It was dirty and dangerous, but coal mining also cultivated pride, companionship, and art.
Author: richardsmyth
I'm a writer, journalist, editor, cartoonist and general freelance cultural janitor.
The Fence article: Under the hammer
I met some pagans in Nottinghamshire. They were… problematic.
Aeon essay: Folk music was never green
Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree.
Fleet Lane: a novel
A new novel of surgery, sex and madness in Georgian London. Free to download!
Verso essay: People of the soil
We are shaped by our landscapes. They might be green or grey, wide-open or built-up, they might be here or there or anywhere, we might not have chosen them, we might not love them, we might not even like them, but they shape us, no less than we have shaped them.
Short story: ‘An Oologist’s Orkney Journal’
A short story written in 2022 for BBC Radio 4.
Short story: Mr Cromerty Of Boston
A Christmas short story written for the Liars’ League in 2018.
Prospect essay: How northern is the northern novel?
It’s easy to conflate the content of the northern novel with some sort of communal voice of the north. But the novelists’ north is not the same as the north that people actually live in.
New book: ‘The Jay, The Beech And The Limpetshell’
Finding Wild Things With My Kids. Out now from Icon Books.
Richard Smyth 