I’ve just finished editing a book—this is what it feels like.

In late summer, I was asked if I’d like to try something new—editing a long-form manuscripts. Until this point I’d only ever edited features, news stories, and the odd dissertation, but since I began working for Glug magazine and then Pellicle as an editor, I’ve developed a deep passion for editorial work. It’s something I didn’t know I’d enjoy until I was elbow deep in submissions for the first few issues of Glug when it was being launched, and as a writer prior to this, my only experience with editorial was with editing my own work and receiving feedback from editors.

I love getting to know a person through their writing—their style tells me a lot about what they want from their work, how they want it to be perceived and therefore how others will view them through it. It’s like being let into someone’s brain through an open window. Through reading their initial drafts I can learn about what they’re saying and beneath that, what they are trying to say, and it’s through picking apart the mortar of their sentences that I can figure out how to help them.

That’s what I’m here for, to help. I enjoy including empathy in my editorial work. Some people are red-ink editors, and having been edited by them, I know their techniques work, and my writing has improved through their tough guidance. Other editors prefer to do all the work, showing how things should be, and re-writing parts that need extra shade, texture, or flow. I’m a chatter. I like to talk about what’s going on when there seems to be an issue, and ask the writer to get in touch so we can figure it out together. Sometimes I can get into my head and believe that I know what the writer wants to say better than they do—this is never true. The best way for me to do my job is to get a writer to do everything themselves, with my guidance and help if they need it, and this means I need to keep my own ego in check throughout the process. So what if the writer has written something I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy reading? If it’s their style, if that’s what they are communicating, and it isn’t wrong and it reads well, then my personal preferences need to stay out of it.

If something isn’t working in a piece, say an idea isn’t linking easily with another, or there’s a jarring shift in tone or movement, I don’t believe I can fix that by jamming in a supporting sentence or two. It could get the story to a place where it could feasibly be published, but it wouldn’t make the writer happy to see their work propped up like this. That’s why I ask questions, request phone calls, and send email after email if needed, so that the finished work is as authentically theirs as possible. It’s more work this way, but I like my job.

That’s why I enjoyed working on the book so much. Cathy Huddleston has written a moving memoir about her life as a cowgirl, coming out in the Midwest, and becoming a horse therapist, all while dealing with the trauma of multiple sexual assaults and countless broken hearts. I was asked if I would like to work on this book and given the necessary trigger warnings. I said yes. I couldn’t wait to read this story.

Reading Cathy’s manuscript as an editor was difficult at first, because the content was so deeply affecting. Then I realised that I didn’t need to distance myself from Cathy in order to be an effective editor—in fact, it might benefit the book if we got to know each other better. Communicating with Cathy became the most important part of the process, ensuring my edits were sensitive to the topics at hand, and that her voice, above all, was what shone through. There were sticking places she’d struggled with, and the best way to tease out the meaning and emotions she had been grasping for was to talk. Writing a book is an emotional experience. Sometimes finding the right words can be more difficult than you anticipated. I’m so glad that together, we worked out what needed to be done, and that Cathy found her way forward.

The finished manuscript is full of Cathy’s unique voice and spirit. Often, writers are suspicious of editors, and feel that all we want to do is strip work back. I hope I do the opposite. Working with Cathy, I wanted to build up her confidence in her own voice, and develop her writing to incorporate her own style. In earlier manuscripts, she could write very matter-of-factly to get ideas over. I pushed her to be herself, because I knew that warmth and personality was there.

By the end of our time working together, I became immensely proud of Cathy and everything she’d accomplished in writing her book. On the day her final manuscript was sent on, I cried. I was proud of myself too, and so overcome with the sense that I’d truly helped someone tell their story the way they wanted to tell it. But what really made me cry was that Cathy had worked her ass off—during a job change and a house move—to make sure she understood my comments, to take them on board, and then use my suggestions and advice to improve the manuscript in her own way. She took constructive criticism like a champ, and she worked so hard to get it over the line.

