What's in a name, and hello.

Introductions.

Hi, I’m Susan. I write weird stories and love nature. I’m 43, and live on the edges of the Peak District with my family and cat.

My plan for this space is to make new connections, meet like-minded people and exercise my writing muscle.

If you’d like to introduce yourself in the comments below, it’d be great to get to know you. Share what you are reading at the moment if you’re not sure what to say.

Read on for a bit more about me and why I’m here.

Photo by Alex Ward

I’ve been writing online since 2010. Topics that seem now from a previous life, like vintage lifestyle, things to do in Manchester, home renovations, and interiors. I’ve been both nominee and winner at different blog awards.

Now, my fiction revolves around the uncanny, the strange. Things that are adjacent to real life but are just a bit off, weird or horrific. My favourite writers are Shirly Jackson, Jeff Vandermeer, Angela Carter, and Robert Aikman.

Substack feels like a place where many of us OG bloggers are hanging out. We started our blogs for writing and connection, and we all got distracted by the pretty, shiny things on social media. Things have gone full circle.

Like many, I’ve been led a merry dance by social media. I carved out a place for myself and gathered an audience/tribe only to have it become like some obstacle course to get my content seen.

Don’t get me wrong, I met some of my greatest friends via my social channels. People I wouldn’t have met in real life. But as many of us will happily tell anyone who will listen, there are not many new folks finding us. On Instagram, for example, my number hasn’t grown for around four years… But I’ll stop, I don’t mean to rant. I know I don’t need to preach to the converted here.

Moving forward, I plan on having my social media channels as my shop windows. Perhaps updated seasonally but not so much time invested in them. Deleting and reinstalling the apps as needed, when I have any book or publication news.

And the title of my Substack? What’s that all about?

The Wild and the Quiet is a line from Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter. I saw it recently out of context and it stayed with me. I think it fits where I am right now, striving for the balance between the wild and the quiet. As so many of us are.

As an author, much of my time is spent reading; The Quiet.

As a mother and creative, my brain is often busy and tangential; The Wild.

Here on Substack, I'll share research benders, mycelium mentionings, uncanny underneaths, and esoteric explorations.

I enjoy making connections with things that may perhaps at first glance, seem unconnected. I love getting to the bottom of things, full-on investigations. In another life, I’d be a librarian who did archaeology on the side. A feminist version of Indiana Jones perhaps.

Like many others, I’ve been lurking here on Substack for a while.

Not really trusting it and not really understanding, what the catch is. Is it too good to be true? Really no ads, no algorithm?

I still don’t know the answer to these questions but the time has come for me to try it out because today is my debut novel’s second birthday!

Find out more about Earthly Bodies here.

What better way to celebrate than a new avenue of writing, a place where my natural long-form self can maybe even thrive?