I’ve nearly finished building and painting my library. I can’t wait to sit on the sofa, in front of the fire, with a gin and admire my handiwork. Not long now! (For an account of how I built the library, see this post rachelhewitt.substack.com/p/how-i-turn...)

Ribblehead Viaduct, Yorkshire, photo by landscape photographer Paula Beaumont.

I'm offering free trial subs to my Substack! You can read about the psychology of patriarchy and its harms in posts on: Psychopathology of Cancellation; Sex Snoopers & Spy Cops; why men keep secrets; myths of male disadvantage; & a feminist view of grief rachelhewitt.substack.com

3 pumpkins and a punk-kin

For Halloween, I wrote about how, in C18th Yorkshire, women were suspected to be witches, not because they mixed potions or cast spells, but because they seemed to enjoy running outdoors. Apparently there was no other explanation for a woman enjoying running. Link in bio!

Maria Nordin "Act of Comfort" (Sweden, 2022), depicting a woman carrying an impossibly large pile of linen for the laundry. Nordin likes to portray women's unpaid labour in the home, but in beautiful shapes and colours. #womensart

Owners 'distraught' as geese removed by council in Stillington, north Yorkshire. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today marks a decade of living in God's Own Country; ten years of being a (North) Yorkshire lass. It's been a very hard decade in many ways, but Yorkshire's incredibly beautiful landscapes have helped to sustain me. I feel very lucky to live here. It feels like home.

Wet cat and dying embers

‘All doctors get things wrong. What matters hugely to families in our position is that they have the courage and humility to admit to these mistakes. If they do, it transforms the way you feel about a clinician.’ @paullaity.bsky.social on his daughter Martha’s death: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Thank you for all your lovely, supportive comments! If you’d like to read about how I built the library from @ikeaunitedkingdom.bsky.social Billy bookcases, I wrote a “how to” on my newsletter. Link in bio

This week I built a library. Now I just have to paint it 😱

Very interesting, inspiring & enraging episode of Subject to Power with @rachelhewitt.bsky.social - all the episodes I've listened to have been fascinating, on a wide range of feminist subjects open.spotify.com/episode/7z5o...

Was delighted to spot @rachelhewitt.bsky.social’s book at a bookstore in Geneva today!

ICYMI: for the weekend crew

There are still spaces on my WRITING RETREATS in November and January! These are for anyone writing about outdoor adventure: running, hiking, climbing, swimming, or embezzling £60K from your former employer and having to go for a very long walk. More info & book at www.rachelhewitt.org/retreats

I've become fascinated in the origins of modern peer-to-peer support groups for grief. And I’ve discovered that we have second wave feminists to thank for many of them!

@rachelhewitt.bsky.social Saw this and thought of you.

I've become fascinated in the origins of modern peer-to-peer support groups for grief. And I’ve discovered that we have second wave feminists to thank for many of them!

This is a thread on gendered differences in experiences of bereavement – and why it’s important that bereaved women have single-sex spaces. If you'd prefer to read this as an essay, there's a full version with refs (link in bio). This is for anyone who prefers to read on Bluesky.

The audiobook of Flipping Patriarchy releases NEXT THURSDAY 4th September! Pre-orer now. https://rbmediaglobal.com/audiobook/9781004200986/ Unabridged and narrated by total legend, Amanda Abbington. @wfhowes

I wrote about having Botox and fillers, and the feminist politics of injectables *braces self* If you’re interested, you can read it by following the link in my bio

Holidays with a teenager

The increasingly online nature of porn, hook-ups & sex-buying have made it easier than ever before for men to cultivate secret lives. It’s occurred to me that these factors also make it easier for men’s secrets to be *discovered*. Often all it requires is access to their phones.

Increasingly I think a major function of “masculinity” IS its crisis — a vehicle for the dominant & dominating group to justify focusing their social attentions primarily on themselves

There is just under a month to enter for the women’s history network’s best first book prize, for a first academic monograph, in women’s or gender history @womenshistnet.bsky.social womenshistorynetwork.org/whn-annual-b...