I couldn’t have asked for a better first experience in book editing. Thanks Cathy.

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Cathy Huddleston’s book Because Of My Horse is now being sent to publishers. More information when I have it.

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Other Stuff

• A deep inside-look at the shawarma hotspot that is Glasgow

• Get yourself a Pellicle hat

• Walking Phnom Pen by Chris Arnade—using his unique perspective as he long-distance walks around the world to discover the city, he notices it’s full of children. “Phnom Penh is a young city chock full of kids. They are everywhere, and they bring a positive energy, warmth, and joy that no amount of adult diversions — no amount of bars, casinos, exceptional cuisine, and museums — can replicate, because nothing warms the heart like a big smile from a tiny face.”

• On Criticism in Beer Writing by Matthew Curtis

• Working Inside Beer’s Sinking Ships—a look at Australia’s failing beer businesses via the people who work there, by Will Ziebell

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My Stuff

• The Corporate Takeover of Craft Beer Leaves A Nasty Taste In The Mouth—by me for The Guardian

• If nobody cares about craft, then why does it matter so much?

Then why does it seem to matter so much?

I wrote an article last week about “craft” beer—you can find it here if you missed it. I had a blast with it in all honesty, the feedback and comments were interesting and gave me different perspectives to consider, perspectives that aren’t often heard from within the sound-muffling walls of the beer industry bubble.

I saw time and time again that people were frustrated about the subject, because they, in their own words, didn’t care about it. In one instance, a reader commented four times to lament that time was being spent contemplating a subject “only manbuns care about”. Hate to state the obvious, but I wrote the piece, and I’m a woman with a bun.

There has always been a backlash opinion about “craft” beer (I continue to use these shit-eating air quotes around the word because it truly means nothing as a descriptor or as a branding tool) that it’s a niche product and therefore only nerds, hipsters, or losers care about it. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of this hypothetical group of people. Homebrew nerds hanging out with CAMRA vets, hanging out with hipsters, all brought together by their apparent shared obsession with hops. What an image. World peace.

The idea that it doesn’t really matter whether “craft” beer is called “craft” beer is something I hear a lot too, and I guess I can understand the frustration. It’s boring to hear the same arguments over and over again, and if you’re just out to drink a beer you enjoy, regardless of its provenance, you probably don’t want another lecture. But this is something I think we, as drinkers, have gotten wrong. It does matter. If it didn’t, why would big breweries be clinging to the term long after acquiring the branding rights? (Just for interest’s sake, this blog post titled “What is Craft Beer?” on the Beavertown site didn’t age well.

I bring to this little show-and-tell, the arch-nemesis of the independent beer world, Brewdog. Despite all they’ve put their workers through, regardless of how often they’ve dragged their own name through the mud, they remain technically independent. It seems that the only thing James Watt won’t do is sell Brewdog to a corporate brewery company like AB-InBev or Heineken. Why is that?

In 2018, Watt told The Grocer: “I’d rather shoot myself in the head than sell out and be a rich motherf***er”

22% of Brewdog’s equity belongs to US-based private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, with shares also owned by CEO James Watt (24%) and Co-Founder Martin Dickie (20%) and, of course, the Equity Punks (18%). Where the remaining 12% is I’m not sure—there is some more detailed information on their IPO status here. The main reason for TSG Consumer Partner’s existence is as a capital investment firm, and to work with companies to invest in their brands in order to spread them as far and wide over the marketplace as possible, specialising in franchising, marketing performance, and product development. Rather than sell out to a big brewery, it would seem that Brewdog would rather become one—retaining the “independent” and “craft” terminology on their branding as they do so.

