How did I get here?

If That Makes Sense is a bi-weekly newsletter and advice column by me, Ella Kemp.

I am not a qualified [insert name of literally any health or counselling professional] but I am a writer feeling my way through things that don’t always have a place in a film or music review.

Most of the time I freelance for The Quietus, Girls on Tops, NME, Empire, Letterboxd and more as an editor and critic. But now I’d like to share more things with you, only when you specifically ask to hear about them.

Qu’est-ce que c’est?

The things in question might be about love, about loneliness, about hobbies, haircuts, someone’s Instagram story or that email you really don’t want to send. The things I worry about burdening the same three, four people with, that I can’t stop thinking about.

I’m thinking about the epiphanies reached after precisely one (1) drink too many, breathlessly relayed in a four-minute voice note or over 100+ WhatsApp messages. I never write these down properly, and always regret it. Am I reading too much into that tweet? Am I too old or too young, in my twenties, for anything? Where do I put all these feelings when no one wants to listen anymore?

They are things that I care about and want to share, hear about, and write about, and hopefully make someone feel understood, if just for a little while. I hope that makes sense.

Would you like to come along?

If That Makes Sense will be sending out one newsletter, containing a column by me and an original illustration by Anna Boulogne, every two weeks.

Anna and I are freelancers, and work on this project because we want to – there aren’t any editors (sorry) or investors at the moment. So, if you’d like to support what we do with a small subscription fee, you will receive a column every two weeks. If you can’t (That’s fine! The world is difficult! ) you will receive every other column – so one per month. Either way, we’ll be here.

If you’d like to submit a question, or an answer to a previous column, you can email me here. For everything else, I tweet here and Anna illustrates here. I can’t wait to hear from you.

(Yes, those three headers are all Talking Heads lyrics. Same as it ever was.)