A review of Billy Hicks’s candid one-man play about the lonely experience of growing up in a new world of digital technology. … More Review of Billy Hicks, ‘Connecting’, at the Chapel Playhouse, London
The difficulties of dealing with involuntary celibacy, from desolation to misogyny, seem to haunt some of Andrew Marvell’s most famous lyric poems. … More Was Marvell a seventeenth-century ‘incel’?
Hanya Yanagihara’s enrapturing novel A Little Life (2015) finds astonishing depths in suffering and the efforts to make it tolerable. … More A Little Life
It’s not often that I greet New Year with indifference. On the contrary, I’m notorious for indulging in it. But a change of attitude is exactly what’s needed – so let’s begin. … More Create Chaos to Find Quiet: An Epilogue, 2016
October 28th still registers as one of the most important days in my calendar after a horrible incident 17 years ago. It’s a day that changed me forever. … More The day that changed me forever
There are many good reasons why I don’t write much about work – one being that you’ve no way of knowing how well you actually know somebody you work with… … More Unearthing your private life at work
Green is the colour of innocence and experience, of sickness and of health. A glimpse at what it means to be ‘green’ in Andrew Marvell and William Shakespeare. … More Marvell, Shakespeare, and Green Sicknesses
I’ve recently started calling people out on their behaviour, and now find myself burning bridges where I had previously let them crumble. But having burnt no fewer than four in the past month, it’s becoming concerning and could be reflective of something else. … More Burning Bridges: A Twist of Character
The Telegraph recently published an article entitled “Liberating, not lonely: the truth about being single”. The problem with this message is that it marginalises the importance of choice. A brief examination of an alternative ‘truth’. … More Liberating, not lonely? Another truth about being single.
After six years of anonymity here at Writing Privacy, I’ve decided that it’s time to reveal myself. … More An End to Anonymity
