Hello again.

(Still not my real name.)

Excerpts is one person, one notebook and one slowly growing world.

I write every story, draw every sketch and send out every hardback myself. This is the bit behind the curtain: who's writing, how it all gets made, and where it's heading.

↓ Pull up a chair

Illustration of Arwen standing on a canal bridge, trees and houseboats behind her — Arwen, somewhere near a canal

Pen · name

“Arwen”

/ˈɑː.wɛn/ — noun, the name on every Excerpt

Borrowed, a little bit fond, and entirely on purpose.

So why Arwen?

Because the stories should be about Gwalia, not about me.

A pen name gives the world room to breathe. When you open an Excerpt, I'd rather you met the characters, the places and the old histories first, without a real-life author standing in the doorway.

It's also a bit of fun. Fantasy has always been full of borrowed names and hidden identities, so it felt right that the person writing it should have one too.

“The real me is in the margins. Look closely at the workings.”

How I work

Three promises behind every Excerpt.

I.

Stories that stand alone

Every Excerpt works on its own. Start whenever you join, with no homework needed to keep up.
II.

Workings included

Notes, maps, dead ends and scribbles come with every story, so you see the world being built, not just the finished bits.
III.

Made to keep

Each Excerpt is a hardback, made for a shelf. Month by month, a small library of Gwalia grows.

The road so far

From the first scribble to the first Excerpt on your doormat.

Spark

A world, scribbled

One idea in a notebook grows into a country called Gwalia.
Map

The map takes shape

Regions, elements and old histories get drawn out in pen.
Drafts

The first stories

Four Excerpts on the go, from ideas stage to editing.
Dec 26

Excerpt 01 posts

The first hardback lands on doormats across the UK.