Woah

I’m organising residential writing retreats for anyone who wants to explore how their running, hiking and climbing activities might tell a good story!

I’m organising residential writing retreats for anyone who wants to explore how their running, hiking and climbing activities might tell a good story!

Anyone got a video of a hare having the shit scared out of it by a curlew — ah, don’t worry, got one anyway!

Do your outdoor adventures – running, hiking or climbing, on foot or with mobility aids – tell a story? Would you like to try writing that story? I am hosting two residential writing retreats on the theme of writing about running, hiking and climbing.

PSA: I’ve just bought this National Art Pass, which is £25 for 1 adult + any number of kids. It grants 3 months free/ reduced entry to a huge number of museums, art galleries, gardens & historic houses (incl National Trust). Perfect timing for school hols. www.artfund.org/national-art...

If you've heard about The Salt Path furore and thought, "I could have written a better/less neat/more real book about my own outdoor adventures", then this tweet is for YOU. I am organising 2 residential writing retreats on the theme of writing about running, walking & climbing

Here’s a nice thing for a Monday! As some of you already know, I have a new novel coming out in April, and my publisher @northodoxpress.bsky.social has just told me that pre-orders are now live! (Short thread incoming...) www.northodox.co.uk/product-page...

There are some positive reviews in here. I am a nice man.

Why do (some) nature writers lie? The Salt Path fiasco reminds me of a strikingly similar story from a century ago, in which another female writer also gained fame through a fake ‘nature cure’ narrative.

Why do (some) nature writers lie? The Salt Path fiasco reminds me of a strikingly similar story from a century ago, in which another female writer also gained fame through a fake ‘nature cure’ narrative.

Just joining the many nature-, travel- and outdoor- writers on here to say that, if you fancy reading about journeys of recovery that ACTUALLY HAPPENED, I have the GPX files to prove that I did indeed run/walk/crawl the routes I describe in In Her Nature uk.bookshop.org/p/books/in-h...

Fucking hell, this is something.

I wrote about cycles: - running 5-mile laps at #Endure24 (wanna know how it went? see my face in the pic!) - experiencing the extent to which my menstrual cycle shapes my running - realising that all progress is like running progress: cyclical, not linear Link in bio!

I’ve been researching & writing about women’s lives for 20 yrs & I’ve published 4 works of life-writing. I’ve just recorded an online workshop/webinar on the subject, with guidance, info, issues, questions & exercises with which I WISH someone had presented me 20-odd yrs ago!

This comes from engagement work with teenage girls in a park in York. And you see all those things with two dots by them. Those make up 90%+ of what we currently provide for young people in public space. Whereas the things that girls want - they just aren't there. Let's do better.

ICYMI #1: At the weekend, I published an extract from my work-in-progress. It's about how nineteenth-century feminists identified links between men abusing women and men abusing animals, in intimate relationships and in the scientific world. You can read it at the web address on the image

ICYMI #2: I'm delighted to be running online workshops for writers on women and/or feminism. The series, called Feminist Voice, launches TODAY. Workshop 1 is about identifying & overcoming challenges involved in writing about women & feminism in today's misogynistic climate.

ICYMI #3: I am VERY EXCITED to be offering two in-person residential writing retreats, themed around Writing and Running. The retreat from 11-13 Nov 2025 will be female-only. The retreat from 7-9 January 2026 will be open to all. Watch this space for more info!

ICYMI #3: I am VERY EXCITED to be offering two in-person residential writing retreats, themed around Writing and Running. The retreat from 11-13 Nov 2025 will be female-only. The retreat from 7-9 January 2026 will be open to all. Watch this space for more info!

ICYMI #2: I'm delighted to be running online workshops for writers on women and/or feminism. The series, called Feminist Voice, launches TODAY. Workshop 1 is about identifying & overcoming challenges involved in writing about women & feminism in today's misogynistic climate.

ICYMI #1: At the weekend, I published an extract from my work-in-progress. It's about how nineteenth-century feminists identified links between men abusing women and men abusing animals, in intimate relationships and in the scientific world. You can read it at the web address on the image

Finally someone is asking “what about the men?” In the right context!