i. SLOWNESS IS DELICIOUS

When I began RUMINATIONS, I was (and remain) a girl with a pen and a dream; a woman with bite and a blank page to fill. I envisioned a day when my words found homes in the pockets of other people’s time and promised myself I’d keep writing until that came true. Now, many letters, poems, interviews, and side quests later, it is, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

RUMINATIONS has grown with an undulating cadence of rot and flux. People come and go, gather all at once and disperse just as fast, or stop for a moment, then stay. Every small correspondence—a reply, a comment, a message—goes straight to my heart and keeps it beating. Time and time again, you remind me that my love for language lies not only in its remarkable plasticity and beauty, but also in its ability to consecrate even the smallest, most human things so that we might understand each other even just a little more.

If this journey has taught me anything, it’s that making earnest art demands devotion and time—and I happen to need more than most. My brain runs at a permanent attention deficit and loves working in endless abstractions, and although caring deeply about everything I do makes me who I am, burnout is something I’m trying to recover from, not compound. I’ve accepted that I’m not the kind of writer Substack, Instagram, or the publishing industry often want me to be (fast, sensational, cheap). In fact—I refuse to be.

The truth is, I’m slow. And I want to stay slow.

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ii. RUMINATIONS, DISPATCHED

An invitation to ritualise creation & redefine what a letter is worth.

Poised at the intersection of poetry, design, and tactile storytelling, RUMINATIONS, DISPATCHED ‍is a seasonal mail club offering artfully curated, interactive literary experiences grounded in the Western Australian landscape I call home. Each dispatch is shaped by shifts in time and attention, allowing them to morph, collect dust, and deepen before departing.

These letters exists to make writing and poetry feel unrushed and real for you. To share my art in a tangible way, and to encourage you to pass a little hope forward. In a world full of screens and scrolls, there’s something special about receiving a handwritten letter to herald the next season of creation.

JOIN THE DISPATCH

Each dispatch includes:

• A slow, intentional, handwritten letter transforming rumination into language and creative action, and helping you do the same

• 1 Journal prompt card

• 1 Postcard with original poetry (to keep)

• 1 Postcard with original photography (to send)

• 1 Bookmark

• Hand-illustrated stickers

• A vintage book page for interactive blackout poetry

• And a return address, of course

Written for restless thinkers, dreamers, and creative souls searching for change and connection, RUMINATIONS, DISPATCHED invites you to ritualise creation and redefine what a letter is worth.

Discover everything you need to know below

LEARN MORE

Dispatch 01: Spring, 2026 is set to depart from my local post office in the early weeks of September. There is much to do and show and tell before then (!!), but for now, I’ll be haunting the usual places. Expect very excited content from yours truly and my reflections on the process of bringing deliciously embossed envelopes and hand-scrawled letters to life over the coming days and weeks. Spread the word!

I love you dearly. Talk soon, okay?

Caitlin xx

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I spend two hours writing an email (I leave a single typo as proof of my humanity). I run every word I use through a dictionary (I have used these words before). I scan the thesaurus for the quintessential match (I resist the urge to check the definition of ‘quintessential’ and fail). I quote Audre Lorde in my exegesis and leave question marks in place of descriptors (I don’t want to get them wrong). I switch my focus to a different feminist philosopher for a break (I read four of their books in one week). I quote an idea and return to the text to ensure I’ve used it right (I reread the quote, the paragraph, the passage, the chapter, the book).

My supervisor suggests starting in the most mundane section. Something straightforward, manageable—the methodology, perhaps? This feels wise. I agree. I begin writing. Wait, reading. No, checking my references. Rewriting. Rewriting. Rewriting. Rewriting. Rewriting. Rewriting. Rewriting. Rewriting. Rewriting. Re

I spend a day on it. I spend another. I write for 10 hours straight and go to bed at 2am. I wake. Eat. Sit. Write. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat myself for another 12 hours. I am glued to the chair. Wrists pinned to my laptop. I go to bed at 4am. I send my supervisor a five page document: three short, stilted paragraphs and a string of slaughtered sentences trailing below. I have 300 words to show myself on the Monday morning. None of them feel right.

as visceral in this way allowed me to articulate the visceral

inviting me to recontextualise my affective experiences through my role as writer-researcher, my identity as a queer woman of colour, empowering me to This allowed me to treat my lived experience of affective injustice and gendered oppression, and the

rage room experience as embodied knowledge,

and interrogate and the sociocultural and political context of my inquiry

me analyse my affective experiences to Translating my rage room experience (

of affective injustice and gendered oppression

the unceded Aboriginal land on which I live, and the sociocultural and political context of my inquiry

. and emphasised creative expression as both a method of research communication and form of research in and of itself Coupling the

My research draws

ource necessitated more creative, narrative-driven approach to the

Uncomfortable as these emotions may be, they are innately informative. Drawing inspiration from black ??? Audre Lorde’s ? work on anger and feminist resistance, I treat anger as an informative and clarifying form of human knowledge (Lorde, e2e), the translation of which

It is only through an act of translation

anger, I will argue, is a powerful catalyst for transformative action and change.

following a tradition of feminist writers and theorists arguing its usefulness.

capable of effecting meaningful change.

To echo feminist ??? Audre Lorde, “For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt – of examining what those ideas feel like being lived...” (??, p.11).

Drawing inspiration from black ??? Audre Lorde’s ? work on anger and feminist resistance, I treat anger as a informative and clarifying form of human knowledge (Lorde, e2e), the translation of which

Anger is a vital source of information and energy

and engage in the serious work of reimagining whatjoin the chorus of politically engaged writers reimagining the rearticulating the already known th No idea I bring to the figurative table will be wholly new, nor wholly known, are not wholly new, only newly felt (Lorde, ?? ).

Anger is loaded with information and energy

In line with the ideas feminist theorists Audre Lorde ( ), and Amia Srinivasan (), and Judith Butler,

the asphyxiation of the poem beneath the relating my affective experience within a rage room to theoretical frameworks for non resistance Butler’s grievability revealed the

I regard this as a success of the autoethnographic

that punctuated significant stretches of time and challenged both the intent and scope of the final project.

within the past eighteen months.

the throughout the creative-critical process as intrinsic to

This informed my decision

The model’s webbing mirror my own dizzying creative process: anger shaped poems that inspired research that challenged intent that complicated scope that limited practice that fuelled anger that re-shaped poems.

guided my creative research, resulting allowing me to interweave theoretical frameworks, textual analysis, autoethnographic experiences to effectively through a narrative approach to academic prose

served as a guide, demonstrating the

my creative writing practice informed, and was informed by

[Entry 2 — 06.05.2026]

I am thinking a lot about moral perfectionism as non-theistic piety. As ritualistic virtue signalling enacted through posturing. As the perfect excuse for inaction and therefore the more harrowing reality: non-participation. When I think about my dissertation, I am met with the same unanswerable question: what is the “correct” stance? And by “correct”, what I really mean is the morally perfect stance actualised as an infallible personal feminist politics that protects me from external criticism and personal injury on two fronts: firstly, by acting as a shield against feelings of failure—more specifically, the incongruence between my political philosophy and my actions (in this case, the claims and outcomes shared through my creative research) that might result in cognitive dissonance or accusations of moral hypocrisy; and secondly, by offering me a sense of moral superiority—if I construct and commit to following a morally perfect feminist politics but find myself in a situation where it would be practically impossible to do so without compromise, my inaction and lack of success cannot be condemned; stagnancy and loss become reframed as a relative successes, more sophisticated forms of rationalisation. These are flimsy protections. Unaccounted for is the loss of partial gain, the importance of engaging in challenging dialogue and admitting fault, and most obviously the impossibility of perfection and purity.

I feel, at this stage, unable to definitively claim whether—

—is simply honest. Perhaps violence is not fully avoidable.

A girl on TikTok tells me perfectionism is Bad but it also makes her Productive and a High Achiever and for that she’s grateful and I want to scream—YOU HAVE IT ALL WRONG! I want her to see the frenzy in my eyes when I tell her perfectionism has no virtue. That it’s all just fear—ALL OF IT! That fear eats words for breakfast and pride for dessert. That it will consume you—torture you—ridicule you—maim the very forces driving you to create with that delicious intensity and verve and dedication. I want to tell her that brilliant things are written with stubborn passion, self-belief, and if nothing else, then indignant, tenacious spirit. That her perfectionism has done nothing but get in the way and make her feel painfully small. Listen—I’ll say, and I’ll lean in with my whole thumping chest and say something incredibly human and maybe wise and definitely a little bit wrong and I won’t correct a thing.

At least, not immediately.

I open a draft on Substack and make a mess. I cut and paste. I fabricate. I divulge.

I call it an exposé. I call it an imperfect protest.

I refuse to edit it.

I hit post.

Ruminations is a rabbit hole for restless thinkers, dreamers, & creative souls searching for change & connection. Subscribers receive fortnightly essays & stray artifacts—the best of which are paywalled for safe-keeping. Unbridled spiraling costs less than a coffee a week & keeps this writer at her desk. Thank you for ruminating with me <3

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Keep ruminating…

Would you rather be alone in the woods with a man or a bear?

EVEN IN BEAR COUNTRY

CW: violence, sexual violence, gore

You’ve been hiking all day. Your toes throb from the rub of your boots, and your pack digs into your hips like a heavy child. You scratched your legs on overgrown bush about a mile ago, and they’re just now beginning to itch. But you’re used to these things; after two months on the Pacific Crest Trail, you’ve learned to ignore the unrelenting nag of pain and heat and itch. Mostly. The sun has begun to melt into the treetops, its orange rays painting the sky like a popped yolk. Eventually, you find a promising clearing and pause at the riverbank to breathe it all in. 

     Gorgeous. 

     The surrounding glade is lush and green. Tall, grassy fingers wave to the swaying trees as a soft breeze saunters through. You check for flat ground and widowmakers, settling on a nook of sandy earth near the water’s edge. The yellow-green tendrils of a nearby willow sigh into the passing river. Its feathered fingers drift with lazy intent. After heaving off your pack with a grunt, you expand into a long, luscious stretch. Then, sitting by the water’s edge, you pull off your boots and slowly peel away your socks.

     ‘Ow,’ you wince through clenched teeth. The sock tugs when it gets to your toes, and you feel something lift. 

     ‘Alright. Okay.’ You yelp as you rip the sock away in one, swift motion and take a toenail with it. The nub stares back at you, angry and bleeding. You pout at your naked big toe and wonder what your nail tech will say when you get home. 

     The evening fades into a gorgeous shade of amber. You take your time setting up your tent and nursing a campfire. The flames lick away at a small collection of sticks and dry leaves as they heat your pot of grits and beans. The smell wafts across the glade, and your stomach growls in anticipation. While waiting for the grits to soften, you undress to bathe in the river. Your sports bra is always the first to go; the elastic band leaves its signature red indent like a permanent vice grip on your skin. The river surface glitters as it courses past, muddying as you dunk and scrub your clothes clean. You find a low branch to hang them over for the night before wading in. You couldn’t care less for broken glass or leaches – the pebbled floor feels divine against your aching arches, and you gasp as the cool water splashes up against your belly, back, and breasts. After days of cleaning yourself with wipes, the river is a blessing. You untwine your braids, letting your hair snag on the surface tension and float around your face like a halo. The sound of the surging river distorts as your ears dip underwater, and you imagine the river lulling you to sleep with meandering, miry stories. Eventually, you resurface with a sigh and find your footing. 

      Then something cracks. 

     Your head snaps up. Skin prickles. Metal coats your tongue. 

     There, in the shadows, on the other side of the glade, you see:

     A. A bear.

     B. A man.

A.

     It hasn’t noticed you yet. 

