Notes from the Other Side
WRITING BY JOE BUTLER
Essays about survival, identity, family, memory and the things that stay with us.
Some begin in hospitals. Some begin much earlier. They are all about what happens when ordinary life carries more history than it first appears to.
Notes from the Other Side
Shorter reflections on survival, identity, body, fatherhood, humour, recovery, scars, family, fear and the ordinary life that came after being taken apart and rebuilt.
Dismantled is the memoir. These essays are the rooms around it.
Some begin with mouth cancer. Others begin years later, in the body and life left behind.
New pieces are sent to newsletter subscribers before they appear here publicly.
LATEST ESSAY
Before Any of the Rest of It, There Was a Café
MEMORY · FAMILY · 15-MINUTE READ
Butler’s Dining Rooms stood on Brook Hill in Sheffield long before the books, the hospitals and most of what came later.
A piece about family, memory, Edna and Steve, the café, and some of the things that get built into us before we realise they are there.
AUGUST ESSAY
The Appointment I Nearly Missed
AWARENESS · IDENTITY · 8-MINUTE READ
The appointment Joe nearly cancelled became the appointment that changed his life.
A piece about diagnosis, hindsight, mouth-cancer awareness and why seemingly small decisions can matter much more than we know at the time.
New notes, when there is something worth saying.
MORE TO COME
Notes from the Other Side will grow over time with essays about survival, identity, family, memory, writing and the ordinary life that carries on around all of it.
The Joe Butler newsletter is the easiest way to hear when a new piece is published.
New writing, book news and the work behind it.
Occasional emails from Joe Butler about new essays, Dismantled, speaking and what is being built next.