Why subscribe?
As of April 10th, I am going to take a little time to convalesce from heart surgery, so my publication schedule may slow down, just a bit. Please bear with me.
Kear still needs his teeth cleaned, and I want to improve his daily diet so that I can ensure that Annual Subscribers and Founding Members receive the best first.
Subscribe to access the newsletter and website.
If you are on a tight budget, try it out for $7.20/month. Monthlies are welcome if you are a stranger or a student on a budget. If you need me to comp you, just let me know. If times are tight or you are a student, subscribe for free.
You can subscribe for $72/year or become a Founding Member for $180/year. Founding Members can feed Kear “Duck and Carrot” treats in person and have coffee with me outdoors.
However, if you cannot afford to join the swelling ranks of paid subscribers, I've got you.
You must be a free or paying subscriber, and you can request permission to join. It lets me get more work done:
So, now decide whether to subscribe or not.
My writing was recently described as “intellectually eclectic and glaringly symptomatic.” It is also amphigory.
At times, it exhibits fearless speech, zero tolerance for gossip and liars, and offers an empathetic view of those who perceive things differently and express their truth.
I seek to reduce the livelihood of psychotherapists, whether they use a couch or sell hair products.
Ask this:
“Would you mind repeating that?"
“I need you to say that again.”
“Did you say that to embarrass me?”
“Did you intend to intimidate me?”
“I don't need to change your mind.”
“Imagine being the person who is proud of that comment. That is disappointing.”
Don’t apologize for my feelings; apologize for what you did.”
Welcome to my circle, where I sometimes embrace my role as a witness. My truth comes at a low cost.
“I contend for the liberty of publishing truth, with good motives and for justifiable end, even though it reflect on government, magistrate, or private persons.”- Alexander Hamilton
Many writers share this view; interpersonal interaction is not my forte, and I never lose sight of this fact.
Apologies to you or those who experienced this over the past months—I promise I would love to meet you if you are a Founding member, notwithstanding whatever signs might have seemed to the contrary.
I assure you that I don’t dislike you, but I experience a wave of anxiety at the thought of interacting with others. I am trying my hardest to play in the sandbox.
So, “I am here.”
I do welcome your presence on this page.
If you have gotten this far, thank you for following and for subscribing. You are one of the few who are patient and kind. If you have chosen to contribute to Kear’s upkeep in his senior years, in large or small ways, you are doing something kind for a sweet old dog, and he and I are grateful for your generosity.
If you’re not yet part of that generous circle and there’s a part of you that thinks, “Sometimes, even if I disagree with his opinion, I appreciate his writing,” and you decide to join the team, I will be eternally thankful to you every year.
Kear will follow you home:
Paid subscriptions allow me to do research, learn, and embed myself in what I see and hear. I can then send out missives to cultivate a community interested in differences in humans and neuro-divergence—that is, atypicals, present-day and historical rogues, some evil, some just born with alternative circuitry.
Founding and paid Followers will get a pre-release of my novel, in revision, revision, and revision.
So, if you have the means, I would appreciate your support. If you would benefit from the paid subscriber offerings but feel they're out of reach, just contact me. I’m here for you—no questions asked and no explanation needed.
Doubloons, or shekels, in my fountain, also defer the cost of court transcripts, especially the perjured witnesses who firmly believe in the myth their lawyers tell them: that Court is “he said, she said,” that they will never be caught speaking ex-parte into a camera; and, that no DA, Referee or Judge will trial a perjury case.
In 2025, myths will be exposed.
I have ATT Wireless, and the vet bills for an aging service dog. Although I no longer aspire to renew my The Farmer's Dog subscription, Kear deserves retirement benefits in his twilight - our twilight.
This is a reader-supported publication where I look below the surface of who, and what, I observe and try to interpret life’s moments from my perspective, a person with unlimited room.
This is my place for writing about people who conceal telling us what’s important. The truth. About themselves. Their masks should be respected unless and until they hurt others, especially people I love. As a descendant of the Levant, I also wander from time to time and back in time.
I am writing books and am interested in creative nonfiction and literary fiction. I write to be included in a world where I am an outsider. Not to get inside but to explain to the insiders about outsiders.
“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Great books are the ones you keep in your bed in case you wake up thinking about that person that you miss the most and know, no matter how many circuits around the sun that you’ve been apart, the conversation will resume, and when you waken two hours before dawn a good story told will divert your mind from that dream.
Great poems make you think and mystify you until the third read. I prefer this platform to submit to the Reviews because editors judge you and your opinions for likeability, a quality I never mastered.
It takes time to develop a neurodivergent oeuvre and a rogue exposé collection, to invest in research, interviews, and documents, and for witnesses and litigants to build their self-confidence to perjure themselves. No, not really. Liars are not taught to lie.
It's the story, not the form.
Occasionally, I may have hints about the direction of my research with “Orange Briefs.”
I share essays, works in progress, art finds, sports minutia (futbal), cultural criticism, occasional edited features, research discoveries on rogues, and excerpts from my #WIP The Duchess of Orange, a sequel to The Theory of Silence prequel that I am researching in France and Israel, Greece, and maybe Egypt, too, if they let me back in.
“It’s always Egypt,” if you know what I mean. That is, they welcomed us as strangers, we multiplied too well, left for the Homeland, multiplied, won too many Nobels, and now they yell at us on campus that they want it back from the river to the sea. Plus, defeated while hiding under their own people, they won’t surrender or redeem our hostages.
It makes me unliked, too.
I like to keep things informal, so I will not follow a strict publishing schedule; paid subscribers can expect about 100 posts per year and usually hear from me at least once a week, sometimes more. They can also participate in comments, discussion threads, and audio posts when I regain my voice.
You can donate a subscription here if you want to sponsor a student or other lower-income reader.
Look for The Ampersand Journal in your email or Spam folder. If you can't figure it out, send me the message “Unsubscribe Me.”
Thanks again, and please tell a few friends if you like it.
“I never reread what I've written. I'm far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I've done.”
Jorge Luis Borges
-Philippe du Col
