Saturday 22nd November 2025
Dear Karla,
It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in London and I’m sitting at the dining table of my friends’ Vini and Vince, freezing a little as the heating is off, listening to the best of Baroque via the Spotify app on the telly, and occasionally looking out of the windows (they live in a top floor flat with great views of other people’s gardens in Clapton, East London), marvelling at how grey and dark it already is (it’s 3:27 p.m.) You know England, and you know what the winters are like here.
How are things with you? How’s the writing? And the fam? I’m always happy to get news from you, via WhatsApp, letter attachments or Substack. I know your life is busy and I’m just glad for when you find a moment to write; I hope you still manage to carve out that time for your own writing.
I’ve started this new project for my Substack: I put a call out for pen pals and heard back from 5 people (with you, it’s 6). I’m now sending off letters and checking if they’d mind if our correspondence were shared for paid subscribers only on my Substack, though I’m also happy to keep things private with them if they wish. For all those who say yes, I’d give paid subscriptions, and I’d hope that we’d start to create a community of letter writers, sharing our letters, but also comments under them. Maybe some of these pen pals might even start writing to each other?
As my only paying subscriber, you’ll hopefully start to see these correspondences soon. You are, of course, very welcome to join too! And there’s no pressure in terms of frequency.
I woke up today at 5 a.m. and couldn’t fall back asleep. I tried to listen to a bit of the “Pride and Prejudice” audiobook (Penguin’s version) but then got hooked on the story (which I know by heart; similar to you and “The Breakfast Club”!) so by 6:30 a.m. I finally got up to make some coffee, toast and fried eggs. The boys were meant to leave the flat at 8 a.m., to catch a flight to Gran Canaria, where they’ll spend the weekend celebrating one of their friends’ 50th, but by 8:30 a.m. they were still sleeping.
Suddenly, they sprung out and ordered an Uber. I now have their flat to themselves (sic) and I’m planning on spending a quiet weekend.
I played a little bit of a game I downloaded to my laptop, “Norco”, a dystopian point-and-click adventure with pixel art, that’s actually a high concept work of art disguised as a game. It’s so beautiful and good; I’m hooked. Then I read a bit of the lesbian cannibal horror “The Lamb”, which is a total page turner; doom scrolled; drank more coffee and watched out for a pair of crows that like to come tap the window; had the boys’ leftovers for lunch; had a shot of whiskey at the news that Bolsonaro has finally been arrested; watched an episode of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” (my guilty pleasure watch, which I affectionally call “The Mormon Bitches”); and it’s now suddenly going dark and I’m starting to think of a nice warm bath followed by sofa, blankets and a movie.
This Monday, I’m taking an Uber with my few possessions to Alberto’s place in Camberwell, South London, where I’ll be staying for five months, until the start of May 2026, while they winter at their paradisiacal house in Pipa Beach, Northeast, Brazil. Him and his husband have actually invited me to use their beach house whenever I want, and I really hope the opportunity one day crops up. At the moment, I don’t have a home of my own in the U.K.; I move around taking care of other people’s homes and pets, which helps me save money and send a little to Martin and mom in Brazil. As I tell people: “if I rented a bedroom, I wouldn’t have anything to put in it!”
Let’s see for how long I can do this.
Hope it’s sunny and lovely in Brisbane, and that you are all enjoying summer. Sending lots of love and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Ollie xx
Sunday 19 April 2026
Dear Ollie,
Behold! Finally the day has arrived when I am penning my reply! Slow and steady wins the race. :) To be frank, last year ended as a bit of a dumpster fire and while your letter was such a welcome salve when it arrived, I didn’t have the bandwidth to reply. Luckily, 2026 is on the up and up, and here I am, replying. The last few years have been tough but productive. Our little family is doing better than ever. We’re all in good work/school situations and our day-to-day has settled. We’ve also made some big life decisions. Watch this space. (I know you like a bit of suspense, so I’ll make you wait a bit...) I will say it’s all about being more authentic and coming full circle.
It’s hard to conjure the damp cold of a London winter as I sit here in Queensland, the autumn sun bright white against the stark blue sky. But it’s there in the grey folds of memory. Going to the loo at Silke’s flat to find Miles had left the window open after taking a shit. No Japanese heated toilet seats in London! I do really remember the darkness of winter. I first moved there in September and it surprised me how much faster and earlier it got darker. I thought it would be like Ontario. Of course, when I finally looked at a map I could see how much further North it is.