I have one thought on this: despite the number of people who regard these terms as superficial and unimportant, they must mean something to the people who matter. The people with deep pockets, the investors, it seems to matter to them. If it didn’t, companies like Brewdog would have binned it off long ago. For some reason, “craft” continues to be important to their product, which proves, to me, that somewhere along the line, sales depend on it. No matter how often we tell ourselves that “craft” means nothing, if it really didn’t, brewery owners wouldn’t bend over backwards to be able to use the word. If selling out really wasn’t a problem for the marketplace, Brewdog wouldn’t have made millions portraying itself as a subversive outsider to the corporate side of beer, and it wouldn’t still be trying to cling to that branding and the optics it sells.

We all got bored of defining craft a decade ago. But just because something is boring, doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Occasionally, things need repeating over and over again, just so that people really get it.

Life is hard enough. Look at the sky.

Today’s newsletter deals with themes of depression and suicide, please consider this a trigger warning and skip on to the links under the “Other Stuff” heading if you’d rather not read it.

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One of the things people tell you about depression is that it sucks the fun out of everything, including the things you really enjoy. While I appreciate this abstract attempt at trying to describe the sensation of being bled dry by my own mind, it’s not exactly true. During the worst times, I can’t remember what I enjoy, and every other awful thing is amplified. Depression’s most insidious and dangerous symptom is its ability to appear as the status quo. Like an ant powered by a parasitic fungus, I try to continue with my life, vaguely recollecting that I should eat, shower, tidy up, while the deeper threads that connect the basics of functioning day to day are eroded.

This is what scares me about depression. Without enjoyment, what is life? When it is broken down into component tasks—cleaning, sleeping, exercising, working—it doesn’t seem worth much at all. And this is what it feels like. All of the time. Deep down there is knowledge that this is a strip-lit illusion, that the real world doesn’t feel like this, but it’s hard to know or care when there is no energy left to seek out what truly exists. This is not wallowing. This is some stagnant other thing.

Decades of experience tells me that I have to keep doing the things that help, even when it feels like I would rather die1. I went to the gym, because I saw a meme on a fitness Instagram account that said “You’ll never regret going, but you’ll regret not going.” This is why last week you might have found me crying on an inverted leg press machine, crushing 80kg, listening to Modest Mouse. No, I was not well. I still went though. Gains.

Today, Rachel Hendry wrote about cider, and the essence of things, and romance, for her newsletter J’adore Le Plonk.

“…romance has so many negative connotations, doesn’t it, to most people it is silly, effeminate, unserious. So I’ve been thinking about what it is to be romantic and I think the key quality of romance is in care. It is seen as romantic to care because care is so rarely rewarded”

It’s true. To be romantic is to be silly, to be blousy and fickle, to see the world as a better place—to be an idealist. Rachel’s idea that romance at its heart is care is a lovely one, because while, as she points out, being feminine is often derided and disrespected, the vital act of caring is seen as wholly feminine. To care is to be vulnerable. Caring is a generous act of sacrifice. What could be more romantic?

I notice that depression docks my imagination and urges me to think practically. It’s just the sun. It’s only music. Every day is the same. It stops me from caring, because in caring there is the possibility of pain. It is the opposite of romance. It is an online atheist in the year 2006. What I miss most when I’m ill is my sense of wonder. I’ve learned that seeing glory in leaves and sunlight and a perfect plate of pasta isn’t a way of avoiding reality—it is reality. Caring about others, and the world around me, is what stabilises me, what makes me feel safer. In the romance of the world is where the meaning of life lies, and it feels incredibly unfair to know this while also struggling to see it. But it is there, and it’s waiting for me to come back. I saw it on Tuesday running near Pendle Hill. I saw it last week in a negroni made for me by a friend. Perhaps I’ll see it today.

Other Stuff

• Japanese printmaker Morozumi Osamu’s landscapes are such a serene antidote to the constant battering rain. His print of the Eiger is my favourite.

• Anaïs Lecoq is a French writer from Champagne, and she’s written about her hometown and its local wine for Pellicle.

• “As churches are converted into pubs and flats, bellmakers must adapt.” Rob Bidder’s cartoon on art’s value and function in society.

