Launch!
Magazine: New Escapologist is the magazine for creative people stuck in a crappy day job and lusting for escape. It’s also for the ones who escaped already. Run away and be free! More info here.
Date: 19th November 2025
Time: 6pm-7:30pm followed by drinks at the Victoria
Venue: Aye-Aye Books, Broadside,123 Allison Street, Glasgow, G42 8NE
Unnecessary eventbrite link? yup.
Walking Across Liechtenstein
Walking through the country was remarkably peaceful, with a kind of quiet atmosphere that makes you lower your voice without thinking. Indeed, a running joke of the trip was that emmy and I would abruptly turn around shush each other. Shhh! Mustn’t disturb the Liechtensteiners or the cows.
Heather Delaney of the Dirtbag Dao has a nice piece in Issue 18 about her American van life.
Since we’re in touch by email, she told me recently about her plan to visit Europe and to walk across Liechtenstein. Well, she only went and bloody did it! Heather explains:
I had decided a couple years back, after walking across England via the Hadrian’s Wall trail, that walking across small countries is a mighty fine way to spend time. Rather than try to bounce around to various sights, you simply stroll your way through the entire land, following paths that are etched in history, designed by pilgrims and locals. Walking across micronations and other tiny countries gives one a sense of oversized accomplishment.
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New Escapologist Issue 18 (with Heather’s van life piece) is shipping now. We also have a launch event in Glasgow on 19th November. Come along if you’re nearby!
Living Rootless
Living Rootless is the blog of Mzuri, “an introverted woman of a certain age” who “sells her house, gets rid of her stuff, and goes rootless.”
Sounds good to me. She’s been documenting her rootlessness since 2010. That first post reads:
I’ve sold my house. Move-out day is October 15, and, as of today, I don’t yet have a forwarding address.
I’m going rootless.
The following posts document her divestment from stuff. She buys her first laptop to replace her desktop to increase mobility. She sells or gives away or destroys everything she doesn’t need, conducts research. It’s an entire escape, documented.
Each post is short, but there’s hundreds of them each year so they really pile up:
I am staying at friend Kate’s house for a couple of days. This evening, she asked, “Do you have any regrets about selling your house”? I responded, “Not a one.”
One hour later, as Kate is swiftly turning off the water main inside her house, because her pipes had frozen, and burst, and there is water spewing out over the washer and dryer in her garage, she says, “Yeah, I guess not.”
Mzuri is American and her first solo trip was Ethiopia, which strikes me as extremely ambitious and freewheeling. Since then she’s travelled in Mexico, the US, and Guatamala.
Here’s Mzuri on debt, on minimalism, on slow travel, on voluntary simplicity.
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New Escapologist Issue 18 is shipping now. We also have a launch event in Glasgow on 19th November. Come along if you’re nearby!
Issue 18 Launch Event, 19th November, 6pm, Glasgow
We’re launching Issue 18 of New Escapologist on November 19th, meaning that pre-orders and subscriber copies will be shipped very soon. In fact, we’ve already shipped a few. Maybe you have yours already.
But Red Alert! We’ve had a venue change for the launch event! Pay attention if you’re in/near Glasgow and are planning to come along.
The new venue is Aye-Aye Books, which is now in Broadside at 123 Allison Street, G42 8NE, and looks like this:
Aye-Aye Books are longstanding friends of the magazine, selling the magazine in a prominent location in their shop and everything. They were based in the CCA until very recently, so please don’t make the mistake of going to the CCA or to the previously-announced launch venue, which now looks like this:
Oh dear.
It would have been nice if the owner had told us he’d gone out of business and therefore unlikely to host us as planned, but I suppose he had bigger problems on his hands.
Anyway, Martin from Aye-Aye is a wonderful chap, and I for one am looking forward to helping to warm up his new space. Join us!
Drop in at some point between 6pm-7:30pm for a short reading and some chat, then drinks if we want them at the Victoria bar across the road.
Up Next: Edinburgh Zine Fair 2025
Edinburgh Zine Fair, 1st-2nd November, noon til 5:30/4:30, St. Margaret’s House, 151 London Road, Edinburgh.
I’ll be there to sign books and mags all day on Saturday.
We’ll be represented by our capable young editorial assistant Jack on the Sunday.
Come along if you’re local! Buy a magazine, a book, a badge, or just to say hello.
