Welcome, traveller!
My name is Ramona McCloskey and I'm a neurodivergent multidisciplinary artist, archaeologist and writer who lives with her family on the north coast of Ireland. If you came to this page, chances are we have a shared concern about the interconnectedness of imperialism, capitalism and human exceptionalism and alienation from Nature.
I've returned to writing in autumn 2023, some ten years after I left the world of journalism and writing short fiction behind me. Those ten years were filled with many life-defining events that now deeply inform the way I see the world and consequently, the way I write. Some of those events, not in a strictly chronological order, were getting an MA in Prehistoric Archaeology and deciding I have to stop pursuing the second one (comparative Indo-European linguistics) for health reasons, moving countries, making my small artistic business dormant and losing my income, again for health reasons, starting a family, surviving a birth trauma, coming to terms with a different ability of my mind and body, realising that I'm autistic with ADHD, examining my spirituality, becoming disillusioned with the way of the world that was presented to me growing up. What I published and wrote about before these big changes now feels like a distant memory from another lifetime, much of it confined to once established magazines and websites that are now exiled into history, most traces of it buried and gone. And yet, I must acknowledge those early scribblings were a necessary stepping stone that led me to where I am now.
So, what is it you can expect from me? Essays, poetry and an odd piece of fiction while treading at the intersection of nature writing, spiritual ecology, science (especially archaeology) and philosophy. Spirituality, I'm an animist; politically, an anarchist — this colours my actions. I don't shy away from politics and addressing and dissecting systemic oppression our world has been built upon in my writing. Whatever I write, it has a common denominator: it's always written from a decolonial and ecocentric perspective.
As someone who doesn't believe in hierarchies and monetary systems, my Substack is free and I have no plans to introduce paywalls. Instead, I'd very much prefer to build a community based on the principle of mutual aid. I still have to survive under capitalism, so if you're in a position to choose a paid subscription, I'll be grateful as every paid subscription supports my ability to write and create or buy groceries. There's also an option to leave a one-off tip below.
Grá agus saoirse,
(love and freedom),
Ramona