• “Thoughts and Prayers” is a 15 piece series of ceramics by Stanley Tong, each shot with firearms when thrown, then pit fired, preserving the damage in his finished pieces.

• Talking about romance, Henri Biva’s turn of the century paintings of late summer ponds and parks are total romantic delusion. In a Ladybird book illustration sort-of way.

• An extremely cool video about how Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy was sampled and cut together, made 15 years ago out of paper, scissors, and a lot of creativity.

• Mergoat magazine has become on of my favourite things to read recently, after stumbling across them while looking for local information and news following the devastating hurricane there. This important piece by Veronica Limeberry follows an elder seed-saver in the South-Appalachian region, whose home was destroyed. He wrote a ballad about Hurricane Helene, recorded here.

• Loudemile Weekly on their favourite knives, something all us kitchen folks love

• Charlotte Cook on 70p beers and train journeys in Romania

My Stuff

• Sign up to the Pellicle Patreon to get a bonus piece from me every month! These pieces are only available to our Patreon supporters, and by supporting Pellicle you’re directly supporting our magazine.

A monthly roundup, slightly late because I was on holiday.

This month I was busy, and I’m so grateful for that. One of the most aggravating questions I get asked is “how do you make enough money?” because: I rarely do! The choice to become a freelancer was based on a lot of things, and I’ve certainly never made more than I did at my previous job. But when I’m busy, it doesn’t feel as difficult—my nerves are calmed when I feel needed and necessary. Busy doesn’t necessarily equal riches, but it certainly makes a difference compared to those fallow months all freelancers dread.

What I’ve been doing has been pleasingly diverse too: editing a book, writing about volcanoes, writing about pub signs and public art, and editing Pellicle features. I’ve been tired to my bones but I’ve also felt more energised about my work, which is something that comes and goes quite violently from my life whenever something bad happens. See the whole month of August for a reference for this.

But! I’m just back from a sunny holiday on the volcanic crust of Lanzarote, the Autumnal new moon has given me a bit of peace, and I’ve found my cinnamon incense sticks. Things are looking up.

If you would like to hire me for writing work, whether that’s blog writing, social media content, or you’ve got an idea for a feature you think I’d be great for, email me: katiematherwrites@gmail.com

Things I’ve Written

• These Wooden Ideas — The Incomparable Theakston’s Old Peculier — Pellicle

“The peat-dark waters of the North Yorkshire Moors are described by my pint. In its sparkling clear, deep ruby depths, I can see glints of bronze—I’ve moved the glass so it perfectly catches the light from a small window on the other side of the room. It’s funny, even the head has a touch of that earthy colour about it, like the foam under a waterfall, or in the deadly swirling of the Bolton Strid.”

• There Will Be Signs: My First Week As A Euromillions Winner — The Guardian

• The Woody, Douglas — The Gulp

• The Mindfulness of Defrosting my Freezer — The Gulp

• Wedding Dresses and Pints of Pale — The Gulp

“There’s this one gown she looked incredible in, a waterfall of sequins, that brings tears to my eyes—he’s clapping. We love this. We cackle and finish our pints, get new ones, and look through the collection again, whooping and hollering, and discussing cuts and styles in great detail as only three-pints-in-experts can. We hug and I talk about my wedding, and our friend his, and offer our advice and recommendations. We sip Pale like we own the place, and in this moment, surrounded by imaginary diamonds and chandeliers, it’s as exquisite and refreshing as Bollinger.”

