Of course, I do thoroughly recommend getting a ticket to @beyondtellerrand.com if you can — it’s one of the best conferences you’ll ever attend!

A list of 5 tour locations, dates, and venues for the Fine Specimens book tour: Bristol on 10th March, Brussels on 1st April, Düsseldorf on 27th April, London on 14th May, and Paris on 30th May.

Don’t have a ticket to @beyondtellerrand.com, but want to come to the Fine Specimens launch party and buy a book directly from me?

Email me or DM me here and we can make it happen. Stop number 3 on the book tour is in Düsseldorf next Monday!

More details on beyondtellerrand.com/events/dusse...

A screenshot of the Momotaro app’s website, showing text that says “Built by Apa Apps! in sunny Barcelona a long swim from Silicon Valley”.

And what a footer!

Momotaro — Focus Timer Momotaro is a focus timer app that helps you build deep concentration habits.

For the last week, I’ve been using the Momotaro app (by @laszlito.bsky.social) to stop myself from constantly checking my phone and... it works! I can’t say enough good things about the app and I love its beautiful website, too. Another great recommendation from @densediscovery.bsky.social.

beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf - 27–28 Apr 2026 beyond tellerrand is the affordable single-track event where creativity and technology meet. Taking place in Düsseldorf and Berlin these days with 500+ attendees each in a renowned, familiar and frien...

7 days left. 7 more reasons to come to #btconf Düsseldorf 2026 🧵

1. Oliver Reichenstein
2. Community
3. James Victore
4. Typography
5. Kimya Gandhi
6. Craft
7. Conversations

27–28 April → beyondtellerrand.com/events/dusse...

Oh, great! Yep, so far there’s *only* the English edition.

Notes from a different (type)setting A pop-up newsletter from Elliot Jay Stocks. Unlike Elliot’s main newsletter, Typographic & Sporadic, this one is focussed on short bursts of type-related travel. The next trip is the Fine Specimens Eu...

Also, thanks to everyone who’s following the tour via my pop-up newsletter. Next stop: Düsseldorf at @beyondtellerrand.com!

A montage of photos taken at the launch party for Fine Specimens in Brussels, Belgium, mainly of Elliot Jay Stocks talking or signing books at a table in the Waterstones bookshop. Photos by Tim van Damme, Doc Parsons, and Paddy Donnelly.

Brussels (stop #2 on the Fine Specimens book tour) was incredible! Thanks so much to @waterstones.bsky.social for hosting us, Paddy for leading our conversation, and everyone who came (especially @maxvoltar.be, @drbparsons.bsky.social, Danny Calders, @matratype.bsky.social, and Kaat Vandenbroeck).

I hope my friends on Substack will once again consider leaving the service that gives a platform to abhorrent people like Andrew Tate.

beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf - 27–28 Apr 2026 beyond tellerrand is the affordable single-track event where creativity and technology meet. Taking place in Düsseldorf and Berlin these days with 500+ attendees each in a renowned, familiar and frien...

I’m so excited to be attending @beyondtellerrand.com in two weeks’ time. Honestly, it’s consistently one of the very best conferences out there. And yes, I’m doing a Fine Specimens launch event there, too, but would be there anyway!

Sad to see that I now have a bunch of trading / investment bros following me here on Bluesky, who — just like on Twitter in the ol’ days — are clearly only here for my surname.

I’m super-late sending out the 2nd issue of my pop-up newsletter about the book tour (a combination of a family Easter break, doing my back in, and catching up on some much needed sleep), but I think today might be the day.

Here’s the link if you want to get it (pop-up = no online archives):

Why the verb “to be” is so irregular The answer is six thousand years old

Ever wondered why “was”, “am”, and “be” are such different words, despite expressing different tenses of the same verb, “to be”? @colingorrie.bsky.social goes deep in the latest issue of his linguistics newsletter (which is fast becoming one of my favourite weekly reads):

En route to Belgium! 🇧🇪

Tonight, I’ll be in conversation with my good mate, the author-illustrator Paddy Donnelly, at Waterstones in Brussels. We’ll be celebrating the launch of Fine Specimens and chatting about good ol’ books.