     You watch it sniff through the clearing, dragging paw after heavy paw towards your dinner. Your hand instinctively reaches up to your sternum, but there’s nothing there – the one time you remove your emergency whistle is, of course, when you need it most. You spot it hanging by your clothes and curse under your breath. 

     Idiot. 

     The bear continues its cautious meander towards the boiling grits, its huge, hunched body casting a dark shadow across your tent. It’s the first time you’ve seen a bear on the trail; the size of it makes your heart pound and stomach sink. 

     As the bear nudges its nose into your pack, you try to recall what the trail guide says about bears. 

     If the bear does not notice you, remain calm, and do not move. Remain calm. Do not move. No moving. No moving. No moving. 

     Your thoughts loop like a Sisyphean prayer, and the river rushes past with a new, icy fury. Above, the late amber sky deepens, turns bloody. 

     The bear swipes the grits off the flames. Sends the metal pot flying sideways with a CLANG. You both jump – human and bear – and you slip. Fall back into the river with a splash. Plunge beneath the surface. Get sucked in by the current. Feel your bare skin catch along jagged rocks and debris. You finally find a rocky purchase to stand on and burst out of the river gasping and sputtering and bleeding. Sand and water sting your eyes, and you rub them ferociously, desperate to get your bearings. 

     The shore is only a few feet away now.

     And so is the bear. 

     It stares at you, beady and curious, with a question: friend, or foe? 

     Adrenaline surges through your body, holding you frozen in place above the surface. You meet the bear’s eye. Its lips quiver as a growl rumbles from the back of its throat in a hot, anxious breath. Your arms pimple as you shudder.

     If the bear notices you, stand your ground. Try speaking in a soft, calm tone.

     ‘Hey there… I’m um, I’m just having a swim. Not dangerous, see?’ You slowly raise your arms. ‘You can uh, you can have my dinner. I don’t mind sharing.’ At first, it sniffs the air, nose scooping out the space between you. Then it shuffles on its front paws. Unhinges and pops its jaw. Clacks its yellow teeth in warning. Saliva swings in strings from its leathery jowls, and the hairs along the arch of its back splay and stand on end. 

     If the bear appears predatory, shout and appear aggressive. 

     ‘AAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!’ The glade erupts in a gristly, guttural growl. 

     Your throat rips as air is expelled from your lungs with brutal force. The calibre of your scream presses against the inner flesh of your eardrums, courses through the vessels in your brain, and ripples across your bare chest in a terrible, carnal tremble. You bare your own teeth and hiss, wrenching your arms down – fists clenched, knuckles popping – to splash the water by your sides. The bear barks back, head lunging as it snaps at the air between you. And then it wavers. Swings its head up and around as it yelps and yawns and clacks some more. You lunge forward, stomping hard through the water, screaming till your voice hoarsens and catches and huffs. In that moment, you feel barbaric.

     It doesn’t last. With one grave, padded swipe, your side splits open. A fire erupts in your core and spills over. You gasp as the sensation of your warm intestines sinking into the water stuns you. Your knees crack beneath your weight as you hit the stony riverbed. Hot, repugnant air surges across your body, and you hear yourself fracture as the bear’s teeth clamp around your arm. Drag you from the water. Pull your bone from the socket. 

     Your ears ring. You remember the time you had fainted at the gym. How the edges of your vision had curled and blackened like paper singed away by fire. Who knew death would feel the same? 

     Well, you think, it can’t get any worse than this.

     The sky is freckled with early stars. They blend and double as your tears melt them away. You watch them disappear entirely as pink, stringy gums and yellow teeth obscure the view. You listen to birds’ chatter as you become engulfed. As the bear bites down and you feel your skull crunch. 

B.

He stares at you from across the glade. Pack at his feet. 

     You wonder how long he’s been standing there. Watching. He’s holding his phone out in front of him, and you’re sure he’s recording you. Suddenly, you wish you’d left your clothes on to bathe. You feel so naked. Vulnerable. Exposed. Your cheeks grow hot even though you’ve begun shivering. You lower yourself into the water, seeking refuge below the darkening surface. He knows you’ve noticed him, but he doesn’t turn to hike away. Instead, he stays. You realise the sun has almost set, the amber that laved the glade before giving way to a purply blue. 

     ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ you shout.

     Your voice comes out sharp and shrill. It bounces across the water, off the trees and fallen logs. He doesn’t respond – in fact, you think you notice him smirk. Cursing under your breath, you scramble to formulate a plan. You reach your hand up to your chest and remember, then, that you left your emergency whistle hanging on your pack. 

     Idiot. 

     You scold yourself for your stupidity, for your bad luck, for your faith in humanity. The man lowers his phone, then waves at you, beaming. You frown, confused. Wonder what he’s playing at. Wonder why he won’t just leave. 

     He begins walking closer. 

     He seems confident. His strides are long, heavy with intent. You step back instinctively and slip on a rock, losing your balance. Your arms fling out, exposing you just to stay upright. There’s a laugh close by, and your head whips up to see the man near the water’s edge. He’s not a thru-hiker. You know this because his clothes are too clean, and you can smell his citrus-twinged BO, and he’s wearing jeans. His eyes smoulder, dark as coal, as he looks you up and down. 

     ‘Leave me the hell alone,’ you spit, lip curling with disgust. 

     He pauses. Rocks back and forth on his heels for a moment before replying, ‘I was just takin’ a photo.’

     You blush – hate that you do – and wonder if he notices. Your stomach wrings itself out, threatening to expel its contents. 

     ‘I need you to leave, please.’ You keep your voice measured, calm; pleasant. 

     ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I like it here.’ 

     He turns and walks away, and you exhale the air you’d been holding. He picks up his pack and swings it over his shoulder. Brings it over to your tent. Sets it down. Pulls out his own. 

     You want to cry. The water rushes past, cold and sharp as tiny needles. 

     You can’t stay here forever. 

‘Your dinner’s gon’ burn,’ he calls out. He takes it off the fire, stirs it with your spoon. ‘Why don’t you come over here ’n warm yourself up?’

     How many times has he done this? Was he following me?

     ‘At least turn around so I can get dressed,’ you ask.

     ‘Oh, sure thing,’ he coos sweetly, ‘you go right ahead. Don’t let me stop you.’ He raises his arms in mock defeat, turning to face the empty glade. 

Your big toe throbs. The others have all gone numb. The weight of your body is thrust upon you as you stumble out of the river and run. Dead leaves crunch beneath your feet – and someone else’s. You look over your shoulder and see the man running towards you. Your heart pounds, ready to explode in your chest. 

     ‘HELP!’ 

     Startled birds crack away from the treetops.

                                                                  HELP

                                            HELP

                    HELP

HELP

     Your plea echoes back at you, and you sob as you scramble across the sand. The man lunges and closes his sweaty, calloused hand over your mouth before pulling you backwards. You thud against his body. Smell his sour odour. Heave violently away from his caging embrace. Freeze as he squeezes you tighter and digs something sharp cold against your throat. Shudder as his chapped lips brush against your ear to whisper:

     ‘Don’t make this difficult.’

     You’d hoped this wouldn’t happen. That the horror stories would stay stories, that your mum’s worries were benign, that you’d return home like thousands of others do. You’d hoped that when you looked up, you’d just been skittish. That it was nothing. 

     Tears stream down your face and over the man’s hand. The glade takes on an eerie shade of blue. Embers lift from the fire and speckle the strained silence. The man’s arm wrenches across your neck, and you feel your body warming. The pain isn’t as sharp as the knife. You’re silently grateful. You wonder what you did wrong, what you did to deserve this fate. You wish you’d never started this hike. Had listened to your mother. Had stayed home. Had been born a boy. 

     The man lowers your body to the floor and your head lolls into a pillow of grass. You can’t help noticing the irony of it all, of dying at the hands of a man in bear country. 

     His belt buckle jangles. You let your mind drift.

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Ruminations is a rabbit hole for restless thinkers, dreamers, & creative souls searching for change & connection. Subscribers receive fortnightly essays & stray artifacts—the best of which are paywalled for safe-keeping. Unbridled spiraling costs less than a coffee a week & keeps this writer at her desk. Thank you for ruminating with me <3

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My room grows quiet when I close the windows. I like this. I like this when my neighbour is mowing their lawn, or my other neighbour’s dog keeps barking, or the constant whir of passing cars becomes decidedly loud and it’s all too difficult to ignore. I like how still the sheers become. So unmoved without a passing breeze, they swoon into their pinched pleats and petrify, silky and statuesque. But then a few hours pass, and I miss the rustle of leaves (nature’s static), the cool autumn air, and watching the sheers kick away from the wall and billow above my bed. So I open the windows again.

I change my mind often. Typically on small things, though increasingly on bigger ones. For me, it’s often a sign of two things at play: my curiosity reaching out to a world of possibility, and my anxiety holding on to dependability with all its might. The flickering between options and outcomes and dreams and fears has always been my default setting, and, until more recently, I accepted that this is just The Way Things Are. One step forward, three steps back, always.

But things are shifting.

I started Ruminations in 2023 with a braided essay on grief. Grief and loss have become recurring themes in the time since, as have rest and resistance. My time on Substack has proven itself to be an ongoing study of making and unmaking, being and becoming, failing and failing better. Although my presence here has fluctuated over the years, I am always finding my way back. I come here when the words are bursting out of me, and I come here to be held. Writing for Ruminations feels habitual in the way walking a familiar trail to lean on the same old wooden post by the river does. The view changes, and so do I, but returning still feels like coming home. Calling home—writing to you—feels honest.

It’s an unconventional approach to newsletter writing, and one the algorithm hasn’t rewarded me for, but it’s also the reason I’ve stayed. As ugly as it looks in process, there is wisdom and revelation in falling apart. I haven’t been afraid to experiment, begin and abandon different schedules, or follow a creative urge and let it go when it’s run its course.

I’ve felt bad about it, sure—unreliable, unconvincing, ungrateful, uncommitted—but I know that shame doesn’t come from me. By now there are thousands of Substack articles urging you to implement varying versions of xyz to succeed, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not immune to the pull of their vague promises and endless badgering. I’ve bought the workshop, run the title check, altered (“optimised”) the post format, replied to the umpteenth note, and written the inevitable letter declaring my guilt. Three years on this platform will do that to you. And it will teach you a whole damn lot. Sticking with this letter as long as I have has meant allowing myself to grow in real time. I’m a slow learner, but I very rarely give up. Nowadays, I recognise endings as entry points.

Didn’t you know? Everything is a portal.

Three May’s ago, I decided nothing would stop me from becoming a Writer. I left my job as a critical care nurse, finally enrolled in my masters, battled my fear of public speaking at poetry readings, earned a hot desk fellowship in my city, then a writing residency in Finland, smashed a printer in a rage room, brought home the sweetest little puppy, started the long difficult journey of medicating my ADHD, applied for Oxford, gained an autoimmune disease, drank an inordinate amount of matcha in Japan, returned to pack and vacate my first home, committed to an idea I’d been harbouring for months, didn’t get into Oxford, wondered if I had, perhaps, made a terrible mistake by following my dreams, decided I most definitely had not, repeated the last two points on loop, ran away to the bush whenever I could, and always, always, returned to my laptop.

The question has changed from “How do I become a working writer?” to “How do I make writing work for me?”. This shift is essential. When I started actively pursuing my dreams, all I wanted was to prove to myself and everyone around me that I could do it. That I had the sheer audacity to try. And you know what? Turns out I do. And that I also have poems to read to you, stories to weave, and a few strong opinions about literary culture and human rights and the power of slow, intentional work that I’d like to share. And the best part is I have nothing left to prove. I know who I am, what I’m facing, and what I’m here to do. My job now is to build a process that’s sustainable (physically, emotionally, financially) and creatively rewarding, and to find more ways to foster connection. ‘Cause at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about: writing for, with, and to you.

