My Incredible, Unpredictable Wild Year
My 2023 reflection, and a roundup of the best pieces I wrote this year.
In May, I was going to give up on writing professionally.
I had written for great places, and people I respected liked my work, and it had felt like things had been going the right direction, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t pay your bills. Late last year, I had a job lined up in America, and was going to move for it, only for that to disappear. Then, in March or so, I got into the final round of interviews for the only job application I got a response to, only to lose out. And in May, another job that I’d been offered, accepted, and was waiting for the contract on suddenly evaporated as well. For years I’d worked as a high-end bartender, and hey, I was good at that, so I was intending to return to hospitality.
And then, suddenly, things changed.
Three years ago, I was a guy with a blog, with no public presence. Only because of my Tablet Fellowship did I have a chance of turning that around; and this year, I became Life Editor at the world edition of The Spectator; a contributor for the New York Sun, regularly writing for some of the best editors I’ve worked with in my life, Noah Kotch and Seth Lipsky; and started my podcast, Arguably, interviewing great guests and getting thousands of listeners, on a project I do in my free time.1
Along with this, I have written for Air Mail, spoken with celebrities (including a two-time Oscar winner, who will writing for The Spectator’s Best Films of the Year list, which I commissioned and edited), chatted with George Santos, and had my work featured in The New York Times, The Independent, The New York Post, and, yes, Jimmy Kimmel Live! I also moved countries, and now live in London!
What’s coming up next year? I’ll be visiting Las Vegas at the end of February for a big piece (if anyone is in the area, please reach out!), bringing Arguably back for a killer second season, and I have more articles in the work for some other publications I’ve never written before (including one I started this February and have been working on and off on this year).
My 25th year has been a wild one.
2024 will be even better.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and thank you for reading,
Ross
My Best Pieces
Other Highlights
Season 2 is coming. It was going to return in October but I didn’t want to release an episode on porn immediately after October 7th. We’ll be back in January or February with some incredible guests, and the first episode will be on Israel and Gaza.