Introducing: Headless Friends
After a decade of working with words, it’s time for something new. I’ve been conjuring up a shiny new project which encompasses the communities I am proud to be a part of while also challenging me as a writer - and it’s finally ready to share. Let me introduce you to Headless Friends.
People have been paying me to write things for 10 years now. Even a decade in, I still feel slightly stunned that journalism has become such a big part of my career. This was never the plan.
I did well in English at school, but Art & Design was always my stand-out subject. No one was shocked when I went on to study Graphic Design at college. Two years later, some people were quite surprised when my applications to study at art school were all rejected.
This was my second attempt at applying to art school and the rejection stung twice as much. To give my wounded ego some time to recover, I took a break from making art. I’d lost confidence in my skills as a maker but was keen to stay connected to the creative industry I was still desperate to break into - so I started writing.
I was 19 when I first got paid to write (after lots of unpaid writing work for publications which I now have mixed feelings about). Back then, I wrote solely about graphic art and illustration; disciplines which I had an immense amount of passion for but, in hindsight, knew very little about. Confused about my sexuality and consumed with anxiety, I didn’t dare to write anything more personal. I was on the brink of discovering the language I needed to discuss how I felt with other people, and it would be a few more years until I was comfortable enough to put these words down on paper.
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Well-written articles and well-told stories have helped me feel less isolated while developing an understanding of my queerness and mental health. I want to emulate that in my writing.
Fast forward ten years, and I feel like an entirely different person to the boy who was so excited by his first-ever (underpaid) writing commission. Of course, you should feel different in your late twenties compared to the final year of your teens (if you don’t, something has gone wrong).
I am now an openly gay man who is always up for a chat about how strange our brains can be. I live in a city I hadn’t even visited a decade ago and I run my own creative studio which back then felt like a pipe dream.
My focus as a journalist has shifted massively too. I used to be concerned solely with the things which people made but am now much more interested in the people who make them. Well-written articles and well-told stories have helped me feel less isolated while developing an understanding of my queerness and mental health. I want to emulate that in my writing.
A decade in, I finally feel like I am a decent journalist (having never studied journalism, my confidence as a writer took a while to build) and I’ve honed in on exactly what it is I want to write about. Now feels like the perfect time to begin a new project I can pour all of my skill and passion into…
Introducing Headless Friends, an online journal exploring the intersections of creativity, mental health and queer culture.
As a creative person who is as unashamedly anxious as he is proudly queer, I know how important it is to open up about our minds and identities. Studies have proven there are massive overlaps when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, creative workforce and those who experience mental health problems - making this the perfect trio of topics for my journal.
Headless Friends is a space for me to unpack my own thoughts and experiences while also learning from other people as they share their perspectives. It’ll also be a space for me to dissect subjects I have never examined before, experiment with new illustration styles and have a giggle with friends, old and new. This entire project was inspired by the enlightening real-life conversations I have with friends and I want to bring as many of them as possible along for the ride.
Join me as I explore the messy, complex, beautiful intersections of creativity, mental health and queer culture. Expect open, friendly conversations about how design can be used to communicate feelings and celebrate cultures; how strangely common it is to struggle to understand your brain; how complicated but f*cking brilliant it is to be queer; and how all of these things come together to make us who we are.