More than ever before, I know exactly what I want. I want to write strange and meaningful work that makes people feel alive and worthy. To try and learn and fail in new ways. To remain open to changing my mind. To love radically and openly and often, and to let that love make me brave. To connect with as many people as I can and really listen to them. I want to morph into something else—not necessarily something better, just different. Kinder, even. I want to find the portals. There are only so many times I can open and close the windows before I have to walk out the door.

Thank you for three years <3

Caitlin xx

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Some forever favourites…

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Hello, you.

I am rearing my head from the coiling mess of All That Was. Pink-fleshed. Tender. Reborn. The strongest and softest I have ever been—a paradox I navigate daily, now.

I moved in with my parents during those dream-like days between Christmas and New Years. Said goodbye to my first real home with my first real love and closed the door on another chapter of our lives. Everything has changed. Growing pains, we say. Things feel crooked and fluid; it’s hard to tell if I’m going to snap or bend. In truth, I think the former has already happened and the latter is underway. Wasn’t 2025 just awful?

Yes (!!!), and no.

There was enough poetry to see me through.

I’m not interested in updates and explanations anymore—providing or reading them, that is. What else is there to say except that I followed my path and it led me Here? And Here is exactly where and when you and I are meant to be: encountering each other as our separate paths converge again for another beautiful moment. This is how it must be. I have stories to tell you because I found presence in silence and solitude. I have art to share because I have lived1. I am becoming the writer I need to be2.

Where, and what, have you been?

Shedding

Before—all of it / hyper-independence / yesterday’s dead skin / tall poppy syndrome / un(der)paid labour / the arts’ scarcity fetish / external validation / approval / running (from) / running (to) / algorithms / paranoia / bone-deep fatigue / all-nighters (single / multiple) / god damn mind games / mirtazapine / ego / defensiveness / PERFECTOIN / see previous / no I really fucking mean it / all the clothes that never fit / desperation / insecurity / ignoring my body / anti intellectualism / doom scrolling / procrastination / cop outs / “should” / fear of retaliation / repression / pavement / keeping score / stage fright / self-sacrifice / limiting beliefs / rot and resignation / control.

Embracing

Radical love / self-respect / seasonal shifts / a snail’s pace / oceanic waves / refusal / calling it what it fucking is / desire / dirt / moss / tracing patterns / failing faster / deep sleep / rest / mindful engagement / nurturing, unconditionally / walks / stretching / every little scar / vulnerability / lamps and candles / unwavering passion / assertiveness / curiosity and obsession / adorning (ardently) / foreign cinema / sentimental value / hard conversations with people I love / open conversations with people I don’t know / self care as political resistance / revolution / sensuality, pleasure / natural curls / salt water / escaping down south / puppy cuddles / lemon myrtle chocolate / live music / time with friends / my circadian rhythm / ice cold water / fireplaces / courage / soft, gentle things / textured paper / blood-red ink / the unknown / acceptance / art as a way of life / intuition / listening / asking more questions / letting the ache, ache / compassion (always) / stubborn ambition / trying! / imagination / delusion / RAGE / hope (verb) / Here.

I’m not sure what else to tell you except that I have been here, just not here.

So much has happened in the space since we last spoke, and I suppose the weight of it all has made it difficult to write to you. Not necessarily for lack of words, or care, or want to share, but because I needed time.

I lost my Babcia at the end of July and I miss her dearly. I thought to ring her the other day and found myself caught in the painful realisation that I couldn’t. Although part of me still wishes she had stayed longer, I also know she is somewhere kinder than here. It has been difficult to carry the grief of losing her and muster the strength to keep going. The past few months have whiplashed me between highs and lows, and when friends and loved ones and coworkers have asked me how I’m managing, the only real answer I have is: damage control. Forget about taking things one month, one week, or even one day at a time—I now know better than to underestimate the sheer boundlessness of one moment. And so, that is how I have been living: momentarily; in unsparing momentum.

When time between letters passes in the way that it has, I never quite know how to return. I imagine you, dear reader, sitting across from me asking, “Well, what now?”, and I suppose it’s best to begin by being terribly honest—I’m not entirely sure.

In May, I shared my plans to make Ruminations tangible through an annual print edition of Altars & Artists, and a letter club designed to transform our exchanges into something tender and tactile. They were significant offerings I had spent months thinking over and planning, but you and I both know that even the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. I’ve not given up on them, at least not entirely and not yet. More than anything else, I miss interviewing artists for you just as much as I miss writing letters. But in trying to make Ruminations something bigger than it ever was, it became a lesson in unmaking and accepting the limitations of the very human woman that I am.

Much could be said of the current state of the Arts in Australia and beyond. For instance, the most recent national investigation into the practices of Australian authors revealed that the average annual income for authors in 2022 was $18,200, and a measly $5,700 for poets (yours truly) specifically. A 2024 study reporting on the working conditions of artists in Australia revealed that, despite accounting for nearly two thirds of artists across nearly all creative fields, women still earned 19% less on average than men. I could elaborate further and further and further on the compounding inequality that grows the greater you stray from the “norm” and the precarity and ridiculousness of it all, but it’s really nothing new. I, like everyone else, am trying to stay afloat.

But I am also trying to make things better. Leave this place better than I found it, if you will. And so, I have dedicated much of my time this year to doing just that. I started volunteering for WA Poets as their Social Media Officer last December, and have since used my very handy gen z internet skills (and many new things I’ve learned along the way) to help bring the organisation’s mission to life. That is: to stimulate the vibrancy, diversity, and cohesiveness of the entire WA community through the support, development and promotion of poetry as an art form; to create opportunities for poets in WA to have their voices heard; and to continually aim to make these productions more visible to the wider community by strengthening and building relationships between local, national, and global arts communities. My own goals, essentially.

On one hand, the experience has been invaluable and given me a lot of hope. On the other, I’ve seen just how hard everyone must work to not only keep things running but continue pushing full steam ahead towards those goals. The reality is sobering. And ubiquitous.

Access to art and culture is a fundamental human right, and yet even undertaking the task of ensuring its accessibility is, itself, largely inaccessible. The fact of the matter is the cultural and economic value of the arts remains both underappreciated and underestimated, and the industry needs more than a (still very welcome) revival—it needs transformation. To have been able to dedicate as much time as I have to voluntary work this year is therefore a reflection of my personal privileges, but also just my stupidity poor boundaries naivety passion for the poetry and literature and willingness to tolerate the less desirable repercussions of my efforts—namely an atrocious work-life balance, regular vulnerability hangovers, dwindling funds, persistent ADHD burnout, and growing student debt because yes, you had best believe I’m doing everything I can to turn this damned thing around.

Which I suppose leads me to an aspect of my life I’ve been hesitant to speak to: my studies. My creative writing master’s is arguably the thing that takes up the majority of my time and is one of the main reasons this letter has grown somewhat dormant. Because between writing and working and volunteering and grieving and simply trying to exist, I have somehow also been studying. And I adore it—even the research. It probably comes as no surprise from someone with a newsletter called “Ruminations”, but I honestly didn’t expect to love research as much as I do. My dissertation combines my love for poetry with my passion for gender equality by recognising feminine rage as an apt response to experiences of affective injustice and offers poems as places within which this rage be constructively expressed. Needless to say, I have Ethel Cain on repeat.

So where does this bring us?

The University of Oxford, hopefully.

Over the past few months, I’ve been quietly preparing an application for Oxford’s MSt in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. It’s terrifying to say so aloud. Like I’m jinxing myself. Or making a fool of myself. Or both. It feels silly to dream so big in a world that frequently makes me feel so small, but that’s also precisely why I want to go. I’m forever stunned by the audacity of white men and it’s about time I gave them a run for their money. And unlike said white men on their glorified pedestals, I have everything to gain.

Quite frankly, I am sick of living in a world where human rights are up for debate and diversity, equity, and inclusion remain points of contention. I’m especially tired of all the ways we hurt each other and our gross disregard for life. It’s horrifying. Infuriating. Disastrous. It’s something that deeply pained my Babcia until the very end of her life. Words are, and likely always will be, my instrument of choice. And so, I will continue to do whatever my mind and body can manage to equip myself with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary for resistance—even if they’re located in a different hemisphere, even if it takes me longer than others, even if I fail and must search harder for them here.

I don’t yet know what the fate of this letter will be because I don’t yet know my own fate. I’ve been thinking a lot about subscriptions as a form of patronage vs consumption and the declining value seen in the former. Time away has shown me all they ways I’ve tried to commodify my writing for the latter, and how it has ultimately left me here, in an awkward in-between. Regardless, I know many of you who have chosen to support my writing in this way, even if only for a short time, are creatives too. And to each of you, artist or otherwise, I am incredibly grateful—thank you, truly.

For now, I am tired and trying my best. Pulling away and pulling things back with me. Rearing my little head when the time feels right; when I’ve found the right words; when the words are no longer mine to keep.

Caitlin x

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.

How ugly it is to try. To truly, truly try. There is nothing more hideous than trying, except, perhaps, not really trying at all, and I am learning this the hard way.

.

Silence is unforgivable, and yet it is from silence that all is born. Our days are punctuated by rests, crescendos, harmonies, rubatos, codas. I learn that rubato means “stolen time” in Italian; temporal deviation; emotional indulgence; shaping. It lends itself to rubatosis, a word coined for the sudden, unnerving awareness of one’s own heartbeat. Isn’t it ironic that to be unnerved is also to be disheartened, that the heart’s presence precipitates its absence?

But then, how else could it be?

.

In the wake of carnage, I have found myself speechless. So, I share what others are brave enough to say. I share stories of the people in Gaza—crying, dying, dead. I wince at the war on my screen and find my tongue swollen, numb. I let others speak; for themselves, but also for me. A man messages me and it’s clear he only means to be cruel; that he takes pleasure in my denigration. Just because you share doesn’t mean anything, he says. And I balk at this because how else do we learn except by sharing each other’s truths? I know the answer, though, and so does he: How about you actually engage in these topics? And I honestly do. I do when I cry over the bones of a malnourished baby seconds after I wake. I do when I ruin family dinners, doggedly broaching our collective inertia and making everyone uncomfortable. And I do when I make myself quiet and allow others to speak…don’t I?

.

It’s late and the party’s over and I sit on my little sister’s bed with my mum and my god mum and I cry and I cry and I cry. I want to help people, I choke out. My mumlooks at me and for the first time in my life, I cannot name the look in her eyes. I tell them my dreams feel too big. Too hard. Meant for someone else. Not for me. And beneath the self-doubt and anger and passion and fatigue, a bigger truth bubbles to the surface: I’m afraid. They hold me close, make me laugh. Comfort me in the way only mothers can.

.

Stepping further into my presence as a writer has made me…quiet. I am suddenly very aware that my words have power, and with that power, consequence. My instinct is self-preservation. I am privileged in many ways, but I am still a queer mixed woman with too much to say. I’ve coddled myself into a false sense of security by swallowing my words and letting them catch in my throat—and worse still, I am so familiar with the weight on my vocal cords that I forget I was the one who put them there. How foolish. But that’s how oppression works, isn’t it? It’s insidious. Unnerving. It helps you tie the double knot on your own gag and lets you choke. says “A word after a word after a word is power”1 and god damn it I can’t afford to concede the only real power I know how to wield. I dream of change like it’s a task in my diary, but change—revolution—is not defined by singular acts, but collective, unyielding movements. So when I do not speak, when I do not act, I am not making room for others: I am dulling the chorus. My inaction is complicity. My silence is self-censorship. And when I treat space as a limited resource, not the boundless, infinitely complex entity that it really is, I become implicated in my own oppression and I lead by that example.

.

