Escaping. Leaving. Doing a bunk. Scarpering. Skiving. Quitting. Exiting stage left. Absenting oneself. Playing truant. Going AWOL. Naffing orf. Giving the slip.
I am good at these things.
In fact, I’m so good at them that I set up a periodical to explore the latest developments in the lost art and burgeoning science of Escapology.
New Escapologist is a biannual magazine of wise and funny writing. It “ended” in 2017 but returned triumphantly in 2023.
In the interim, the blog never stopped and the back catalogue (Issues 1-13) remained in print. You can now subscribe to all future editions.
Praise for the magazine
“we immediately fell for its idiosynscratic mix of gentle humour, curious interviews and more serious reports.” — MagCulture
“a wonderful magazine” — Monocle Radio’s The Stack
“Fabulous, a wonderful magazine” — Jonathan Simons, Analog Sea.
“Delightfully eccentric but perfectly serious” — Outside Left
“Ambitious, elegantly-designed, literary.” — Yahoo! News.
“Foppish, irresponsible, and very needed” — Pat Kane, Thoughtland.
“Excellent publications that deserve a wide readership.” — Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler and author of How to be Free.
“A brilliant magazine on the theme of escape as a sane response to an insane situation.” — Brian Dean, Anxiety Culture.
“I have the latest New Escapologist on my bedside table. I go nowhere without it. And I always make sure New Escapologist is on it.” — Ian Macpherson, writer and comedian.
“A splendid publication. So cheerful and light, yet with a ninja-sharp intellect hiding just beneath the surface.” — Mr. Money Mustache
“Entertaining and highly literate reading, even if you’re relatively content with wage slavery.” — Moneysense.
“We had to wait thirty years for someone to come up with an idea like this – an indie magazine about escape attempts!!! Next step: a whole Escapology Cult.” — Prof. Stanley Cohen, co-author of Escape Attempts.
Hey Robert
Firstly, thank you for writing ‘Escape Everything’. I bought it for my wife, who was trapped in an job that was killing her mentally, from the Waterstones in Hitchin about ten years ago-ish.
We escaped, and your work was what started the ball rolling. It was a chance encounter when I explained to the bookseller what my problem was (get my spouse out of a job that was likely to destroy her mentally) and they handed me your book. Since then, we formed a plan, got out, realised that the plan wasn’t a plan at all, replanned, took some chances, had some hard times, and have now made a sustainable go of it. I now narrate audiobooks as Rafe Beckley and Piers Ryman (for quite a few years) and Liz taught herself to be an audiobook proofer and editor, which she now does for me, and for other people who throw money at her because she’s got really good at it, and also loves doing it.
We still work. But we now work at something we both adore doing, and we are our own bosses.
So, thank you. That book helped us to start to devise an escape plan that eventually, with many mis-steps, worked. We work, and love it. We don’t work when it’s hard for us (medical stuff). We make it work with far less stress than others by being based in France now, and working for ourselves.
Would you like an article? If we can do it, it might give others confidence and hope.
We’ve just started a newsletter (which is totally new for audiobook narrators, they don’t do that) which is currently tiny, but would you like a shout out on that?
Frankly, dear man, the book you wrote eventually gave us the opening to change our lives. If there’s anything we can do or trade with each other to show people that different life choices are possible, then we’d love to get on board with that.
Hi. I’m Rafe Beckley, and I’m also Piers Ryman. I narrate audiobooks for a living, and my wife edits and masters them. We live in rural France on a very moderate income, and it really is, at it’s starting point, thanks to you.
Thanks brah x
rafebeckley.com