My relationship to social media is that I post when I need a dopamine hit, or when I crave attention for one reason or another, and this might not be the "optimal" way to engage with it but it's the way we've chosen.
And so here are friends and authors Katie and Kevin Tsang ahead of their next thing: The Neverland Thieves.
I actually consulted Katie on the song choice for this post, because all I could think was: Michael Jackson had the Neverland Ranch. Thankfully, songfacts.com says that Metallica's "Enter Sandman" is inspired by Peter Pan, so we've all been saved some awkward conversations.
We've all had a great time in my stories the last few days but the sun has gone away and so we must remember when we had it so good. Ella Risbridger (@ellarisbridger ) here at home in Hove and on the beach, also in Hove, last year ahead of her new book THE KITCHEN BOOK from which you'll be cooking until the next one is out.
And listen: I know what you're wondering. What's that reflection in the first picture? Doesn't Ella live on the first floor? Well, she does. But there was scaffolding, and I have never really changed since I was eight years old climbing every tree I could get my feet on with no regard for my own safety. I'll climb anything. Just you watch.
The @ivorylayne song doesn't have any particular relevance. I just really like it.
Very excited for Griff's next books (Strange is the Light and Everything Not Saved) because it gives me an excuse to post her author portraits that we took last year! Sometimes it's nice to spend a day in a garden with your pals! Sometimes a professional photoshoot is the same thing! I had all my lights and stuff but who needs lights and stuff when you have the glory of nature around you for five or six square metres in the centre of London?
Proud to announce that in 2026 I will not stop using my friend Norma for likes and attention, and that god willing it may even be the year I stop feeling weird about it.
We're doing shamelessness this year. HIRE ME. BUY PRINTS. GIVE ME MONEY.
We set up a skeleton photo booth for @mike_nisbet 's new album back in... holy hell, August?
2025 was long and difficult for all of us. Or at least I hope so. I hope it wasn't just me. Work slow, money hard to come by. Time to try new things or I'd go mad. So I took a stab at design (swipe for the second slide) and, hey, it's not too bad, I think.
Keep swiping for some extras. @j9andif has a cameo in one of them. See if you can guess where.
I saw Katie again recently and the first thing she asked me was Do you hate our pictures? and I had to explain Nah man I just kind of hate Instagram. I can barely find the "add post" button. It never respects my cropping. There's a 50/50 chance anyone will ever see it. It tells me I have to add autoplaying music. We knew that was bad form back in the MYSPACE days. I have to tap out a whole caption on my phone, where more and more I try not to be. Can we not just go back to the old ways and staple photocopies to telegraph posts.
After months of dilly-dallying I finally got my new portfolio together (jamiedrew.xyz, btw, lol), which is always a good excuse to revisit old work.
And, if you have the same brain disease that I do, you find something new in there and you have to work on it as though you just shot it yesterday. Ask me about the life of an artist. It's not fun. It's barely rewarding. It pays less and less every year. Every day there's a new problem and you've created it for yourself.
But this is the skillset I have, so I've got to use it. Tell your rich friends you know a guy in need of a patron.
Anyway: this is Rina, from 2017 or so. I don't know why she did this. I don't know what her relationship with the lamp is. I don't know why I overlooked this at the time, but we're here now, aren't we?
Kate already posted these on her page but I want the attention, now. I want the glory. It's my turn, damn it.
For the last, like, year or so I've been working on the "vibe," or what the real artists call a "voice," and I've kind of settled on "a 1980s Hong Kong fashion magazine, badly scanned onto a livejournal page in 2005." So I got these light modifiers through a complex and boring sequence of returns and store credit, made Kate sit in front of them for ages while I aimed them properly, and this is my job somehow. This is the life I chose to live.
And then the Algorithm says I need to pick a song, and it didn't have the song I wanted, so here's some Sufjan Stevens.
In a move that's made me feel like a true international jetsetter, Kate had me fly out to Sydney for the day to take her author portraits. This move also made her feel like an international jetsetter, so - just this once - everybody wins.
Kate held a poll on her newsletter for the most "authorly" photograph and her readers picked the first one. It's got everything: a built-in frame, a billow of hair, a hint of cleavage. Who WOULDN'T buy this book?
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Australia for the few days I was there. If I'd seen a spider it might be a different story, but I didn't. I just ate great food and wandered about in glorious sunshine.
Instagram tells me that stories with audio "get more reach," whatever that means, so enjoy this imperfect seven-second loop of a song by the first Australian artist that came to mind.
Look, I know these are from October last year. I have access to the metadata. I'm aware. I'm playing catch-up, all right?
I go through phases with social media. I'm usually here, lurking, but I don't particularly want to be perceived. If I had it my way this post would have been brought to you by a carrier pigeon, and if you wanted to comment on it, you'd have to shout at the top of your lungs. If you wanted to like the post you'd have to track me down and throw a thumbs-up in my face, silently, your expression blank, your gaze unyielding.
If you wanted to follow me then that would be strange and legally actionable behaviour.
So this is Dr. Emma Southon, who's been on this feed several times now. This is St. Dunstan's-in-the-East in London, the favoured lunch spot of exhausted City workers who love to take loud phonecalls in the background of professional photoshoots.
So I got this little camera and I walk around with it all the time. I'm trying out some new film recipes, and this is a "Wes Anderson-inspired" one that's good for certain very specific use cases.
I'm not a Wes Anderson guy as much these days. I don't know if that's because I'm getting old, or because my tastes have changed toward the scrappier, rough-around-the-edges hand-crafted unqiue-vision auteur-bullshit works of art. I want to see something and wonder what this artist's problem is.
I still think Rushmore is his best film.
Look, I don't know. I'm trying, here. I'm just trying to share my life with you. Why won't you let me in?
LET ME LOVE YOU.