Our world is growing so full of hate that I’m convinced a hard and uncompromising love is the only way forward. Because our love counts for nothing if it cannot be heard, cannot be seen, cannot be felt. If it’s bound by borders and biases. If it has strings attached. And hate, left to metastasise in the void of our silence, will not thank us for offering it space to grow. Nor will it remember our ignorance when it eventually meets each of our eyes. And I know that to love deeply and openly is scary because I am scared, but I confess, as Audre Lorde once did, to a timeless and bitter truth:

And so I remind you:

It is a privilege to only be disturbed by videos of rotting babies, severed limbs, and shredded corpses.

To only imagine your home stolen, bombed, or gutted.

To only witness forced starvation and famine.

To only hear stories of rape being used as a weapon of war.

To only be inconvenienced by the aftermath of devastation.

It is a privilege to be able to advocate for the safety, dignity, and humanity of others with little or no consequence—that is power.

It is a privilege, simply, to be alive.

.

We are all here on stolen time and by that I mean we shape this world by virtue of our existence. Listen. Do you hear it? The way your heart beats against your ribs? The silence in b e t w e e n? Can you feel it? The vessel bounding beneath the angle of your jaw? The absence      before the pulse? The absence           before the pulse? The absence                 before the pulse? The absence                                  before the pulse? 

The absence





















Say something. 

Share

I know this will not sit comfortably with many. Before commenting, remember: you get to decide how you confront injustice in your life, and your safety, security, and personal circumstances are allowed to shape your decisions. However. I urge you to, at the very least, reflect on your silences and see how, in even the smallest way possible, you can be a voice for change—how you can stretch your love. Change doesn’t start in parliaments or even in the streets. It starts at home, at work, out with friends, online, and in the community. It starts with you.

Emerging from a season of deep rumination, 

Caitlin x

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Welcome to Altars & Artists, a monthly interview series divining the poetry of artists' spaces. Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s book "The Poetics of Space" and Virginia Woolf’s extended essay "A Room of One’s Own", Altars & Artists delves into the creative spaces of contemporary artists to reveal the intimate worlds they operate within.

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New to this series? Be sure to check out the intro post below:

Please welcome our May Altars & Artists guest: Jaidyn Luke Attard

Jaidyn Luke Attard (he/him) is an author, street poet and indie publisher shaking up the literature scene on Wurundjeri land. He lives for literary mischief and poetic disruption. His typewritten poetry can be found across Victoria, left behind for people to find as part of the street poetry movement materialising in Melbourne, blurring the lines between street art and contemporary poetry. With punk-rock spirit and a D-I-Y ethos, he founded Back Shed Press in 2021—a grassroots distro championing raw, rebellious voices in Melbourne, offering emerging writers the opportunity to be published in zines, anthologies and chapbooks. He has also worked as a bookseller for the past eight years and considers himself a ravenous reader.

His autofiction verse novel, The Street Poet (2023), captures a young drifter’s search for meaning in the chaos of the urban world, via his encounters with strangers in the underbelly of Melbourne. An expanded edition of The Street Poet drops later this year.

SUBSTACK | INSTA | YOUTUBE | BACKSHED PRESS

Questions & Curiosities

Welcome to Ruminations, Jaidyn! Would you please tell us a little about yourself and your creative work?

JLA: Hello! Thanks for having me on, I’m delighted to be here! For me, the written word is my medium, and the blank page is my canvas. I’ve called myself a writer since I was little, which became self-fulfilling, I suppose, because it’s what I am today. I am an author and street poet writing on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne.

For the last few years, my main focus has been experimenting with observational poetry about my own real-world encounters in urban conditions. I also do this thing I call ‘street poetry’ where I leave poems around in public places to try and spread some joy to strangers or provoke them into some sort of inner reflection. I’ve also started up my own DIY-driven small press to publish zines and chapbooks by other writers.

But my first love is the novel. I enjoy nothing more than the process of crafting fictional stories, which I am planning to do a lot of in the future.

Your debut poetry collection, The Street Poet (2023), bears witness to a gritty 21st-century Melbourne, “…a city flashing between hot and cold, welcoming and discordant”. Although it follows the journey of young, paranoid writer Johnny Lock, the auto-fictitious nature of the poems lends the collection an unmistakable rawness and palpability. How has writing (and becoming) The Street Poet shaped these last few years for you?

JLA: Writing that book has been the defining event of my twenties, which surprised me because that wasn’t my plan at all! I’ve learned more about life and people by writing street poetry than I could have at school. None of my tertiary education in writing and publishing could actually prepare me for the reality of being an author—my own journey has turned out to be an unconventional one. My expectations were subverted in every possible way.

For the longest time, I thought I was going to be a fantasy writer. I spent all of high school and university on sweeping tales of magic and war. I had never even tried to write anything else, it wasn’t on my radar. I was also trying to land an editorial position in publishing, convinced it was the only pathway that offered a chance at stability. I didn’t realise how rare stability actually is in that world. Then, in my twenties, life in all its twists and turns got complicated, and COVID turned our lives upside-down. My mental health took a spin for the worse, and every day felt like struggling to survive. So I turned to poetry for catharsis, and then to paste-up poetry art for community interaction. I just leaned right into this punkish, expressive outlet as a coping strategy. I think it worked.

The adrenaline that came with pasting up my poetry and meeting strangers in the urban wild fulfilled me in new ways. I wasn’t sure where all of this was leading me at first, but then The Street Poet happened, and now I know: okay, so I’m an author, and that means I need to keep writing books. I’m enjoying being an author and sharing my poetry too much to even think about doing anything else now.

Making The Street Poet meant adopting both ‘author-mode’ and ‘publisher-mode’ at once, which is just my default mode now. It’s very hands-on. Being an author takes up most of my time when I’m not at my day job, which isn’t very punk of me to admit. I even had to go into bookshops myself to ask if they would stock it, and for every acceptance there were at least two rejections. I was totally out of my depth, but ‘fake it to you make it’ has some truth in it. I figured it out along the way, and it feels like I’ve lived a lifetime in just a few short years.

I remember reading your book and being struck by its deeply honest tone and your devotion to observation. Your poetry doesn’t shy away from chaos or discomfort, but neither does it embellish or overly romanticise. I wondered if you might be able to speak to the role of noticing in your street poetry, and also in the way you interact with your city and its people.

JLA: Yes, noticing! Well, it began as a way to manage my own anxiety, grounding myself, being in the present and so on. I think one of the reasons noticing, or people-watching, appealed to me was that it felt like a kind of meditation. Observing helps me step outside my own head. It requires tuning out of my troubles and focusing on what unfolds around me. It’s the whole flâneur idea. I tend to pick up on the seemingly small overlooked details, and those peculiar irregularities are so fascinating to me. I write these encounters as poetry to make sense of them.

I came to recognise patterns in the city of Melbourne by doing this. Beauty and hardship side by side on the streets, and a whole lot of grey in between. I noticed people behaved in different ways, and I would ruminate on why. In particular, the harsh reality of those living with homelessness and addiction became apparent to me, and by talking to some of the people experiencing this, I came to deepen my understanding of class and the nuances of society and humanity. Now I see these recurring characters, some of whom I interact with regularly, as one might with friends.

All of this has taught me that compassion is crucial in this modern world of hustle and capitalism. I challenged a lot of my preconceived ideas by engaging with urban life differently. Federico Garcia Lorca said, “I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace”, and I think this informs a lot of my interactions with the city and its people. I hope some of my poetry can help others see things from new angles. Maybe people will be able to view their own urban landscapes a little differently, too.

Would you say that Melbourne city, even, is something like an altar to you?

JLA: Absolutely. The urban places I frequent are the ones that most inspire my creativity. It started by accident, because I was always passing through these spaces, so proximity has something to do with it. But I can’t really seem to stop myself from returning to the city whenever I get the chance. I even like to sit on the side of the street and write in my journal as the city moves on around me. I often find somewhere to sit and read a book after work, in that last hour of daylight before the sun goes down. I find my own street-side reading nook, somewhere to lean, to compose my thoughts or stop to observe the world I live in. The State Library of Victoria is probably my Altar of the Street. I live sitting outside the library. I often come home with stories to tell.

Let’s leave the city behind for a moment and turn to your own creative spaces. Will you walk us through them, Jaidyn?

JLA: My main altar is what I call my office or studio. It’s just one of the spare bedrooms in my sharehouse, which I’ve turned into something of a library and desk space. I love to surround myself with books—old books, new books, books I’ve read, books I’m going to read, books I’ll probably never get the chance to read. I work in a bookshop as a day job for this very reason. Being around books just inspires me to keep creating, keep telling stories, and it reminds me to never stop engaging with other storytellers.

It’s important to me to have this designated space that is for ‘writing-related activities’ so that, when I’m in there, I do not get distracted. I try to keep my desk semi-organised so I don’t slip into inertia and stress, but it does get cluttered with books, papers and coffee mugs. This is where I do all of my laptop work. Writing, editing, graphic design, admin. I keep important notes and dates tacked up above, and the window is usually open if I’m working in the office during the day, so the sun can shine through.

My desk is covered in stickers, perfectly representing my chaotic mind.

The wall behind my desk is a large wall collage of magazine cutouts, typewritten poetry, illustrations, artworks and quotes that inspire me. Whenever I have to move into a new place, the collage wall is the last thing to come down. It’s one of those things that makes a space my own.

In my office, I also have a shelving set-up for all of my own books, as an author, and all of the zines I print and distribute for a small writer’s collective here in Melbourne, as part of my Back Shed Press responsibilities. I keep the zines inside so they don’t get chewed on by mice or get damp out in the shed.

My office window looks out into my backyard. The lopsided clothesline reminds me I have clothes to take down and fold. The fig tree, which we made jam from this year.

And the shed—of course, the shed! Back Shed Press is named after the shed, because these are good working spaces for groups of people coming together to collaborate. I like designing my creative spaces so that others can join in and be involved, because the process of creation can be very solitary and lonely. I’m hoping some of my fellow writer-friends can get together in the shed sometime and parallel-create their own zines or projects side by side. It’s a great environment for creating.

I’d love a glimpse into your creative process. I’m curious to know if different stages of creation are tied to different places for you.

JLA: My creative process changes depending on what it is I’m working on. When I’m cutting out magazines and words from old dictionaries and turning them into collage pieces or street poems, I’ll usually do that in the Back Shed—night or day, it doesn’t matter. The whole world disappears for a few hours when I have my precision blade, my typewriter, and those old magazines. It gets pretty messy, with paper scraps all over the place and glue stuck to my fingers, but that’s why I’m out in the shed, right? It’s a good place to contain the chaos.

When it comes to writing about my street observations, these—as you would guess—start on the street. My eyes are the camera, my journal or notes app becomes the recorder. I rarely write a full poem on the spot. It usually looks like rough notes, transcribed dialogue, character descriptions, etc. Maybe I’ll come up with a few lines or a stanza or two, but the poem really takes shape when I’m in my office, at my desk, turning those notes into a poem or else typing something up spontaneously on my typewriter. So the poems start on the street, lead to the office, and then sometimes end up back on the street. It’s all a weird cycle, in a way. I love it.

As for writing a novel … I don’t think I can do that if I’m not in my office. I don’t really like to take my laptop out to write in public places, because the last time I did that, someone stole it. I still haven’t recovered from that. So I only work on my long-form writing at my desk, in the typical brooding writer fashion. Unless it’s winter—I have done a lot of writing from my own bed in winter because it’s often the only place to keep warm at night. I mostly prefer to write late at night, usually between the hours of 10 pm and 2 am. I know, I’m insane. But I just prefer the night for creativity and the day for work, admin, life. Once I start writing, I need to be physically exhausted to pull away from the page. When I do write during the day, I often end up writing from morning until dark like it’s a full-time job.

