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A quiet note, before the year turns

Between Christmas and New Year there’s a strange pocket of time I’ve always liked.

Dec 26, 2025 • S J Watson

Reader Dispatch - On crime novels that refuse the usual contract

Today’s Reader Dispatch looks at crime fiction that withholds reassurance — and what that kind of structure asks of the reader. I’ve also linked to some…

Dec 17, 2025 • S J Watson

Craft Lab #1 — How Atwood Makes a Sentence Breathe

What it means to begin after the world has already changed

Dec 16, 2025 • S J Watson

The Return to the Summer House

A scene in progress

Dec 12, 2025 • S J Watson

Reader Dispatch - Rereading a Book I Thought I Already Knew

I picked up Atwood’s Bodily Harm this week — a book I first read when I was young enough to think I understood everything.

Dec 10, 2025 • S J Watson

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What "Pillion" Shows — And What It Refuses to Show — About Gay Desire

Why I left the cinema feeling seen, but still hungry.

Dec 5, 2025 • S J Watson

Reader Dispatch - When the Past Starts Breathing Again

Reader Dispatch - When the Past Starts Breathing Again

Dec 3, 2025 • S J Watson

AFTER THE STORM

What happens to your creative self after a big push?

Dec 2, 2025 • S J Watson

Writing from the Wound

Before the scar, there’s the story.

Oct 10, 2025 • S J Watson

Packing Light, Living Light

How a last-minute Lisbon trip—and a dose of Patti Smith—helped me rethink control, spontaneity, and the tyranny of “should”

Jun 17, 2025 • S J Watson

TikTok Is Ruining My Brain (So Why the Hell Am I Still Posting?)

I posted this on TikTok.

Jun 14, 2025 • S J Watson

The Books I Had to Burn: Why I Scrapped a Novel to Save My Writing Life

Between you and me, I had to lose the plot to find my way back

Jun 3, 2025 • S J Watson

"Where are you in the story?"

A personal story from the writing of Before I Go to Sleep

May 8, 2025 • S J Watson

Sometimes, the hardest step is the one that takes you where you were always meant to be

May 8, 2025 • S J Watson

In Orton's Shadow

Cruel youth, and the lessons I missed the first time round

Apr 23, 2025 • S J Watson

A Scrap From the Cutting Room Floor

And over to you...

Apr 17, 2025 • S J Watson

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Thoroughly Good Substack

Thoroughly Good Substack

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