Grokkist Press
Reading Room
Contributors · Writer
The house byline of Grokkist Press: Snackables, the Grokkist letter, and the things we make together.
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ImagineSoma Isles
Long after many considered skateboarding suffocated by corporate concerns, Canadian pro Andy Anderson is introducing the sport to a new generation — 'the essence of what skateboarding is.' This short film shows both his talents and his vulnerabilities: painful-looking crashes and feats of
Surprise meMaker's Forge
Five years before Goethe's Theory of Colours, the English watercolourist Mary Gartside published her own challenge to Newton — modestly framed as a guidebook 'for the ladies I have been called upon to instruct in painting,' one of the few outlets where women's critical thought was tolerate
ImagineMaker's Forge
A curated collection of stylish and quirky typefaces available under a variety of free licences, many free for commercial use. Sort by cursive, display, monospace, sans serif, serif or slab. If you're the kind of person for whom this is catnip, prepare to lose several happy hours.
Surprise meEntangled Vale
'English as my first language makes me a member of a tiny elite — 300,000 people in a country of 1.4 billion… yet in today's Hindu-nationalist India, English is a defence of pluralism against the imposition of a single Indian language on a country with dozens of mother tongues.' A highly r
ImagineMaker's Forge
Photographer and designer Milie (aka Princess Prompt) used Midjourney and Magnific to imagine The Simpsons as real people: 'I didn't want them to have yellow skin — I wanted us to see them as people we could meet in everyday life.' Plenty of fun examples, plus a peek into her workflow and
Bi-weekly newsletter for grokkists who insist on relating to the world with curiosity and care. Each edition contains the latest from the Grokkist Press, events and highlights from our community, and a care package of snackable outside links selected to nurture your curiosity.
WonderMaker's Forge
A personal and philosophical meditation on why we seek out the pleasures of fear — headlong through bungee jumps and haunted houses, or from the safe distance of a horror film. 'Fear is an oddly attractive force… why do we crave small doses of terror?' Ginger Greene wonders whether practis
WonderEntangled Vale
Shot with light and electron microscopes at magnifications up to 50,000x, Nanoscapes reveals the elaborate topography of butterfly wings — and the surprisingly little-known story of structural colour, where hue comes not from pigment but from the shape of matter itself. Visually stunning,
Make senseMaker's Forge
When companies testify in open court, the public gets rare insight into how things actually work. Drawing on the 2022 Penguin vs DOJ antitrust case, this lays bare the book industry: the Big Five spend most of their money on advances for celebrities and franchise authors, and make their re
GroundedEntangled Vale
An interactive art experience in Singapore where you wander through giant inflatable rock formations, setting the wilderness against the urban. It pays homage to Iwagumi — the Japanese art of stone placement in aquascaping, pioneered by the legendary aquarist Takashi Amano — which 'strives
Move meMaker's Forge
A charming, uplifting stop-motion animation about the healing power of knitting and other fibre arts — and about mending objects rather than discarding them. 'People need something that's for them, just to concentrate on. When your life is sort of falling apart, you need to create a purpos
Bi-weekly newsletter for grokkists who insist on relating to the world with curiosity and care. Each edition contains the latest from the Grokkist Press, events and highlights from our community, and a care package of snackable outside links selected to nurture your curiosity.