Are there any writers or artists who inspire you or who have informed your approach to craft?

JLA: Too many. In terms of the themes I tend to write about, authors like Trent Dalton, Irvine Welsh and William S Burroughs have been enormous inspirations for me—especially the more experimental cut-up method Burroughs and Kathy Acker were known for. I like doing that with my poetry. Hunter S Thompson, too, with his gonzo stuff. You could call street poetry a bit of an offshoot from gonzo journalism, if it helps explain what I’m trying to do with it.

One artist I admire is Patti Smith. She writes, she sings, she paints, she takes photos. She is an artist in every sense of the word. I aspire to be able to do all of those things too, to not limit myself to one box of creativity. That’s why I do spoken word stuff, stick up my street poetry, and film really out-there videos for YouTube. I think Patti has helped me reframe the kind of artist I want to be, and she gives me a lot of hope that all of the struggle will be worth it. And she’s vocal. That’s important. I think my work is pretty vocal.

And I can’t leave out . He’s an author, street writer, film grip, seasoned traveller—and my best friend. I’ve co-written with him before, and we often still write together, usually over FaceTime because he no longer lives in Australia. We even have another book coming out at some point. Jay was the turning point for me, especially with the street poetry. He taught me that if I wanted to be a writer, I simply had to be one. I had to stop making excuses, stop waiting for the right time. I don’t know if I would have published The Street Poet if I hadn’t met him. He’s an incredible writer.

What is one thing you believe every artist’s space should have?

JLA: An artist, of course! What’s the point in having all of these tools if no one’s there to use them? I mean, spaces can look different for everyone. A sculptor’s space is going to look very different from a writer’s space, a film-maker probably has a gazillion cameras and lighting rigs and green-screen walls and other wacky things that my spaces don’t have. And … I mean … street poets don’t even need a specific space to start creating. They just need themselves, something to write with, and their observational skills. Their spaces can change from moment to moment, because they’re writing about their environments.

Maybe everyone needs something to write in and a pen. Every artist's space should have those. Every kind of artist can find use in a notebook and a pen, I think. Maybe that means writers are superior. Haha. Kidding.

Despite its cheekily blank ‘WHO WE ARE’ page, I know you to be the founder of Back Shed Press, an independent publisher revitalising punk zine culture and blending contemporary writing with the punk ideologies and aesthetics. What drew you to zines personally, and why do you think they’re important now?

JLA: Ah, zines! I love making zines. I don’t think I’d ever even heard of them until a few years ago. A lot of people aren’t familiar with zines. They aren’t exactly mainstream literature.

Well, zines are independently made publications, sort of like small-scale magazines, made for love and easy distribution. They’re usually made with a photocopier and assembled with a stapler, DIY-style, keeping production costs low and making them accessible for just about anyone to be involved with. Anyone can make a zine, really, because zines can be about anything. They were popularised out of old sci-fi magazines, comics, the punk rock scene in the 70s and the riot grrrl movement of the 90s.1

The reason I love zines so much is that they aren’t gatekept like a lot of literature. There’s no barrier stopping people from entering the scene. There’s no publisher at the end of the line sending off rejection letters. They’re a great entry point for writers trying to find a creative rhythm and work up the confidence to work on bigger projects. That’s what I’m trying to do with Back Shed Press. Publishing is hard, but writing is supposed to be enjoyable, right? I’m trying to show other writers that they can actually get their writing out there without needing to be a published author. Which is punk as hell.

Punk is a working-class genre, which is where I sit on the class spectrum. Imbalances between the working class and the elite upper class are widening. It’s hard to get ahead when you’re just trying to survive. Most of us feel it. That’s why zines are increasingly becoming the perfect outlet for punks and poets alike, and it’s why I’m encouraging more writers to try their hand at them. Social media is so full of advertisements and influencers, and it’s harder now than ever for artists to be noticed. It sort of feels like creating our own media in a grassroots kinda way.

My latest release was a zine, actually. It’s a 50-page zine called Gutter Echo, which is another collection of street poetry and photography about Melbourne. I’m actually really proud of it. It’s a good way to continue sharing my writing in between novels.

You know I had to ask—can we have a peek at The Back Shed?

Read more

Thank you <3

Earlier this week, Ruminations celebrated 2 years of me sharing letters, poems, interviews, dreams, and ongoing existential crises with you—and my heart is so. damn. full.

I never imagined that starting a newsletter would connect me to so many interesting and inspiring people, or lead to me starting an interview series I’d become so incredibly proud of, or that 2 years on, I would be just shy of 3000 readers. Three. Thousand. It’s an insane number of people reading my work to even comprehend. Not a day goes by when I don’t consider how best to serve you all and satiate your beautiful, curious, and kind minds.

When the enormity of life feels heavy on my shoulders, someone sending me a sweet message, or restacking a letter, or telling me that what I wrote resonated with them, always brings me back to why I write. Time and time again, I am reminded that my love for language lies not only in its remarkable plasticity and beauty, but also in its ability to consecrate even the smallest, most human things so that we might understand each other even just a little more.

So: thank you, thank you, thank you.

To celebrate two years of writing on Substack, I wanted to look to the future (instead of the past, as we so often do in this newsletter) and share something exciting.

The future is tangible

This past year marked a significant shift in my direction as a writer and creative towards a growing fascination with spaces and places as both philosophical concepts and embodied, uniquely experienced entities. It’s what inspired Altars & Artists, after all. Although I haven’t really spoken about it here, my master’s research fuels this interest. My work is situated within topopoetics—a field of study that recognises poems as places with spatial qualities—and understanding poetry from this angle has deepened my appreciation for place and the ways one can find, or create, tangibility.

The monthly Altars & Artists interviews have transformed into a beautiful commemoration of artists’ spaces and have become indelibly etched into the cycle of this newsletter. In the same way that the series has featured artists’ spaces, I would love for it to be featured in artists’ spaces—your spaces. So, to close this first season of interviews, I’m working on something palpable. Think pages you can flick through; corners you can touch; wisdom you can hold…

You’ve got mail

On a related but slightly different note, I wanted to bring us back to the very beginning, when Ruminations began as numbered letters.

I never really saw this platform as an open diary in the way that many others do. I saw it more as an epistolary exchange between kindred spirits; reflections and ideas and stories shared between a collective of similarly lost and curious artists. Substack has been an incredible platform for helping me build such a collective, but emails don't quite satisfy that longing for something slower, something held—something you open with your hands rather than your phone.

A letter club, however, just might.

In the coming months, you will be able to have Ruminations dispatched to your mailbox, wherever you are in the world. It’s my way of reaching out to you with something tender and tactile—oh! And with a return address, of course.

It’s safe to say that I am very excited!

Ruminations is softly expanding into its third chapter. Times are hard, scary, and devastating, even, but I will always be here, at my desk, carving out a space for us all to retreat to—even if just to witness it all together.

Thank you endlessly, my loves. We’ll speak again very soon.

Caitlin xx

Welcome to Altars & Artists, a monthly interview series divining the poetry of artists' spaces. Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s book "The Poetics of Space" and Virginia Woolf’s extended essay "A Room of One’s Own", Altars & Artists delves into the creative spaces of contemporary artists to reveal the intimate worlds they operate within. ❧

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New to this series? Be sure to check out the intro post below:

Please welcome our April Altars & Artists guest: Ashley Stanley

Ashley Stanley is a mixed media artist living and working in Upstate New York. A self-taught artist, she began painting with intent in 2017. Primarily working in acrylic, oil and collage, her work draws inspiration from human gesture, everyday objects and quiet moments, blending texture and emotion to create lingering feelings of nostalgia and introspection.

View her latest work here

Works in progress can be found on her Patreon (below!)

WEBSITE | INSTA | PATREON

Questions & Curiosities

Welcome to Ruminations, Ashley! It’s so nice to have you here. Would you like to begin by telling us a little about yourself and your art?

AS: Hi there! Thank you SO much for having me, I’m excited to be here! I am a mixed media artist, and I love working in acrylic, oil and collage.

I am and always have been an extremely sensitive person (sometimes to my detriment), and over the years, I’ve found that my work is always sort of super-charged by whatever emotions I’m experiencing at that time. So, because of that, my body of work is always shifting, whether that’s a shift in medium, a shift in subject, or even in colour palette.

Growing up with an extremely present artistic figure in my life instilled in me a love of all things creative from a very young age. Now that I’m older, I find a lot of focus and joy in translating the current events of my life through different bodies of work!

I remember I first stumbled across your work on threads—it was your ‘Olive Study’ painting that originally caught my eye. I’ve always enjoyed still life, but I love the series of still life paintings you shared throughout 2024 for how bright they are. Everything almost seems sun-kissed. What inspired that vivid colour palette?

AS: Ahhh yes yes! This series was so far out of my comfort zone, really. For some context, the majority of my work up until this 2024 actually focused on figurative expression; exploring the human body and the different ways we’re able to contort our forms to tell a story, or convey emotion.

But throughout the winter of 2024, I found myself in a bit of a creative lull. Not uncommon for me, however, there was something different about it that time. I felt like I needed a big shift, and found myself suddenly taking an interest in the inanimate. The way light would hit a coffee mug, or the intricate shadows and shapes that different objects would cast. All I could think about was wanting to recreate them in the form of paintings, but I also wanted to focus on exploring a much more vibrant colour palette than I was used to working with in my figurative studies.

So I spent the spring researching and studying still life, colour, and composition, and from there, my more recent body of still life work was born!

I think the vivid colour palette came from my desire to depict the mundane in a less mundane way, if that makes sense. So, to break it down further, I grew up as a Tumblr kid, imagery and collecting aesthetically pleasing photos have always been something I enjoy. I found myself thinking, ‘Yes, you’ve taken this very aesthetically pleasing photo, and it looks great as a photo, but would it be interesting as a painting? What would make it more interesting? What would separate it from its photo counterpart? What am I trying to express by painting this? What do I feel when I look at this photo that maybe isn’t tangible in the photo itself? Let’s try to bring that feeling out.’

So I decided this wasn’t a time to create good work. It was just a time to experiment, no pressure. It was SO different from the earthy and muted palettes I’d been using for years, and it came with a lot of hiccups. But ultimately, I became hyper-fixated on the challenge. I would constantly think of different colour combinations I wanted to try and scenes I wanted to depict to see how far I could push the boundaries while still encapsulating the reference I was pulling from.

How do you approach a new still life piece? Do you find yourself painting candid scenes, or do you stage objects to align with an idea?

AS: Definitely both! For some pieces, I found myself just stumbling upon a scene that was both candid and gripping, and I’d snap a quick photo to work from later. Other times, I would find myself thinking about a certain scene, and imagining, like, ‘Oh that would look really cool as a painting’, and in those cases I would set up the objects, set the lighting, and take the reference shot.

When I consider your art, I think of the quote by Bill Moyers, ‘Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvellous’. Has creating art changed your perception of the spaces around you?

AS: Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, as a Tumblr kid, I feel like I was conditioned at a young age to just see things from a photographic perspective haha. Like, anything could be beautiful to me. And once I started painting and learning about colour and light, this train of thought was only enhanced. Fun fact, when I first started painting seriously in 2017, my grandma (also an artist, and a huge source of my inspiration, but more to come on that further in the interview hehe) had sent me a huge box of painting supplies—everything I would need to teach myself to paint.

She expressed to me that one of the most important skills an artist possesses is their skill of observation, and in the package, she included this small, rectangular piece of blue-tinted plexiglass. She told me to hold it up to a scene or a painting in order to kind of render it down to a monochromatic palette, to see values more clearly. When I look at the world now, I literally always imagine myself looking through that little piece of plexiglass–but instead of monochrome, my imaginary plexiglass has been cultivated over the years to see almost everything around me as a potential reference source, a potential painting. It’s really fun to look at the world this way, it’s like a little game almost!

