Series and collections

Writing that belongs together.

A series is one writer's work published in parts, best read from the beginning. A collection is gathered by the editors from several writers, and can be read in any order.

The lore

The lore.

Three series at the heart of Grokkist. New to all this? Begin with First Sparks.

New? Begin with this one

First Sparks · 7 short pieces Are you a grokkist? Seven small sparks for curious, many-sided people. A few minutes each, best read in order.

Begin with the first spark →

Unforgetting · 9 pieces Finding words for what you do. For the dread of “so, what do you do?”, and the secret joy of being too many things to answer it in a sentence. Each piece ends with something to try.

Start with the ugly question →

Red Thread Talks · the latest Members, following their thread. Grokkists telling the story of the thing that runs through their lives, live, then written up with them here.

Every talk, and who's next →

Series

In parts, in order.

Series · 9 parts

Unforgetting

Becoming legible to yourself. Nine short pieces, each one idea and one thing to try.

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 1 part Becoming a book

Healing Fragmentation

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 8 parts

Making Legible

Notes on the making of Danu Poyner's concept album Legible: music, memory, AI, and becoming readable to yourself.

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 16 parts

Living in Absurdity

In this serialized adaptation of his essay, Living in the Absurd: Notes from the Modern World, Rodney King reflects on the silent dissonance of modern life and explores what it means to be human in a time that often feels anything but.

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 13 parts Becoming a book

Dance of Lead+Follow

The Dance of Lead+Follow is a series of letters by Margarita Steinberg on the subtle, delicate choreography of human relationships — how we meet ourselves, one another, and the world.

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 52 parts A book

Flirting with Wisdom

Peter Gilderdale's Flirting With Wisdom series reflects on the interplay between curiosity and conviction, blending personal stories, history, cultural critique, and philosophical musings. Each vignette invites readers to embrace the beauty of unfinished thinking and the art of holding life’s ongoing questions.

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 7 parts

First Sparks

Being a Grokkist means following your curiosity and care, navigating life with purpose but without a map, and daring to show up as your whole, untamed self—trusting that your spark will light the way for yourself and those around you. Curious where that spark might lead? The First Sparks series invites you into a journey of self-recognition, connection, and possibility, each spark kindling new understanding of what it means to navigate life as a grokkist.

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 4 parts

After the End of History

4-part essay series which delves into the crisis of authority and legitimacy facing liberal democracy. Overall, the essay series serves as a call to reimagine our politics to address contemporary challenges by reviving the foundational questions of political life, aiming to reinvigorate public discourse with moral and ethical considerations about the societies we aspire to create.

Start at the beginning ↗

Series · 4 parts

Meditation Primer

A gentle, accessible introduction to meditation that explores its practical benefits and demystifies the practice for beginners and curious minds alike.

Start at the beginning ↗

Collections

Gathered by the editors.

Collection · 7 pieces

Coming back to the body

A cold swim, a juggling ball, a cricket pitch, bare feet on a beach. These pieces are about returning to the body when the head has run too far ahead.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 8 pieces

Everything is connected. Now what?

The relational turn says nothing exists on its own. These pieces take that seriously, and ask what it changes, what it costs, and how to live inside it.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 10 pieces

Holding two things at once

Pieces about doubt, ambivalence and contradiction, and about staying open when the pull is to pick a side. Read them when certainty feels too tidy.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 9 pieces

Living as if we want to stay

Mike Nickerson asks what it would mean to live on Earth as if we wanted to stay. These pieces answer from gardens, farms, trees, hikes and a book tour through a Europe already adapting.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 8 pieces

No Plan A

For people whose lives have not followed a straight line. Stories and reflections on wandering, being stuck, doing many things, and finding the thread that holds them together.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 7 pieces

Thawing our frozen politics

Essays and conversations about how we disagree, who gets heard, and what politics could be if it remembered the questions underneath it.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 6 pieces

Thinking with machines

Writers in the Press on AI: what it mirrors back, what it asks of us, and what we might forget along the way.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 8 pieces

What gets lost in the measuring

On metrics, productivity and the systems that turn care into compliance. These pieces notice what happens to people and to knowledge when everything has to be counted.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 8 pieces

What loss makes room for

Pieces about grief, estrangement and endings, and about what grows in the space they leave. Some are raw, some are practical, all of them stay with the difficulty rather than hurrying past it.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 7 pieces

What school does to curiosity

Teachers, researchers and former students look at what formal education gives, what it takes away, and what learning might look like if it trusted us more.

Read in any order ↗

Collection · 8 pieces

Where the self loosens

Accounts of moments when ordinary experience gave way: in dance, on retreat, in a psychedelic night, in drawing, in prayer. The writers try to describe what they found without explaining it away.

Read in any order ↗