Welcome to Between

Welcome to Between, and thank you for arriving here. It’s a substack that celebrates borders and boundaries, but also things that exist in the liminal space around borders, in between. Or maybe betwixt, if you have a taste for endangered words.

In this era, we are encouraged to declare an interest, and I certainly have one. In fact, I have two. The first one will come and go, and that is the publication of my book, called Between, on October 28^th. You can see the cover below, stunningly illustrated by master printmaker Jason Hicklin. If you already know that you’re intrigued enough to buy this, I’ll be posting on pre-ordering information as soon as it becomes available.

The interest that will persist is in the idea of in between states. I’ve been gently intrigued by borders, edges, and transitional zones for as long as I can remember, and in recent years it’s hardened into a barely controlled obsession. Writing a book about it all felt like the best way of dealing with it.

I see between states pretty much everywhere, and think they deserve to be celebrated. If you subscribe to this substack you’ll get a miscellany of betweens; an eclectic selection of ideas, observations, stories, and I hope some insights from many different contexts. I won’t be plundering the book but using material that didn’t make it to the final manuscript for one reason or another, or stuff that I’ve unearthed since finishing and wished was, um, between the covers.

For all that the word ‘between’ implies things that are contained within limits, in reality I’ve found the opposite. Betweenish things have a habit of spilling out, leaking everywhere, being very hard to corral, so having a generous, baggy substack that allows them to go where they will, beyond the covers of the book, feels appropriate.

Enjoy.