A good view is better than a TV. My current view is pretty mediocre. It’s ‘nice’. But there isn’t much of interest. The saving grace is the birds. There’s quite a variety. From the magpie’s beautiful song to the flightless bush turkey’s scratch and scramble across our metal roof. I do miss our view in Cairns. What a picture that was. The skies were amazing.
As much as last year was a bomb for writing, I think it’s fairer on myself to think of it as a year of laying fallow while I tended to other matters. This year has been wonderfully productive as a result.
For me, the focus is on establish practice. In the past I think I have spent time focusing on the wrong things, or less productive at least. Situating my writing practice in my life feels like a necessity and a gift for me. I suppose turning 50 soon and kids moving into high school makes one reflective and consider the next phase. Parents aging too. How do I want to live the rest of my life? I want to create. Create to feel joy, create to learn, create to connect, to subvert and resist, to contribute, to speak, to be real and true. So this year, my dear friend Jane and I set some goals around this. My Manifesto Project on Substack is proving particularly fruitful in creating structure and some mini-deadlines for me to work to. It’s also proving instructive as subject matter, on many levels. I am enjoying it immensely. And that is enough for me. I also finalised a short story and a couple of poems to submit. If I/they don’t get selected will keep submitting them (myself) until I do. They’re solid; it’s just about timing. Jane and I have also decided to pick back up our Intergalactic Penpal project.
I love writing as a collaborative project, or even just activity. I know it is ultimately a solitary activity/pursuit, but it doesn’t have to feel lonely or distancing. Feels like a form of resistance whenever I can dismantle unhelpful structures. Stuff that makes me feel like shit has no place in my practice. My manifesto-and-exegesis-writing is immensely helpful in the process. It’s basically using what I learned through doing my MA thesis project. I’m so grateful to my amazing supervisor for that experience.
Thank you for including me in this collab project and creating space for my sporadic writing frequency. While I hope to improve my turn-a-round time I’m also realistic about life on ADHD.
In reading your work, I am loving all the snippets of London life. I’m living a bit vicariously through you since I’m not set to get to Europe in the next few years. I miss the randomness of a big city like London. The messiness. Brisbane is very sanitised, very clean, but with an undercurrent of aggression. Mike calls it a big country town grown up too fast. Looking forward to spreading our wings in the future again.
I don’t want to natter on too long and bore the readers, so will think about wrapping up. Some quick points that I could expound on, but won’t here. Maybe a WhatsApp voice message.
1) Games are awesome and definitely fall into the category of art and literature. My daughter Zara loves games like that, cool art and storyworld.
2) I’ve so enjoyed watching your journey in London, living your life in a way that works for you. I’m jiving with your minimalism and how you’ve created space for yourself through it. Space to make a living in a way that works for your life and needs. It’s really that idea that there are different ways of being; different ways or versions of living a fulfilling, successful life. You are an inspiration to me.
I will closer here dear friend. I continue to miss you, as I always have when we’re living in different places, which is to say I’ve spent more time missing you than not. I know we are inching ever closer to the inevitable day we hang out in person again.
I hope all is well in your world.
Love and hugs,
x Karla
Dear readers,
It’s a great pleasure to introduce a new pen pal to this epistolary series, Between the Pines. Karla is one of my oldest friends, from my teen years in Hong Kong in the 90s, when we attended the same American high school and also lived in the same building on Repulse Bay Road.
I have so many good memories from those years. Mornings in the school bus, weekends in Lan Kwai Fong and Far East Far Out; graduation day, prom night; universities in North America and visiting each other’s cities on school breaks; then finally moving at the same time to the UK, in the early 2000s.
Eventually, Karla settled in South East Asia, then Australia, and it’s now been years since we’ve seen each other. We are both hoping this series will be a way to stay connected, but also connect with you, dear reader.
This newsletter also includes a card I’m about to send off to my goddaughter in Brazil. My previous card to her can be read here.
Welcome onboard, Karla!
Dear Margot,
Happy birthday! All the best to you. I hope you win many gifts, sweets, kisses, hugs, and that you have a beautiful day.
Tell me later how the party went!
Soon, I’ll be arriving over there on holidays and I really want to see you. How about you come visit me at the guesthouse? We could play videogames, stroll around town and eat ice cream, and run away from fleas and ticks.
If it’s cold at night, we can light the bonfire! How about it?
A big kiss from your godfather Oliver
 | A guest post by
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I do like a letter in the post! Thank you for sharing Ollie, Karla and Margot.
I love this series, Ollie, and am so glad to be a part of it, especially as folks give up on snail mail, to my dismay. Nothing quite like getting a note or letter from someone you care about or who has thought of you, don't you think? I treasure my letter from you, dear Ollie! and these from Karla and you! And then the stamps too!