Oh wow, that’s an incredible little gift. I especially love that you’ve transformed the plexiglass into an intrinsic tool—it makes me even more curious to explore your creative altars! Shall we?

AS: Yes yes! Welcome to my current altars!

One thing about me (and if you know me well, you know this) is that I am such a weirdo about changing up my studio spaces. I cannot even tell you how many different arrangements of studio spaces I’ve had over the last almost 10 years. There’s something about rearranging or moving into a new space that just gets my creative energy soaring, so I change up my spaces a lot.

My current altars consist of two rooms: my studio for all of my painting and messy endeavours, and my office for more administrative tasks such as answering emails, editing prints, conceptualising new pieces, and sketching (which to me is just as important in my process as the actual painting itself!).

I think my favourite thing about these spaces is their kind of chaotic-ness? In the past, I have tried to keep really tidy and organised spaces like so many other gorgeous artist spaces I see online, but it never really holds for me–I can never sustain it! But over the years, I’ve found I quite like the haphazardness of it all; it’s like controlled chaos to me lol. In so many other aspects of my life, I’m such a control freak, so my studio is the one space where I really just let that all go.

Who, or what, are you inspired by? Do you pay tribute to them in your creative spaces?

AS: Oof, this is a loaded question, I feel like so much inspires me. But I would break it up into two sections: persons and emotions.

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17.04.2025

Good morning, Caitlin :) You’re twenty-six today. When did that happen?

I still feel like I’m in my early twenties, not like I’ve just passed the midway point for this decade of my life. I’…

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When I think about who I’d like to be online, the answer isn’t ‘myself’.

There is nothing wrong with the person I am in my everyday life—in fact, I grow fonder and fonder of her as time passes. So why, then, would I not want to cultivate a public image that captures me in my entirety?

This is a question I’ve pushed around my proverbial plate for some time now. As the boundaries between the digital and natural worlds bend and blur, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to discern where I understand myself to end and the opinions, ideas, and personalities of others online to begin. After an intense few months of instigating major life changes (personally, professionally, creatively), I realised the public image I had been painstakingly trying to cultivate did not align with the changes I had made. Like many, my relationship with social media was already fractured, but now the bone had officially snapped.

In defining authentic, Oxford Languages considers the word in two key, relevant ways:

1. “of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine.”

2. “(in existentialist philosophy) relating to or denoting an emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive, and responsible mode of human life.”

Over the years, I’ve found that conversations around cultivating an ‘authentic’ online presence align with the former, focusing on strategic commodification and objectification. Paradoxically (and ironically), we’re being encouraged to present genuine, indisputable renditions of ourselves that accurately convey the nuances of our personalities on two-dimensional platforms. It’s an impossible task, and yet we all try. Filmed apologies are never sincere enough. Photographed meltdowns are performative. Flatlays are consumeristic. Holiday snaps are exhibitionist. Posed photos are deceptive. Traumatic incidents always necessitate storytimes (parts 1, 2, 3…). And in trying to excavate the peaks and troughs of our lives to appease the persistent demand for ‘authenticity’ (1), we are repeatedly faced with the reality that we cannot create authentic digital representations of the Self.

These days, I try to consider authenticity as an approach rather than an end goal. Since ditching my pseudonym and reclaiming my real name, privacy and personal boundaries have become more important to me than ever before. I’ve recognised that to create important, vulnerable art, I need to reserve parts of myself for the twilight zone I curl into during my creative process. By stretching myself too thin and tirelessly trying to present a ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ digital replica (make it make sense), I end up denying myself a cardinal ingredient of my artistry.

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Welcome to Altars & Artists, a monthly interview series divining the poetry of artists' spaces. Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s book "The Poetics of Space" and Virginia Woolf’s extended essay "A Room of One’s Own", Altars & Artists delves into the creative spaces of contemporary artists to reveal the intimate worlds they operate within. ❧

Subscribe now

New to this series? Be sure to check out the intro post below:

Please welcome our March Altars & Artists guest: Mabel Gibson

Mabel Gibson is a twenty-five-year-old Yamatji writer. She grew up in Boorloo (Perth), Kinjarling (Albany), and Jambinu(Geraldton), three vastly different locations with landscapes and climates that all play an important role in her story. Her work has been published in maar bidi: Next Generation Black Writing (Magabala Books), all four Night Parrot Press anthologies, and Portside Review. She has sat on panels at various festivals including Perth Writers Weekend, Ubud Writers Festival, and Margaret River Readers & Writers Festival. Mabel hopes to one day become a publisher and provide opportunities for other First Nations writers. CryBaby (Night Parrot Press) is Mabel's debut collection of micro memoir that follows her through all the seasons of life, from the brightest summers to the coldest, darkest winters and all the transitions and rebirths inBetween.

CRYBABY | INSTAGRAM

Questions & Curiosities

Welcome to Ruminations Mabel! It’s a pleasure to have you here. Can you begin by telling us a bit about yourself?

MG: Thank you for having me! I am a 25-year-old Yamatji girl and writer. I grew up down south in Kinjarling, also known as Albany, before my family relocated to Jambinu (Geraldton) in my late teenage years. At 18, I moved to Boorloo to study psychology at the University of Western Australia, where I was introduced to writing, which seemed to change the entire direction of my life.

Congratulations on the release of your debut book! It was so nice to catch you briefly at the launch — I’ve since devoured CryBaby and have lovingly tucked it away on my nightstand. How does it feel to know your first book is out in the world, finding its way into readers’ lives?

MG: Having CryBaby out in the world is both daunting and heartening. When writing for CryBaby I tried my best to make an honest piece of work which meant forgetting that anyone would maybe one day read it. And now that it’s out in the world I’ve been trying to avoid reading it from other people’s points of view. At first, I’d pick it up and cringe at my own writing imagining different people I knew sitting and reading it with their unique perspectives—and of course, in my head, everyone hated it. I had dreams that people would read the book and then just say nothing at all—nothing positive and nothing negative—and to me, no reaction was the worst possible outcome. But since CryBaby has been out in the world for nearly two months, I've received so many messages of love. So many readers see themselves amongst the pages of CryBaby and although that sometimes makes me sad, it’s quite beautiful that I’ve spent half my life feeling alone with my emotions unaware that so many people have felt the same.

It really is a heartfelt book. When I first realised it was a collection of micro memoirs I was intrigued — I think CryBaby is now the first and only one I’ve read. What is it that drew you to micro memoir as a form?

MG: I love short for writing, I think it’s a great place to start as a writer, although often I think it’s discredited by being labelled “easy” when saying something meaningful in such little words can be very clever. As soon as I discovered writing I found that micro memoir was where my voice could flow the most naturally and really, CryBaby is like a well-written diary. I find that I narrate my whole life in my head anyway so I may as well write it down.

I fell in love with how you were able to craft such rich, tangible vignettes with such brevity. I wondered if the writing process felt equally as brief, or if each word was a labour of love.

MG: I find that I separate the Mabel who writes and the Mabel who edits, so the writing usually begins with a stream-of-consciousness type of process where I try to get pure memory from thought on the page. That moment is often brief. But then I’ll edit and editing to me is not the adding of punctuation or the correction of spelling but it is the dressing up of the piece of writing. And so every word must fight to be kept in the piece, every sentence must prove it belongs. This is also where I might add things that connect my whole story in a bigger way. When writing CryBaby I wanted each piece to work on its own but I also wanted it to feel like a thread of string had weaved its way through the entire collection, tying the whole thing together, and doing this was definitely a longer more intentional process.

In CryBaby’s introduction, you mention initially feeling like your work was unpublishable, particularly in the context of an apparent desire for First Nations writing that centres “cultural politics or identity or trauma”. What advice would you give to other First Nations writers hoping to have their work traditionally published in Australia and who feel their writing falls outside industry expectations?

MG: My hope is that First Nations writers in the 21st century are able to write about any themes, genres, or topics they would like and that the industry can still recognise that as First Nations writing. I think that the publishing industry having expectations of what First Nations writing should be is just another way for colonisers to try and control the narrative of being First Nations in Australia. I don't necessarily have advice, but I would encourage First Nations creatives to challenge non-indigenous points of view of what it means to identify as a First Nations person in the 21st century.

Would you be so kind as to show us your altars, Mabel?

MG: I got my beautiful desk off Facebook marketplace for sixty dollars from a lady who was moving in with her son because her husband had just passed away. I like to think it was well-loved in its past lives just as much as it is loved in this one.

I am a collector of things, so even though you are seeing my desk in its very neatest form it never takes long to become cluttered again.

Although I love my desk, I don't always use it when writing. When I was 19 I was diagnosed with Graves disease and shortly after I went into a thyroid storm which resulted in the removal of my thyroid gland, so I spend almost 50% of my time in bed, including writing time. Over the years I’ve found working from bed to be easiest some days, which is of course a privilege but also sometimes my only option.

CryBaby’s nostalgic tone lends the collection a dreamy, fluid quality despite it being an accumulation of quite isolated, fragmented moments. One thing that consistently grounds these moments, though, is their connection to land and place. How does your connection to land shape your writing and in turn, your writing practice?

MG: I think since I was a kid I’ve always been extremely aware of the land I was on and its meaning and connection to me and I think that often comes across on the page without me being intentional about it. If you pay certain attention to things, they are bound to show themselves in some way through your writing—I couldn't write about myself without writing about the places that I’m extremely connected to and affected by. Place, land, and Country are all huge parts of my story and my emotions have often mirrored the environment I’m surrounded by. I see that so much of myself is made up of the places I have inhabited—I am a beach in Albany, a tree in Geraldton, a house on the corner of a street etc.

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If you enjoy this series, please consider becoming a paid subscriber—doing so unlocks an extended cut of each interview, including a prompt made especially for you by the guest. Your contribution also keeps Ruminations running & this writer at her desk ❧

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New to this series? Be sure to check out the intro post below:

Please welcome our February Altars & Artists guest: Harman Singh Heer

Harman Singh Heer is a wildlife and nature photographer whose work has been featured in National Geographic, Discovery and BBC, and has received international recognition from the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and Australian Photographer of the Year. Growing up in Kenya, Harman was immersed in the country’s beautiful national parks from a young age where he discovered his lifelong passion for wildlife and photography. He utilises Instagram as a platform to share his photographs, coupled with lyrical and poetic captions, to an audience of over 130,000.

At a more professional level, Harman works in the safari industry, tailor-making safaris for people across the world and privately guiding clients on photographic safaris. Through this, his goal is to make people’s safari dreams come true while also ensuring that their travels contribute to the preservation of Africa’s incredible ecosystems. Harman is additionally pursuing an MA in professional writing and publishing and holds a BA in economics and international relations. His deep connection with Africa’s wildlife is reflected in his vision to combine these growing skills in photography and writing to advocate for the plight of vulnerable wildlife and their vanishing habitats, particularly in the current global zeitgeist of environmental angst and uncertainty.

WEBSITE (SAFARIS) | INSTAGRAM | BEST WORK

Questions & Curiosities

Welcome to Ruminations Harman! Thank you so much for joining us. Can you begin by telling us a bit about yourself?

Thank you very much for having me, Caitlin. It is both an honour and pleasure to be included in this beautiful series which sheds light on the intimate, creative spaces of some incredibly talented artists. Here is a little about me: I am a photographer specialising primarily in wildlife photography and conservation in East Africa. Though I am currently based in Perth and study an MA in professional writing and publishing, I travel back to Africa every few months to lead photographic safaris, diversify my body of work, and reconnect with a natural space that is very close to my heart.

What initially inspired you to pick up a camera? How did your relationship with photography evolve from that moment on?