Come along — it kicks off at 19:30, it’s free, and there’ll be beer!

Here’s a selection of pages from Fine Specimens. You can buy it from anywhere that sells books. Here are some shops (although the best one is your local bookseller):

geni.us/FineSpecimens

(Also, a reminder that the next leg of the UK / EU book tour is tomorrow night at Waterstones in Brussels!)

Notes from a different (type)setting A pop-up newsletter from Elliot Jay Stocks. Unlike Elliot’s main newsletter, Typographic & Sporadic, this one is focussed on short bursts of type-related travel. The next trip is the Fine Specimens Eu...

Also, this will be stop #2 on the Fine Specimens book tour. If you want to follow along virtually via the medium of email, please sign up to my pop-up newsletter:

A list of 5 tour locations, dates, and venues for the Fine Specimens book tour.

Next Wednesday, 1st April (not an April Fools!) I’m having a launch party for Fine Specimens at @waterstones.bsky.social in beautiful Brussels, in conversation with my good friend Paddy Donnelly.

The event kicks off at 19:30 and is free, but please RSVP by emailing Events.Brussels@waterstones.com

I did not know that! Thanks!

Haha! Thanks. Amazingly, this one wasn’t multiple takes for a change — but the edit was super tedious!

Father Ted - Mrs Doyle guesses the name of a priest. YouTube video by Fox and Toby

My awesome wife watched the video of me reciting foundry names and said it reminded her of this scene from Father Ted:

Apologies for the vertical format — I made this video to please the Instagram algorithm — but it took too bloody long to edit to *not* post it here, too.

If you’ve been curious to know which type foundries have their work in Fine Specimens, here’s me reading them all out, with their logos overlaid.

Oh wow, well remembered! I think that was one of my first gigs when I went freelance!

Pagecord: Blog Without The Slog. Create your home page and blog in seconds. A powerful editor when you need it, post by email when you don't. Free forever, premium $39/year.

For folks looking to get (back) into blogging, or get a super-simple personal site up and running, @pagecord.com (created by @olly.world, one of the founders of @freeagentapp.bsky.social) looks interesting. It’s giving me early 2010-ish vibes and I mean that entirely as a compliment.

A montage of photos in a bookshop for the Fine Specimens book launch event

It’s now been one whole week since the release of Fine Specimens and I’ve been so humbled by all the support. And last Tuesday’s launch party at @bookhaus.bsky.social with @jamieclarketype.bsky.social and the Letter Luvvers crew was amazing! Huge thanks to everyone who’s been supportive of the book.

Notes from a different (type)setting A pop-up newsletter from Elliot Jay Stocks. Unlike Elliot’s main newsletter, Typographic & Sporadic, this one is focussed on short bursts of type-related travel. The next trip is the Fine Specimens Eu...

The first issue of the book tour pop-up newsletter is going out tomorrow!

It covers Tuesday’s launch event in Bristol and some motivations behind the tour in general. Sign up here if you fancy following along:

Thanks so much, Eric! And thanks for buying one!

A screenshot of the PRINT magazine website, taken on 11th March 2026, showing the Fine Specimens article as the lead story.

Huge thanks to @printmag.bsky.social for the big ol’ “Type Tuesday” feature on Fine Specimens! Deb asked some really great questions and I had a great time answering them.

www.printmag.com/type-tuesday...

Thanks, Jeff!

Last night’s launch event at @bookhaus.bsky.social was so much fun! Thanks so much to the shop for having us, @jamieclarketype.bsky.social for running the chat, and everyone who came out.

Still sourcing some photos, but @cityeditionstudio.co.uk’s was the first one on Bluesky!

Oh, thanks for the photo, Jono! I saw you from the ‘stage’ but yeah, didn’t get a chance to say thanks for coming!