• How to Run a Successful Bar — The Gulp

• Preston Pub Festival 2024 — The Gulp

• Volcanic Hungary — The Gulp

• She’s So Heavy (A guide to the Wee Heavy beer style) — Ferment Magazine (print only)

• Wine Myths: It’s Alive! — Glug Magazine (print only)

• Sweet Wines In Moldova — Glug Magazine (print only)

• A Taste of Terroir: Valul Lui Traian — Glug Magazine (print only)

• Indigenous Grapes: Valul Lui Traian — Glug Magazine (print only)

  

Things I’ve Done

Edited a Book

I know I keep wanging on about this, but I was thrilled to be asked to work on this project. I’m keen to work in editing more and more these days, and the book I was ascribed to work on was a great surprise: touching, shocking, and enlivening. I can’t wait to be able to share this writers’ work with you.

Blended Beers with Balance Brewing

Pellicle are making not one but three collaboration beers with Balance Brewing and Blending, and I’ve been put in charge of the project. Wuh oh!!

Really though, this is a gem of a job to get to do, and working with James and Will is obviously delightful. I spent two afternoons in Manchester this month with Pellicle Matthew choosing beers to blend and additional foraged herbs and aromatics to include.

Look out for more news on these special releases at the start of 2025.

Chatted with Fell Brewery in Cartmel

I was chuffed to bits to be asked to host an Oktoberfest beer tasting and panel/chat with the Fell Brewery team earlier in September. I was invited to stay at their pub The Royal Oak in Cartmel which is stunning, you really should visit, and John the head brewer took me to eat a Michelin Star sausage roll at Heft, which was as great as it sounds. Big thanks to John for organising and for making me feel so welcome.

Went on a Solo Trip in the Lakes

Tom went to Spa-Francorchamps with Team Kibosh for the weekend (I wasn’t jealous), so I planned a little getaway of my own with my best friend, the van.

Driving up to Eskdale through Ulpha and living to tell the tale gave me the confidence that I could do anything. And it’s true—I walked to Boot, I took a little steam train called La’al Ratty, I drove on to Keswick, I had a cheese board in the van and watched World Superbikes on my phone, I had a wonderful time.

I Hosted Another Workshop

I loved doing these!

We talked all about pitching and self-editing, and it’s just so great to hear what new writers are concerned or confused about and be able to help. Sharing experience is what it’s all about. There’ll be no stifling of talent goin’ on around here, I’ll tell ya.

While I haven’t got much time to run one in the coming months, I’d love to know if you’d be interested in booking in for one in the new year. Let me know.

Things I Read

• Naked Dressing and Consent by Rebecca Cope for Elle

• I thought this piece by Apoorva Sripathi was interesting, because when I feel dark and grim and depressed and angry, I too think deeply about Rothko paintings.

• The incredibly talented Rachel Hendry on memory, wine, taste, and the horror of Alzheimer’s and Dementia.

• More from Rachel about oranges, art, and FEELING

• Junk Food, High Art — Noah Verrier’s art has very much been at the forefront of my mind every time I’ve eaten junk food this past year or so.

Things I Saw

• A barn owl floating across the A59

• A 250 year old Syrah vine growing out of volcanic ash

• This astonishingly spooky and chic Chanel A/W ad spread:

Visiting the oldest vines I’ve ever seen.

The vines in Lanzarote were never touched by the blight of Phylloxera. It seems the black, scorched soil was no home for the tiny aphid-like creatures, so while they wreaked near-total destruction on vineyards across Europe, the grapes in Lanzarote continued to grow. At El Grifo winery in San Bartolomé in the centre of the island, some vines are more than 250 years old.

That’s not to say that Lanzarote hasn’t had its own share of destruction. In the 1700s, six years of volcanic eruptions ruined much of the island’s fertile agricultural land—detailed reports of the eruptions by a local priest talk of vast rivers of lava, explosions, tremors, and fire. After this, there were no more cereal crops, and cattle pastures were replaced by free-roaming herds of hardy goats. Unlike other crops, vines don’t needs fertile green land to succeed. Vines that caught fire or were overcome by falling tephra were simply re-planted, to become Lanzarote’s thriving wine industry.

