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robertmford.bsky.social
Writer, community builder, & devoted tea drinker 🍵✨—on a mission to find the stories that connect us, spark empathy, and make the world a bit kinder (one cuppa at a time). https://robertmichaelford.substack.com/
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New narrated story just dropped 🎧 Bridge Beyond — part of The Shape Becomes Sound, my audio series from the collection The Shape of Silence. Unlocked by Substack subscriber #200. Listen: www.brittleviews.com/p/bridge-bey...

submitted 1 hour ago • 0 comments

Flashback Friday drop: A quiet room. A blinding white world outside. And the silence between a boy and his mother. This one stays with you. www.brittleviews.com/p/flashback-... If it lands, share it or follow along for more. #FlashbackFriday #Memoir #GriefAndGrowth #WritingLife #BrittleViews

submitted 18 hours ago • 0 comments

Ralph Jackson is the kind of character who speaks softly but leaves an echo. In Holding On, he’s the glue holding a family together—even as time begins to pull them apart. He doesn’t need the spotlight. His strength is in his stillness, his care, and the stories he carries in silence.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

The fight isn’t about the coffee. It’s about every bruise they never talked about. Chapter Three of Holding On is now live. Grief doesn’t shout. But it leaves a mark. www.brittleviews.com/p/chapter-th... #grieflit #siblings #literaryfiction

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

A scheduling slip means this week's Needle Drops story is out early. It's about the kind of school discipline that didn’t leave marks on the register, only on the kids. shorturl.at/vRgOn #NeedleDrops #memoir #BritishSchool #shortstories #trauma #institutionalviolence #brittleviews

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

She didn’t sign the letter. She didn’t leave a note. Just a ring of keys. A line from Merwin. Her library card, with her name faintly erased. Part 2 of Withdrawn is now live. A story about retreat that still leaves a trace. #fiction #SubstackWriters #quietstories #brittleviews

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

A story of quiet retreat. No collapse, no fracture—just the subtle work of erasure. Part 1 of 2 about what’s left behind, and what chooses not to be found. shorturl.at/0mbT3 If it lands, feel free to share or subscribe. Quiet travels gently. #fiction #literary #writingcommunity #shortstory

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Some stories don’t echo back as words. They settle. And later—become poem. This one grew from an essay about empaths and the quiet violence of constantly softening, absorbing, shrinking. It stayed with me. And then—this. 💭 “Even a lighthouse tires when no one seeks the shore…” shorturl.at/MuGp3

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

New essay: Please, Help Yourself. A college disco. A biscuit tin. A girl who wouldn’t leave. About awkward generosity, quiet grief, and the long echo of foil wrappers. www.brittleviews.com/p/please-hel... 🧡 Read it / share it / subscribe if it hums for you. #PersonalEssay #NeedleDrops

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

13 years ago, I wrote Life in a Northern Town—a family history turned personal reckoning. This week’s essay picks up where that one left off. Not just what I left behind—but what I carried too long. shorturl.at/8chJB #FlashbackFriday #Belonging #NorthernVoices #Reckoning

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Holding On started as fiction, but the writing took me somewhere real—back to Ashgate Hospice. We were told my dad had two weeks. He stayed two years. That time stretched everything: patience, love, time itself. www.brittleviews.com/p/the-weight...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

This week’s chapter steps out of the spotlight and back into the silence. A hospital room. A memory. A question that still holds weight. For anyone who’s ever tried to stay present when it would be easier to walk out for air. shorturl.at/KDEB2 #slowfiction #family #grief #HoldingOn #BrittleViews

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

The telly stayed behind the door. So did the answers. The Worst Kept Secrets — a story of pink envelopes, unspoken rules, and the silence that followed. www.brittleviews.com/p/the-worst-... Read + share + subscribe if you like essays that don’t resolve, but echo. #memoir #essays #BrittleViews

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

On Memorial Day, I rewatched Trump’s West Point speech—and then watched the press rewrite it in real time. The performance wasn’t incidental. It was the point. I wrote about spectacle, silence, and what we’re asked to forget. shorturl.at/gPv6y #MemorialDay #WestPoint #Trump #MediaCriticism

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

She stayed for tea. I stayed gone. New from my Needle Drops series: an essay about care, trespass, and the day I climbed the fence. www.brittleviews.com/p/she-stayed... #NeedleDrops #PersonalEssay #SilenceAsAnswer #Grief #Boundaries #ComingOfAge #RobertMFord RT/share if it hits.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

A very real story of friendship, fire, a lighter, a sentence I never got to finish, and why I was kicked out of Woolworths (again). No synths this time—just mischief and memory. www.brittleviews.com/p/additional... #NeedleDrops #Memoir #BritishYouth #Substack #WoolworthsWasALifestyle #BannedIn79

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Austerity isn’t abstract. It’s a closed door. A coat not worn. A room no longer lit. This poem walks through a museum of memory we couldn’t afford to forget. www.brittleviews.com/p/we-kept-it... Soft ask: share if it moves you. #PoetryOfWitness #MemoryAsResistance

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

New Flashback Friday is live. This isn’t a correction. It’s a reexposure. What happens when a memory returns, not to be retold—but to ask different questions? “Held Up to the Light” is about silence, power, and the moment we knew we’d been seen. www.brittleviews.com/p/held-up-to...

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

New Defiance drop: Objection Overruled. A jet built for ego. A nation distracted. A Constitution still raising its hand. Come for the pageantry. Stay for the paper swans. www.brittleviews.com/p/objection-... #Satire #Defiance #FictionWithTeeth #BrittleViews

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

What if nothing was illegal—and no one remembered why it ever was? Objection Overruled New from Brittle Views. Drops May 22nd. For the ones still asking uncomfortable questions. 📍 www.brittleviews.com #Defiance #FictionThatBites

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Just dropped Chapter 1 of Holding On. A story about family, grief, and the quiet, complicated courage it takes to keep showing up. It starts with a book, a green room, and everything unsaid. www.brittleviews.com/p/chapter-on... #fiction #grief #family #slowfiction #substack #HoldingOn

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Tomorrow I start sharing Holding On—my first novel. A quiet story about grief, family, and the weight of memory. One chapter a week. The first lands tomorrow morning.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

You didn’t mean to vanish. You just didn’t know how to stay. New Brittle Views: Close Enough to Hurt On silence, repetition, and the patterns we call love. www.brittleviews.com/p/close-enou... 🧡 Share if it echoes. Sub if it stays with you. #grief #intimacy #brittleviews #emotionalwriting

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments