What’s this all about?

A return to form.

In a previous career many years ago, I was the sole member of the marketing department for a small language translation company. The CEO of the company, a Swiss chap from Basel (major career foreshadowing there) had a nose for sales and promotion and had long relied on newsletters and email lists to get in front of prospective and current customers. He tasked me with creating a more robust newsletter. As a bored former technical writer and frustrated poet, I took it on with some fervor, imbuing the monthly mailing with stories not only about translation and linguistics, but musings on anything that even vaguely touched the world of international business and language. It seemed to work. Feedback to our “spam” was good, and I enjoyed this diversion from my day to day work.

Those newsletter days were before the age of social media, believe it or not. I imagine if I was still working for that company, I’d be some sort of social media manager now, posting photos of far flung locales with pithy captions related to “speaking the languages of the world”. But here I am, returning to newsletters with this new venture on Substack. And I can’t be more excited. 

Over the years I’ve been fortunate to write for a number of excellent publications, from GearPatrol to Hodinkee, Revolution, Australian Geographic, and Wired. Sometimes my leash was let out a bit and I was able to explore arcane whims like wolf research on a remote island in Lake Superior or a folk school that teaches blacksmithing. Often these stories at least tangentially were about a wristwatch, and often some sort of underwater adventure. And as much as I’m grateful for the chance to tell these stories and for editors’ humoring of my strange interests and avocations, in the end, writing for someone else is always a compromise. I found some respite on Instagram, with my own little space to muse and post about things, but that’s a visual medium, not ideal for long form writing. 

I have remained, since I left my “day job” (the translation company), steadfastly freelance, never wanting to be an employee or staffer at any of the fine companies for whom I wrote. That comes with its pros and cons. There’s the much vaunted “free” in “freelance” but then also no safety net, no assurance of regular work, the hustle of finding and keeping clients, billing and chasing payments. People told me occasionally, “You should start your own blog”, but the task of designing and maintaining a website, the need for a constant stream of fresh content, and then of course selling ads to actually make some money sent me running. That’s what I love about this newsletter: it’s just writing, some you get for free, some you have to pay to see.

Substack has been around a while, founded in 2017 but I only learned of it recently. In a conversation with no less of a visionary than Gear Patrol founder, Eric Yang, Eric told me, “Newsletters are the future of distributed media. It’s the most authentic relationship [you] can have with a reader.” I couldn’t agree more. There’s no filter here. You like what I write, you get it from me without questions of alienating sponsors, adhering to trending topics, clickbait, or editorial constraints. And if you like it enough to pay me for the content, you get a little more than the free edition. It’s fair, straightforward and just a little bit old fashioned.

Though I’ve dabbled in photography, both on my own and in partnership with my wife, Gishani, for both editorial and commercial projects, I’m a writer at heart. And a newsletter is pure writing. I can go on as short or long as I want, about any topic that catches my fancy. I promise to keep things varied and hopefully interesting and entertaining. I think if you’re reading this, you already know what I’m all about: a keen eye for the history of exploration and diving, travel, accessible adventures, gear, good whisky, and an old Land Rover. I hope my audiences, whether from my Instagram feed, listeners of The Grey NATO podcast, or readers of my stories over the years, will come here for more of the same, in expanded detail and with new perspectives. I can go more in depth on things I’ve only been able to touch on elsewhere, due to time, space, or other constraints. I also plan to write adventure reports, review some of my favorite gear, and wax poetic on arcane things like commando sweaters and dive chronographs. If that sounds like something you’d like, please consider subscribing.

I’m aiming for weekly missives and I’m resisting the urge to develop any sort of editorial calendar or “pre-write” future articles. That way, it will always be fresh and what’s on my mind that given week. I will probably try some interviews with people, and perhaps regular Q&A columns, where you can write in and ask me stuff. Stand by, it will be evolving in front of our eyes.

There. 900 words later, my first post here is done, and what did I do but explain how I got here, back to newsletters. It feels a bit like going back in time but also a step into the future for me. And definitely like coming home.

Thanks for reading.