Smoke Social — Returning in 2026

After a considerable absence – let’s call it a period of experience accumulation – Smoke Social will be returning, in a regular format, in 2026.

Since I left Melbourne almost four years ago it has been hard to know what to do with this outlet. Pieces I thought might be right for it seemed too varied to belong together under one banner; their only common point would be that I wrote them, which is a very common point indeed. In any case my movement was too sporadic to form any dependable schedule, and I figured, if I couldn’t commit to something dependable, I shouldn’t waste anyone’s time.

So what was once a coherent, hyper-localised newsletter about a city and its goings-on gave way to the mushy transience that became my life, a life lived seemingly forever on the road. Boo-hoo, yeah yeah, I know. But I have to admit, living in the scrapyard of experience leaves you with the occasional gem of an artefact. I think I’ve accumulated enough of them by now to start seeing the suggestion of an eminently decent newsletter.

And besides, all this wandering about, discovering different things, different locales, different periods of time — this is what writers have done forever. The difference is they used to be paid for it. And I guess it’s also a nod to the smoke social itself – a version of what the old genteels were doing in the drawing room, lighting up their cigars, chinwagging about what have you. A smoke social is nothing if not a chance to play the heedless raconteur. I say again: Writers have been doing this forever.

So that’s the idea. Smoke Social will become a newsletter of roaming cultural correspondence. Dispatches will be twice-monthly: one a long-form piece from afar, the other a chatty cultural musing from the salon, with a few recommendations to go along with it.

You’ll get gossip, old glamour, words on the street, lost masterpieces, something fun to read on a Saturday morning. What you won’t get: scholarship, rank ideology, the 47^th Presidency, the word “problematic.”

The philanthropic, the time-poor and the attention-deficient are encouraged to pledge a paid subscription, where they will have access to podcast versions of each piece, spoken aloud by the author, as well as other occasional exclusive content. (You will only be charged when I have my shit together and this newsletter is ready to begin its sputtering rise to the top.)

The new old Smoke Social — coming in early 2026.

Got a light?