Photography was honestly never something I anticipated enjoying as a kid. But growing up in Kenya exposed me to wildlife and nature from a very young age. My mum and dad would take my sister and me on safari every couple of months, and it was only a matter of time until I picked up my mum’s old Canon 450D DSLR camera 13 years ago, deciding I was to be the “photographer” of the safari. Since that day, I have never been on a safari without my camera.

At first, photography simply became a means to document the wildlife moments I was witnessing, but in more recent years, it has transformed into a way for me to capture fleeting moments and make them eternal. Many of the big cats I grew up watching and photographing over the years are no more, and all I have left of them are the photographs and stories. These big cats that have shaped much of my life now only exist through photographs, standing the test of time.

How do you approach entering wild, natural areas as places to work from and with? Does your approach change depending on the location, animals, or the nature of the trip?

I always approach entering wild, natural places with an open mind and heart, and my process remains the same whether I am on a personal safari or guiding clients. I am a firm believer that it is so important to allow nature to give you what it intends to, rather than forcing things into place. This is particularly because I have found that when you chase particular moments or animals to photograph, you rarely find what you are searching for. In this sense, you are never fully satisfied and you end up missing out on the smaller, equally important, moments.

You work at the very intersection between the natural world and modern technology, blending into remote locations one minute, and sharing your intricately edited images to social media the next. Do you ever experience tension between these two manifestations of your creativity, or do they feel like a natural pairing to you?

The intersection between the natural world and modern technology has always felt like a natural pairing to me. I photograph in a raw, unprocessed format, which by default is never a realistic interpretation of what my eyes see in real life. The photographs that come straight from the camera to my computer screen feel detached, almost. So, my primary aim when editing is to bring the photo back to what I remember seeing in person. Often enough, this gets distorted, particularly because the way you see something in the moment is very different to how you remember seeing that same thing after the fact. However, I think this is the beautiful thing about photography in the contemporary day—it is a glimpse into the world through my eyes and my eyes alone, portraying not exactly what I saw in real-time, but perhaps what I think I saw.

Part of what I feel makes your work so striking is its honesty. As a viewer, your photos often feel unframed—I cannot imagine a camera and lens between myself and, say, the lioness on my screen. I feel as though I’ve been placed directly into your shoes. Can you tell when you have captured “the one”, or does the final shot reveal itself to you during the editing process?

Thank you, that is exactly how I want people to feel when they see my work, so it means the world to me to know that is how my photographs make you feel. Interestingly, I can almost always tell when I have captured “the one”. This is primarily because I often have some ideas of potential photographs envisioned at the back of my mind, so when one of them finally manifests I instantly know that it is “the one”. Sometimes this process can take years, while other times I will see something I would have never even envisioned but I capture the shot and know then and there that it is something special.

Can you share where the magic happens, your ‘altars’ so to speak?

All the magic happens in nature. The photographs are captured in the wildest, remotest places and the editing and photo selection happen in these same places, but late at night, when you know you need to get in at least 5 hours of sleep but your eyes can’t stop staring at the screen in awe of what you just witnessed during the day. My best work is selected and edited in the field because it is then and there that it feels the most real.

What do you find most challenging about working on location?

What I find most challenging about working on location is definitely the long hours and lack of sleep. We are always up before dawn and out of camp before sunrise. We generally stay out until 11 am or 12 pm before returning to camp for lunch. We then depart again at about 3 pm and return by 7 pm.

However, there have been many days where we end up skipping lunch because we have found a big cat (usually a leopard) in the late hours of the morning and decide to sit it out until the evening’s golden hour. On top of this comes all the downloading and sorting through photographs and catching up on work and emails. By the time we get to sleep, it is probably 11 pm at the earliest, which means we barely get 6 hours each night.

And the most rewarding?

Without a doubt, the most rewarding moments are when your patience finally pays off. Like when you wait 12 hours at the base of a tree for a leopardess to descend, not knowing if she even will, but then she does in the most beautiful light at dusk. Or when you have spent days searching for a leopard in one of Kenya’s most remote places and you find one on the last drive. Moments like these make all the long days and lack of sleep worthwhile.

How do you foster a relationship between photographers and the environment on safari? Or, what do you consistently find yourself teaching people on safari?

I think that when my clients or just anyone, in general, see the immense love and appreciation I have for a place and its wildlife that I experience on such a consistent basis, a relationship is built almost immediately for them. It’s contagious. For instance, I explode with energy and excitement whenever we see a leopard (my favourite cat if I hadn’t already made it obvious), even though I have seen more leopards in my life than I can count. I think that this is what makes people fall in love with Africa and safari — being alongside other like-minded people and watching each other take in the pure joy of experiencing it.

Your work is both appreciation and protest. You have an incredible talent for capturing the natural world and using it to advocate for wildlife preservation. Tell us a little more about your passion for conservation and addressing environmental uncertainty.

Thank you for the kind words Caitlin. My passion for conservation and addressing environmental uncertainty stems from the environmental and biodiversity degradation I have witnessed first-hand. I have seen animals disappear at the hands of human-wildlife conflict. I have seen human encroachment into wild spaces. I have seen hundreds of animal bodies scattered across the savannah plains because of climate-induced drought.

The ultimate goal of my photography is to advocate for the environment by creating an emotional connection between the viewer and the subject of the photograph. This is why a lot of my work focuses on intimate, surreal portraits of wildlife. I want to show the world how incredibly beautiful the earth’s wildlife is, and how important it is we protect the last remaining wild places.

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Big outcomes. Deadlines. Optimistic expectations that more often than not set me up for failure. Comparison. Competition. Perfectionism. Biting off more than I can chew.

My entire being is fueled by this intrinsic drive to make it, to materialise my wildest ideas and usher them into the mortal realm. It’s what I live for. Ideas desperately gnaw at my windpipe, anxious for me to breathe life into them—vitality, grit. I want to feed them all, give them every last breath and watch them transform into something greater than I could ever have imagined before they inevitably vanish. I am too slow. Distracted. Confused. Overwhelmed. Time and time again, I am caught with my forehead creased and my arms outstretched, desperate to grasp at every chance of success.

When I began Ruminations, I wrote monthly—if that. I wrote what I wanted and I wrote entirely from the heart. Over time, the platform grew, my newsletter grew, and my approach to the letter shifted. I had turned on paid subscriptions and found an unexpectedly large readership I was eager to please and never let down. It was all so much simpler when the stakes were lower and Substack felt smaller.

These are growing pains. I’m at a stage in my life where everything I know is changing. In the past fortnight, I quit my job after 4 years in nursing to pursue a life in the arts and I have my final shifts at the hospital this week. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, but I feel like I’ve pulled the rug out from beneath my own feet and fallen flat on my ass. The uncertainty scares me. The art sector is notoriously difficult to find work in and I am now facing that reality head on. I’m returning to admin work for now, but it’s hopefully just a stepping stone. A means to an end. Despite moving in what feels like the right direction, my dreams have never felt so out of reach.

Over the weekend, I saw Aurora live for the first time. I was up the front, an arm’s length from the guard rail, swaying and singing and sobbing as I became one in a crowd of many who had gathered to watch her transform the grounds of a historic prison (yes, you read that right) into something ethereal. I’ve listened to Aurora since I was a teen and her EP Running with the Wolves had just come out. I’d found it on YouTube, playing in the background of a poem someone on Tumblr had written. I was hooked. Over the years, Aurora’s music has been a constant in my life. I missed the first time she came to Perth and refused to miss her again.

There is a difference between a singer and an artist; one entertains, one ignites. Aurora is the latter. When I saw Aurora, I saw her. An unfiltered, powerful expression of everything she is and stands for and believes and when I say she transformed the stage what I really mean is that she transcended it. She does not perform; she reveals. I’d spent my life listening to Aurora the artist, but in the flesh? I realised that I was seeing and listening to Aurora, the art.

Between watching Aurora live and seeing Doechii and Chappell Roan’s wins at The Grammys, I’ve never been more inspired by artists who are willing to dare. Who fuck up and crash out and build themselves from the soul up. More than anything, I’m inspired by artists who become the art.

Things have changed here on Substack—a natural course of events as any platform you interact with grows. I think many of us who joined pre-notes naively believed we’d found a literary hideaway. It was a platform brimming with possibility and success felt like fair game. It was easy to stumble upon publications sharing vastly different things. I think writers felt more free to show up exactly as they pleased—to offer their style, ideas and voice at their own pace.

Over time, my relationship with the platform has become…complicated. Many of Substack’s updates are double-edged; there’s a price to pay with each improvement. I now harbour the same ripple of anxiety Instagram and TikTok bring me when I open notes. I used to love reading through the letters in my inbox, but now they’re overwhelming to look at, their orange dots urging me to open open open them all at once. The biggest shift as a user of Substack’s platform and app has been its transition from a calm, comforting digital space to one marred by a new sense of urgency and scarcity. To be seen is to sell, and it is difficult to sell without selling out. Or at the very least, without becoming a more marketable, pitchable version of yourself (on notes, preferably).

Many of my decisions have been influenced by my desire for this letter, and thus my writing, to be seen. On reflection, chasing significance has resulted in what often feels like insignificant, inauthentic work. This is not to say that I ever stopped trying to produce good work—no, not at all. Rather, I stopped trying to produce work I was good at and writing how I liked to: slowly, intensely, and in line with my own creative rhythms.

My writing here has become formulaic in an attempt to remain relevant and present on the platform and in your inbox. I hear time and time again that consistent, weekly or fortnightly letters are the key to ‘success’ and building a ‘loyal’ readership, and while this may be true for many, I would rather be the exception that proves the rule.

This is all to say that things are, once again, changing. But this time not to further stretch my capacity, reach for perfection, or deliver what I think could become popular or that an algorithm will like best. This is my small, public revolt. My plea for authenticity and a relinquishing of expectation.

I no longer want to entertain—I want to ignite.

This letter was partly inspired by the following piece by :

noted, by hannah cao

I don't want to be cool, I just want to be me

I don’t have an aesthetic corner of my flat, it’s actually drowning in a mess because I’m heartbroken and navigating through the lack of hunger of it all. I write in my bed even before I brush my teeth and my glasses are dirty and my blanket peeking out of the end of the bed linen pisses me off…

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2 years ago · 732 likes · 45 comments · Hannah Cao

A small disclaimer

If you are a fan of Altars & Artists, I can assure you the series isn’t going anywhere :) It’s something I’m incredibly proud of and the only thing I’ve remained consistent with on Ruminations (a sign of my genuine love for it). The next artist is writing their answers as we speak and you’ll get to read them very soon xx

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Ruminating

Things I’ve been mulling over

Hello there.

How are you? What did you get up to this week? Anything particularly interesting? Anything new?

I’ve had a rather active week. I caught up with many friends, took myself on walks, and did my first-ever pilates class. I sewed a pillowcase and mended a dress. I found a stunning vintage dresser and began taking the old shelf I’d laid sideways apart. I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone in the hopes that it will pull me out of the Big Sad. So far, it’s working. The sun feels warmer, coffee tastes sweeter, and my body feels looser. As infuriating as it is that good food, regular sleep, and exercise make us feel better, it is (unfortunately) true.

I’ve found a lot of comfort in watching overcome similar struggles in her vlogs on YouTube. She lives this sweet, simple life in Canada and her videos often remind me to slow down and find beauty in the little things.

This year, I landed my first reviewing opportunity for a local arts festival, Fringe WORLD, and last week, I went to my first few shows for the season. I’ll be completely honest, critiquing art forms outside the literary sphere has been an intimidating, but rewarding challenge. I also can’t think of a better way to ease my way into criticism and cut my teeth. If you happen to find yourself in Perth this month, I *highly* recommend seeing the following two shows:

Although much is on the up, I’m still fighting some smaller battles, the camera being one of them. I never underestimated the conviction it would take to begin filming YouTube videos, but I truly need to summon every ounce of conviction I have for this next one. It will arrive. Promise. If there’s something you would love me to film, I’m all ears. In the meantime, I have a few bookish things planned.