London Small Publishers Fair
Come and see me (editor Robert Wringham) at the P&H Books table at London’s Small Publishers Fair on Friday 24th and/or Saturday 25th October.
This is at Conway Hall and be there for the whole weekend.
I’ll have a limited supply of the brand new New Escapologist Issue 18. This will be the first time the new issue has seen the light of day, ahead of shipping and ahead of our November launch event. It’s a true first look and feels very special. Come along to buy a copy (or collect yours if you’re a subscriber or have already ordered one) or just to say hello.
On the Friday afternoon, I’ll be joined by New Escapologist contributor Dickon Edwards who will sign copies of the magazine and his new book.
On the Saturday afternoon, I’ll be joined by comedian and New Escapologist interviewee John Dowie who, likewise, will sign copies of his new book.
I’ll also have copies of The Good Life for Wage Slaves and will be happy to sign it or indeed anything else you like. I’ll even sign Dickon’s and Dowie’s books if you like. Confuse your friends.
Other incredible publishers will be representing their goods including the amazing Strange Attractor Press (huge fan) and CB Editions, about whom I’ve raved before.
And as if all THAT weren’t enough, Dickon will be celebrating the launch of his book at The Boogaloo pub on Archway Road from 7pm on the Friday night. I’ll be there too, propping up the bar from 7:30pm, so that’s where to be if you’d like to get a drink. I’ll bring a very limited supply of books and mags along too (very limited since this is Dickon’s event).
Please come along! Help to make my schlep from Glasgow worthwhile, get yourself some unique printed goods, and join the fun.
A Promotion or Worse
Meanwhile, in New Zealand again:
Auckland ad man Joshua Jack said he sensed the bad news when he received an email from his agency employer telling him they needed to have a meeting to discuss his role this week. “I thought, it’s either a promotion or worse. I thought it was best to bring in a professional — so I paid $200 and hired a clown.”
As a clown myself, I would hereby like to offer my services to employed New Escapologist readers. $200 NZD plus travel expenses. I’ll sit with you, silently (my style of clowning), in a meeting. I’ll wear a sharp suit and a red nose.
The clown mimed crying as Jack’s employers slid the redundancy paperwork across the table and created a balloon unicorn and poodle to lighten the mood.
“It was sort of noisy, him making balloon animals, so we did have to tell him to be quiet from time to time.”
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New Escapologist Issue 18 is now available to order for prompt shipping in November.
When It Suddenly Occurred to Me
I love hearing about an epiphany: when people remember the moment they snapped, the precise second they decided enough was enough.
Here’s a beauty from the poet Michael Shann:
September 1989, Liverpool. I was 22 and had just begun an accountancy course that would guarantee a secure career in NHS finance for the next 40 years. It all felt wrong. I should have been in a lecture but was walking up Ranelagh Street towards the Adelphi Hotel when it suddenly occurred to me. I’m a poet.
It’s perfect. He remembers the place, the idea, the feeling:
It struck me with such a blow of truth and clarity that I walked straight down Lime Street to the Central Library, found a place at one of the big reading tables and wrote my first poem.
Did you spot the truly unusual part? It’s the part where he did something about it.
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New Escapologist Issue 18 is now available to order for prompt shipping in November.
Dream Job
Heather Delaney is a fibre artist who also runs a blog about her nomadic lifestyle.
“Quit your job,” she says, “sell your stuff, make your life yours.” We couldn’t agree more.
Here’s one of her recent artworks, a weaving of one of our favourite antiwork sentiments. It’s a suggestion of what to say when you’re asked about your “dream job”:
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The Escape of Mark Russell
Thanks to Reader C for drawing our attention to the story of Mark Russell who cashed in his Pokémon cards in a successful bid for escape.
With the money, he quit his job in PR to travel New Zealand in a camper van.
As a result of the windfall … he’s been able to buy the 2019 ex-rental Carado RV, while boosting the bank accounts of his family. He’s quit fulltime work, packing in corporate life for rolling countryside.
The inspiration to travel — pay attention, kids — came not from sudden wealth but from reading:
“Many years ago, I was captivated by the book Blue Highways [by William Least Heat-Moon], a story about his journey around the back roads of the United States, and I guess that’s what I’m doing here,” says Russell.
Mark now spends his time (over 100 days now) experiencing beauty and talking to fellow travellers. And, naturally, he reflects that:
your working life may not have been as important as you thought at the time.
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