, sipping from a tankard of brandy seasoned with soluble compound analgesics and reading James Joyce’s A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Manby candlelight, apprehended me and insisted I made a window in my schedule for a “bedtime story”. I understood little of the narrative that ensued, but that, as Mindy Bagthorpe explained, was because I was at a natural disadvantage, and I needn’t worry my little head about it. The only way to read Joyce’s books, she continued, was precisely as they had been written: blind drunk.

You can read the rest here if you subscribe to my website for as little as £2 per month (or £20 per year), which will also give you access to everything new I post, and my full archive of 100s of 1000s of words.

What follows is a minor modern horror story. I say minor, because the modern world is not short of horror stories, and, in the grand scheme of things, this belongs to the small leagues. But it’s been frightening and upsetting for me, especially on the back of a brutal 12 months in the publishing industry.

Two weeks into August this year I moved my newsletter from Substack to the Ghost platform, where it now resides under the website address I’ve been using for many, many years, www.tom-cox.com. I had various reasons for doing this, which I’ve explained many times, but that’s not what this post is about.

When I moved all my Substack writing to my own website, I also migrated all my Substack subscribers: both the paying and non-paying ones. I tries, as best I could, through what I worried was tedious repetition, to let everyone know, via Substack, that I was doing this. The newsletter has remained just the same. Since making the move - as you’ll see here from a quick look around - I’ve written just as frequently, probably a little more so. One of the reasons I made the move is that I wanted to put my actual work and being read ahead of growth, and make my writing accessible to more of the people who actually did want to read it. Therefore, while keeping the original subscription rate active, I added two cheaper ones, for people who wanted to read everything I posted but couldn’t previously afford to.

I knew I’d miss the community element of Substack, which I had enjoyed. I suspected, also, that I’d experience a drop in subscribers, and in income. All of these things happened, fairly quickly, and I accepted it and was at peace with my decision.

But then something else happened I hadn’t expected.

When my paying Substack subscribers’ subscriptions autorenewed, some of them began to contact their bank and flag the payment as fraud. This meant that I received an email from Stripe, each time, saying that someone had initiated a payment dispute against me. What this means is that the subscription fee is refunded to the subscriber by Stripe, with me footing the bill for all of it (i.e. not just for the portion of it that I received, but the percentage that was paid to Stripe and the platform I was using). On top of this, the writer incurs a startlingly large penalty fee. If the writer chooses to counter the dispute and loses (and, as I found out early on, the writer always loses these disputes) they receive another penalty fee on top of that. It’s a hugely expensive process.

And then the same thing began to happen again. And again. And again.

And then something even worse happened: some people’s banks (thankfully not all) began to automatically flag these payments and stop them going through (I’m not sure why, but I’m assuming it’s as a result of these previous refunds/disputes).

It got worse, and worse. To the extent that, this month, I couldn’t afford to pay my rent without going into some savings I was trying desperately not to touch. I started to get truly scared about the impact it was having on my livelihood. Particular since it had happened in the same year that my ex-publishers, Unbound, had gone into administration, taking over £20,000 of unpaid earnings from my books to hell with them.

I was baffled. I always understand when someone unsubscribes from my work - we are in a cost of living crisis, people’s financial circumstances change, plus everyone is overwhelmed, and there are sometimes just too many artists asking for support - but I couldn’t seem to explain why it was happening so often, and why people were doing it in this brutal, heavily penalising fashion. I was still working extremely hard, even through a bout of ill health that put me in hospital twice during late summer, still sending the newsletter regularly, and had explained several times that the subscription had carried over from Substack, worked in just the same way, and outlined what people needed to do if they wanted to cancel their subscription (or upgrade or downgrade it): that they just needed to use the email address they’d used to subscribe to Substack to log in to www.tom-cox.com. Why weren’t the people who were unsubscribing at least emailing me (admittedly a few did) before going straight to their bank and claiming the payments were unauthorised?

I decided I’d made a mistake. Not in moving from Substack, but in deleting my Substack profile so quickly. I should have left my page up, so there was more information out there about my move. I admit that was rash of me, motivated by an increasing, overwhelming desire for simplicity in my life and one less app to deal with.

But this week, due to a few conversations with subscribers, I had a far more significant realisation:

When I migrated my subscribers from Substack, I assumed that every one of them would then receive the newsletters I was sending (via the Ghost platform) from my website. What I did not realise was that all the people who’d subscribed here on Substack but had clicked the “read in app only” option instead of opting to receive my writing via email had NOT been getting my newsletters. None of them. That’s a scarily large number of people. People who, if they hadn’t used a search engine to find my site, or seen my posts on Substack in August announcing my move, might, quite reasonably, have believed I’d stopped writing.

This is why I am here, now.

I’m sticking by my decision, at least for the foreseeable future: I’m still going to send out my newsletter from www.tom-cox.com. I’m still going to operate my paid subscription service from that, and that’s where my writing is going to be. And I’m going to continue to offer those two less expensive options which enable people to read all of it. But I’m going to have this page here too. I’m not going to connect it to Stripe and go back to offering paid Substack subscriptions. But I am going to try to at least use this space to keep people informed of new pieces of writing. I might even use Substack Notes semi-regularly. We shall see.

I’m sorry if this is a boring post for anyone to read, but it’s a matter of survival for me, at the end of a year that’s jeopardised my livelihood in two vast, unexpected ways, and it’s important it reaches everyone who has not seen my work since the first half of August. It’s also an example of the unfortunate ways that technology - by making the world into far more of a tangled migraine than it should be - can have a major, frightening impact on an income a creative person had relied on, without that creative person doing anything wrong, other than and trying to find a fairer, more independent way of getting their work out there (albeit being a tad hasty in the process and not asking enough questions), and not being brilliantly technologically literate,

So, if you would like to a) read what you might have missed, b) become a paying subscriber who has access to all of my work for a minimum of £20 per year, or c) alter your existing subscription in any way, please head over to www.tom-cox.com and log in with the email you used when you subscribed here on Substack (you’ll be sent a message with a secure log-in link and that will open your account).

If you are a paying subscriber, or think you still are one, I’d also appreciate it if you could check your bank has not stopped any payments (and that your debit/credit card details are up to date).

If you are a paying subscriber who clicked “in app only” but would like to start receiving the newsletter emails, please feel free to contact me via the contact form on my site, and I’ll do my best to sort this for you.

For those who’d rather not receive emails, I won’t spam you; I’ll simply try to keep this page up to date so you can see links to my new writing that way and drop in whenever you feel like it. But emails from me will not come via Substack.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.

Tom

P.S. I also have a new novel out since I last spoke to some of you.

Just a few of the bits from me you might have missed:

https://www.tom-cox.com/nothing-cold-can-stay-a-november-compendium/

https://www.tom-cox.com/lillian/

https://www.tom-cox.com/halloween/

https://www.tom-cox.com/fungal-misadventure-some-new-stories-and-a-poem/

https://www.tom-cox.com/autumn-diary/

https://www.tom-cox.com/richards-existential-diary/

https://www.tom-cox.com/some-thoughts-about-jims-scarecrows-and-books/

https://www.tom-cox.com/my-ex-husbands-landlady-2/

https://www.tom-cox.com/an-embarrassment-of-tinned-meat-seven-tiny-new-stories/