El Grifo winery pays close attention to the adjacency of volcanic violence to its calm and beautiful vineyard, choosing to leave large spaces of Pāhoehoe1 lava flow as part of its landscaping, connecting the gardens and courtyards to the wild, barren lands of the Timanfiya National Park just outside the perimeter wall—the epicentre of Lazarote’s most catastrophic volcanic activity in human memory.

We’d come to El Grifo for the wine, so after spending a long time touching old volcanic rocks, I let myself be dragged inside the winery museum. El Grifo is the oldest winery in the Canary islands, established in 1775, but it’s proud of its innovation rather than its history alone. In the 1970s, they were the first winery to install stainless steel equipment in the Canaries, and were also among the first to install generators to power the winery with electricity. In the 1980s, the winery was renovated, turning the old equipment and storage rooms into the vineyard museum, much of it designed by local artist and architect César Manrique.

Before stainless steel at El Grifo, there was stone and tile. Each fermentation vessel was lined with local ceramic tiles, with a porthole, and a slim wooden ladder to climb into from the top—I’d like to think this was made by their in-house cooper, but I can’t confirm that, so believe it if you like. You can walk between the vessels now, each of them is twice my height, and many, many litres large. They’re impressive things, at once showing ingenuity and also giving off ideas of saunas and Jacuzzis thanks to the pearl-grey tilework.

Malvasía Volcánica is indigenous to Lanzarote. It’s a pale, high acid white grape, that seemingly grows from nothing—the pitted black land of Lanzarote is planted up with single scraggly stems of unruly Malvasía, sheltered from the constant winds by pumice dry stone walls, growing loose along the ground in a bush vine-style scenario. These pits are dug to reach better soil, we are told, rather than to provide extra shelter. This makes sense. The soil on top is nothing but ash and chippings, hot from the sun, and the vines surely need all the cool blasts of breeze they can get out here.

El Grifo’s Malvasía Volcánica Lías uses battonage and old French oak, something many other Lanzarote white wines would not. On the island, fresh, high acid whites that taste of the sea are the most popular—what goes better with calamari and fried boquerones than a wine that feels like squeezing a lemon straight into your mouth?

Lías is different. From its aroma you can tell—there is fresh bread dough, and light, buttery caramel, and a spike or petrichor, something I was incredibly surprised to find here. The complexity of its aroma translated into a wonderfully structured and balanced wine, two words I used to find boring when I was bang into hyped natural wines. Lías is a perfect example of why balance is not dull—each mouthful is an elegant competition between the silky lees-laid mouthfeel like sun on your back, the prickly acid and fleshy apple-peach-aloe vera juiciness like biting into a cartoon cactus, and the lingering afternotes of Brazil nuts and salt. An incredible find, and one of my wines of the year.

I also tried El Grifo’s Saramago 100, a rare Syrah of only 12,986 bottles from the 2022 harvest. Saramago is actually named to commemorate what would have been José Saramago’s 100th birthday. José Saramago, who moved to Lanzarote later in life after the controversy surrounding his book The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, and became friends with the El Grifo family and team—his library is housed in the heart of the vineyard.

The Syrah vines on the estate are among El Grifo’s oldest, and I’ve not had many experiences with very old vines. The intensity of that Syrah is something I’ll never forget—such an intensity of blackcurrant and blackberries, but with a clarity and shape I couldn’t believe. The structure of the wine in my mouth, its smooth, silken tannins and ripe, black fruits, flung images of onyx pyramids and multi-faceted jewels into my mind, and I was tracing each surface with the tip of my tongue. I love a Syrah, a deep, dark, sultry Syrah, when it feels bold enough to be spooky. This had the Gothic confidence to litter the floor with fallen leaves, to trail a calligraphic curl of smoke along the rim of the glass, to talk about the darkness of deep French forests in the heart of a Volcanic desert. A special lightness of touch shows Lanzarote’s tannin-lite approach to winemaking, and this highlighted more of the fruit elements of this special wine. As of this moment, I can’t find any to buy online. I’m heartbroken.