BuzzFeed News? Gone. Input Mag? Gone. I nearly lost an article that took six months of work — is this the new norm for freelancers? — Of the several pitches I fired over to Mark Yarm, an editor at Input Mag and a total stranger at the time, I wouldn’t have predicted the one he bit on: A profile of Sammy Stephens, star of a commercial for Flea Market Montgomery that went viral in 2006. If…

Even if its past was anything but. How do we reconcile that disparity? — When the lineup for When We Were Young festival was revealed, elder emos around the world rejoiced. (At that time we didn’t know that Day 1 of the festival would be canceled due to inclement weather, sparking outrage almost on par with that of Fyre Fest...) But the lineup triggered…

Three important reasons trying to get a Substack off the ground feels impossible sometimes. (And one way to get around it.) — Writers everywhere have been going nuts for Substack. Myself included. At the end of last year, Substack announced that they had reached the milestone of one million paid subscriptions. But that number implies a level of growth that’s a little misleading. It’s misleading because many of the writers who have…

And why, for me, it would have been an enormous mistake — At the time of writing, I’ve been freelancing for around ten years. If my freelance career was a person it’d be old enough to be…heck, I don’t know, I’m childfree. Barreling towards middle school though, right? A while ago, I hooked up with a remote agency (hereafter known as The…

Looking at some of the theories on why the Jags signed Tebow, and why most of them are probably wrong. — On the 20th May ‘21, Tim Tebow officially signed as a Jacksonville Jaguar. The move was publicised with a lengthy press release that might well have left other fringe prospects wondering when their big announcements were coming. But come they would not, because Tebow isn’t an ordinary player. Of course…

Celebrities and doctors alike are struggling to get everyone to wear masks. Here are three big reasons why that won’t change. — Disclaimer(s): I’m not a scientist. This article contains some sweeping generalisations. I am NOT saying that England, or any country for that matter, has handled this crisis perfectly. I love America and can’t wait to return. ✌🏻 When I first thought about Americans and how they’d handle the COVID-19 outbreak…

A poem. —

Why malls like Gwinnett Place, the backdrop for Stranger Things season 3, likely can’t come back from their ugly history. — There’s a scene towards the end of Stranger Things 3 in which a newspaper headline dismisses the season’s climactic Mind Flayer battle in the food court as “the Starcourt Mall fire”, presumably attributing it to a gas explosion. What some may not know is that Gwinnett Place Mall, a shopping…

Illegal oil deals. Marijuana smuggling. An international manhunt. This is the story of Robert Stone (and his pet cheetah Scooby). — I’ve interviewed a lot of people in my days as a freelance journalist and writer. Once the article goes live, I rarely think about most of them again. It’s nothing personal, only that I need a clear head to move on to my next assignment. It’s, as they say, just…