Last looks

Increasingly I seem to use this blog/newsletter as a sort of public diary. I've found it to be immensely helpful - if that's not your thing though then maybe skip this one. I have lived in a lot of houses (or more often flats, or

The fervent joy of being a fan (+ ranking the ships I've stanned)

It's been a while! I've been going through it - aside from my recent family loss, I also just spent a week in hospital getting my appendix removed. I need a little more joy and silliness in my life. Hence, this post. I love being a

The wheel keeps turning

if there’s an afterlife: i hope it’s warm outside, the sliding door is letting a breeze in, and the sun is coming through the lace curtains. the cupboards are full (but not too full) and there’s an afternoon tea plate on the table with your favourite biscuits.

(Refusing to) leave the past behind

I've just booked a trip to England for three months from now. In the span of just a few weeks, I need to cram in much-needed quality time with a bunch of very beloved friends, as well as mine and Josh's close family members. It'

I wanna take your photograph while the light's still good

There are almost 80,000 photos in my camera roll from the past 10 years of my life. I am a prolific documenter; famously the friend that is always insisting on a photo, and often found with my Instax camera in hand. By contrast, there are only a handful of

The Jane Austen Cinematic Universe (Soph's version)

This will be my last Austen-related essay for a while! After the previous one, I felt I needed to provide my own practical guide to Austen's adaptations and retellings (though it'll inevitably be out of date by the end of the year, as there's

1000 ways to persuade someone to read Jane Austen

I had to sneak this one in, in the month of Jane Austen's 250th birthday. Happy new year! See you in 2026. I am the proud owner of 77 copies of Pride and Prejudice. I also have 70-80 copies of Jane Austen’s other novels, or books inspired

My 2025 favourites

Warning: this is a long read. Feel free to skip to the bits you're interested in, or otherwise I recommend sourcing a snack and settling in. It is very satisfying to log all of the media you consume, and I've been doing so for the last

Even sick, I want to be alive

Content warning: themes of suicide, self-harm, death. No graphic descriptions.  About the title: It’s a slight misquote from the play Angels in America, spoken by Prior when he believes he’s about to die. This speech remains one of my all-time favourite pieces of writing.  I still want…My

Twisted sisters: on friendship & community

Minor spoilers for Grey's Anatomy seasons 1-12. Even if you have never seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I personally (!) think this is still worth reading. The friendships in this show have had an unexpectedly wide impact on the way that many of us talk about

I care how you remember me

I wrote this in 2022 and it’s sat in my computer files ever since. It talks about a feeling I still have every now and then, and I wanted to share in case it resonates with anyone. My great-great-great-great grandfather’s name was Abel Barris. He was born in

Hope belongs to all of us

You normally won't hear from me this often, but I felt I had something to add to the already rapid discourse amongst leftist circles about Mamdani's win - I'd love to kōrero with anyone who has a different perspective. In Zohran Mamdani’s winning

Let's buy DVDs again

Participating in the boycott of brands linked to Israel over the past two years has made it increasingly clear to me that most major brands are complicit in some form of war, genocide, human exploitation or destruction of the environment. Sometimes I would feel momentary overwhelm when another go-to brand

Another heartbeat in the house

Alternatively titled: learning to love animals, and why it’s a political issue  Alternatively, alternatively titled: being existentially humbled by my cat It might seem hypocritical that I’ve been vegan for the best part of 12 years, and yet for a very long time I did not particularly like

The definitive guide to my Jane Austen collection

It’s well-established lore amongst my loved ones that I have loved Pride in Prejudice since babyhood. When the 1995 BBC adaptation aired for the first time, I was 9 months old; over the next few years, my parents would plonk me happily in front of the TV to watch

Heart Standing Still

Today, for the first time, I drove past the Hill Road exit to Manurewa and I knew that neither of my grandparents were there. My poppa (Leslie) died 11 years ago, and it’s been a couple of weeks since my nana (Joan) moved into a care home down in

welcome, this is 'collecting myself'

It's taken me 15 years since my first ever published piece of writing (it was a review of the Christian music festival 'Parachute' for the New Zealand Herald, if you were wondering) to finally create a space for myself to write. I tried to write a