I hope you are kind to yourself this week. Try something new for me.

Love you.

Caitlin x

Get your free international online poetry event ticket!

You might recall that I made my first poetry shortlist towards the end of last year. If you would like to listen to me read my poem Muscae Volitantes to you, be sure to get your free ticket to The Brilliant Poetry’s Inaugural Reading and say hello when I pop up on your screen from halfway across the world <3

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Noticing

The poetry in the everyday

i. Velvet, slippery beneath my fingertips as I beg it to yield to my grandmother’s vintage 806 Bernina sewing machine.

ii. The way my body remembers how to tuck its tailbone, arch, and sweep left to right gracefully, creakily, instinctively.

iii. The power in the colour red. Its thumping, crushing electricity. Its imposing presence. Its spine-cracking beauty. It’s heady embrace.

iv. Baroque ballerinas, captured by the softest eye.

v. Deep wooden furniture. Unexpected roundness. One-of-a-kind pieces. Imaginative styling. Espresso on my tongue, espresso in my space.

Curating

A collection of evocative images and things

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Recommending

Things I’ve enjoyed & media I’ve consumed

This week: rekindling friendships, dysfunctional spaces, conglomeration in the Australian publishing industry, and more…

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If you enjoy this series, please consider becoming a paid subscriber—doing so unlocks an extended cut of each interview, including a prompt made especially for you by the guest. Your contribution also keeps Ruminations running & this writer at her desk ❧

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New to this series? Be sure to check out the intro post below:

Please welcome our January Altars & Artists guest: Holly Chester

Holly Chester is a writer, creative, and entrepreneur based in Nashville, Tennessee and has been sharing her poetry online since 2020. After being accepted into the program, she attended the Chateau Orquevaux Artist Residency in France in 2023 to work on her debut poetry book Welcome To My Mind, which was released in September 2024. Her reason for writing can best be understood through her artist statement:

"I write because I find joy in combining words into beautiful phrases that evoke emotion in others. I write so that others feel less alone and instead, feel more understood. I want my words to resonate deeply with every reader and encourage them, share in their joy, relate to their heartbreak, comfort them in their grief, and even make them laugh from time to time. My goal is to share my heart and mind through my words and in doing so, ignite a light in others that hopefully inspires them to do the same."

Questions & Curiosities

Welcome to Ruminations Holly! Thank you so much for joining us. Could you please begin by telling us a bit about yourself?

HC: Thank you so much for having me. I’m honoured to be included in your wonderful series. I’m originally from Ellijay, Georgia, but I’ve lived in Nashville, Tennessee for almost 14 years. I moved here to attend Belmont University and ended up staying post-graduation. I have an entrepreneurial spirit and love to travel. I speak fluent sarcasm and always love a good dad joke. I also released my debut poetry book, Welcome To My Mind, in September!

Congratulations—what an incredible achievement! It’s a beautiful collection, and I was hoping you might explore some of its themes with me. Throughout Welcome To My Mind, you engage in ‘a battle of the mind’ to explore ‘chaos, self-sabotage, heartbreak, love, and kindness’. Can you tell us more about how these themes fight to coexist on the page?

HC: Thank you again! I can’t believe I have a book out in the world. These themes fight to coexist in my mind every single day, so I allowed myself to be incredibly vulnerable and bring the battles I face onto the page. WTMM speaks to and embraces many aspects of mental health. I divided the book into four sections, with two speaking more about love and kindness, and the other two about chaos, sadness, and self-sabotage. We can’t always neatly separate these themes in our own minds and the poems represent that. For example, you’ll read a poem about love that also touches on heartbreak and so on.

You truly have written a beautiful, vulnerable collection. I wondered if the writing process was healing for you or if it presented new challenges you hadn’t anticipated needing to overcome.

HC: When writing about the mind, I should have expected to be challenged by my own—but I was not fully prepared for the mental battle. The writing process was an ordeal and it brought to light many of my self-sabotaging habits, specifically perfectionism. I knew it was something I struggled with, but didn’t realise how engrained in my mind it was.

When I completed the book, I printed out all the pages and physically put the poems in the order I wanted them to appear. I had over 200 pages spread across my living room floor and it bothered me because I couldn’t realize the order they needed to be in. I literally had to say out loud: “Nobody cares but you” multiple times to finish the process. Because at the end of the day, the reader doesn’t care or notice the order of the poems. The reader only cares about how the words relate to them and if the poems make them feel seen or understood. Connecting with others is what creativity is all about.

You’ve taken a multimedia approach to your book, carefully interweaving poetry, prose, and photography. It’s visually stunning and begs to be displayed. What was your process for creating a book that would appeal to readers both lyrically and aesthetically?

HC: Thank you! I’m very proud of how it all came together. Since the beginning, I envisioned the book to be the type of aesthetically pleasing, black-and-white book that sits on a coffee table. One that you can pick up at any moment to look at the pictures and words throughout its pages. I knew it would be a process to bring this book to life, but I knew if I didn’t add pictures I’d always regret it. But I didn’t know how to do it, which is another reason it took me over three years to complete.

Nashville has a wonderful creative community and my friend Fadwa Ward understood my vision and idea. I created a vision board with ideas for each section of the book and we were able to shoot some of the shots showcasing the house interior at the local Riverwood Mansion. Because I loved all the photos, it was another process of selecting the photos for the book. I then had Linsey Dodaro format the book’s interior.

I wanted the reader to be taken on a visual journey as well, so they can actually see the elements come to life when they’re reading and feel like they are walking through a home. Overall, it was a learning process, but I’m so glad I persevered because if I do say so myself, it looks beautiful on my coffee table :)

I love the way your mind is explored through the extended metaphor of a home. It makes something quite aqueous and abstract feel more structured, labyrinthine, and tangible. What inspired this creative approach?

HC: The book is based on the titular poem I penned four or five years ago. I don’t really remember the inspiration behind it, but I remember thinking shortly after writing it that this poem could actually be the foundation and outline for a book. I’d break the book into four sections called The Halls, The Walls, The Gate, and The Key, and each section would contain poems related to the subject—all poems in the first section would relate to chaos and madness, all poems in second the section would relate to love and kindness and so on.

I’d always wanted to write a book, and now that I had an outline in place, I began writing poems to fit the idea. As I kept writing, I experimented with the idea of connecting elements of a home with the emotions we experience. My mind just went with it, and it inspired me to write different types of poems that I never would’ve written if I didn’t have a specific theme in mind. Thank you for noticing the connection.

Returning to the material realm now, walk us through your creative space.

HC: I write in multiple places throughout my apartment. I have an office with a standing desk and a smaller desk holding one of my typewriters from the 1930s beside it. I sometimes use it to type out poems for Instagram posts.

I have a really open living room with lots of natural light, so I love writing by the windows at my dining room table, especially early in the afternoon when the sun comes through. And of course, the couch often becomes a writing space, particularly at night.

As someone who often works from home, do you have a separate dedicated space for your creative work or rituals to help you mentally shift between work and play?

HC: I don’t have a separate dedicated space, but to me, it’s more about the mental shift than the physical one. My job involves marketing and strategy and has taught me a lot about e-commerce, which the entrepreneur in me loves. But because it’s more strategic than creative, I’ve found it’s often difficult to switch between the two. What has helped is blocking off time to specifically focus on writing so I’m forced to turn off all thoughts relating to my work and truly hone in on being creative.

Thank you for sharing your altars with us today, Holly. Before we move on to the next segment for our paid subscribers, can you give us a glimpse into any of the projects you’re working on?

HC: This may be a corny answer, but it’s also a Holly answer. The project I’m working on at the moment is myself. I poured a lot of my heart and soul and brain power into bringing Welcome To My Mind to fruition. Because I gave it my all, I’ve honestly felt creatively depleted. I think creatives are expected to create all the time because it’s an essential part of who we are, but I’ve learned it’s very difficult for me to create if I’m not taking care of my mind and body. For how can I write words that pour into other people if I don’t pour into myself first?

Even though I don’t write every day, I refuse to listen to the voice of imposter syndrome that tells me I’m not a writer. I still consider myself a writer because even when I’m not writing I am living, and that is something worth writing about.

I do have a few other book ideas in mind, but I haven’t finalised one yet. I think I’ll need to do a little more living before the next book idea solidifies itself.

Keep up to date with Holly and her latest work:

Website | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok

Purchase Welcome To My Mind:

Hardcover and signed copies

Amazon (Paperback & Ebook)

Free 24-Page WTMM Sample

Before you leave us, we have a few final questions for you…

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Ruminating

Things I’ve been mulling over

Hello there.

The sun is out, but I’ve curled inwards. I lack a shell fortress to shield me from the world so the couch will do for now. Besides, everything feels hard. The soft, feather-filled cushions are a welcome reprieve and we’ve spent much of the new year pressed together. Everything is changing. I can feel it, that…ache. You know the one.

I find it difficult to be kind to myself when I get like this. I suppose depressed would be the correct term. The smallest things feel inconceivable and the slightest change or inkling of overwhelm sends my mind reeling. I haven’t listened to music in months. I want to lie in an empty room, white-walled and wood-floored, and stare into its blankness. I have an unquenchable desire for sensory deprivation—I need to leach out this inner turmoil, let it seep from me like molecules moving down their concentration gradient.

In the first letter from this year, I spoke about the fine line between intentional clutter and claustrophobia and you’ll not be the least bit surprised when I tell you I’m purging my space. Cleansing it. Clearing it. Collapsing beneath its overbearing visual presence and willing it away. Today I noticed that much of my furniture is open—there are few doors and draws to hide away the things and I’m beginning to grow suspicious. I’ve been flipping through The Poetry of Spaces by Sarah Andrews and when I fall upon particularly beautiful rooms, I can’t help but notice how different they are from my own—and not necessarily in terms of their styling, but more so in how each of those rooms makes me feel. I want my space to feel like them, too.

And I miss music. I’m seeing Aurora in a few weeks and I think I may cry when she walks on stage. Just a hunch. But (again with the sensory overwhelm) I haven’t listened to her music in a long time. When I have people over, I tend to play random jazz playlists on YouTube to hum away in the background of our conversations and I think I’d like to lean into this interest a little more. So, if you have a favourite jazz album or single (instrumental preferred) please send it my way! I’ll include your recommendations in next week’s letter so we can all listen to jazz together <3

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That’s all from me today. I love you.

Caitlin x

P.S. If you would like me to expand an idea in one of these letters into its own essay, please do let me know!

Get your free international online poetry event ticket!

You might recall that I made my first poetry shortlist towards the end of last year. If you would like to listen to me read my poem Muscae Volitantes to you, be sure to get your free ticket to The Brilliant Poetry’s Inaugural Reading and say hello when I pop up on your screen from halfway across the world <3

Subscribe now

Noticing

The poetry in the everyday

i. The dip in my sofa.

ii. A patient’s skin paling before flushing with colour again. My heart rate easing with theirs.

iii. The way coffee makes me tired in the afternoon, despite my hope that it will have the opposite effect.

iv. All the things I’ve hoarded in the name of sentimentality. Tell me why I need to keep the sweet little crown feather my bird lost to the summer heat.

v. When I was younger, I never understood why older people were so rigid and unwilling to change. Now that I am a little older, I empathise with them more. Still, I never want to shy away from discomfort. I never want to bar my mind from change and possibility.

Curating

A collection of evocative images and things

Share

Recommending

Things I’ve enjoyed & media I’ve consumed

This week: sticky summer rolls, playing with texture, secondhand treasures and more…

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