Set Your To-Read List Free
Read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, on my recommendation, and gain no further information before reading.
Gwyneth Findlay is an editor living in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where she mentally and physically collects world maps. She graduated from Calvin in 2018 with a degree in writing and minors in French and gender studies.
Uninspiring Holidays, Detailed
If you lived in Manitoba, you could at least call today Terry Fox Day. But then you would live in Manitoba.
My First Flat in Aberdeen
I once prepared a five-page document detailing all its quirks.
It Really Feels Like Love On Tour
I do not, in life in general, scream—not on roller coasters, not in pain, not when Wet Leg encouraged the crowd to unleash bloodcurdling cries—but when Harry was on stage, I couldn’t hold back.
Exercises in Androgyny
This is often our dichotomy: me with my mane of curly brown-red hair in bright, patterned pastiche; them with their almost-black shag and layers of black jackets.
The Edge: Arrokoth
It would take twenty months for that data to drip through the solar system. So I waited.
City Slicker Definition & Meaning
Life there doesn’t confuse me, but it’s no longer what I’m accustomed to. I’ve become a real city slicker.
How do You Get a Cow Across a Firth?
In one corner, it imagines a boat.
Starting Off “Right”
There’s no escaping a year; we’re in it for the whole, well, year.
Swings and Roundabouts
Vowel merges have led multiple people to mistake my tale about seeing the ferry with spotting a fairy or my ponderings about Frodo and Merry as Frodo and Mary.
25 Pedestrians, a Baby, and a Just Eat Rider
Just before they leave my field of view, they look up.
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality itself doesn’t have the capacity to inspire passion, to push boundaries, to ignite change.
Ten Albums
I’d time the queue so that the lyric “can’t figure out / how I’m gonna get through the next 10 minutes” played as we arrived at the pitch.
I Think Your Intentionally Hairless Body Is Weird
I can sympathize with bowing to the weight of societal pressure, but the potential roots of that pressure make me deeply uncomfortable.
Wild Food on Easy Mode
These plants simply grow, unimpeded, in ways that suit people and creatures alike.
When Your Vagina Doesn’t Work
I often wonder what would’ve happened if I’d had that wedding night, one weighed down by the expectations of a brand of purity culture that left little room for alternatives to PIV sex.
Rain, on Earth and Other Bodies
The gore of blood rain seems tame when it’s raining dead frogs, fish, or birds.
Where Do Babies Come From?
Bringing a child into this world can require ingredients more dire and gruesome than puppy dog tails.
I Can’t Stay Here
I became used to telling people about the bridges I burned, but that’s not quite right.
Rereading The Balloon Tree
I was enchanted by the idea of a tree that grew colorful balloons, and… and I’m not sure what else.
Aberdeen, As I Walked It in 2021
I’ve seen what makes this place valuable, what compels me to call it home.
I Think You Should Listen to This Album
Ramsay is creating a version of himself who can create a masterpiece, even if he is destroyed in the process.
Nail Polish Comfort Zone
After my team’s crushing defeat, I gave up nail art.
Tollers
Summer came t’ England,
so he danced among hemlock in a wood
Dead Baby Seagull
Claire paid no mind to the splotchy coloring and large, hooked beak; to her, it was a duck.
Waking Nightmare
No one ever saved me; no one ever knew I needed saving.
Recommendation: Solstice Sunrise
By six, the sun was already higher in the sky than it ever reaches in our winters.
Harry and Me
Harry’s influence has allowed me to unveil aspects of my queerness that I did not know were hidden.
Six-Rose Eulogy
Most bits of rock and sea glass in the tin on my mantle are from Aberdeen, but I will know this one for your home.
Two Poles, Both Alike in Dignity
The initial descent, which for Lil Nas is as simple as grabbing the pole, is trickier from the Moon.
