Writing
Columns & essays
Written by hand, posted to his editors, and read around the world.
The Guardian
A long-running correspondence
Mark has written for The Guardian for many years. His columns began with the Moneyless Man series and continue with Life without technology, dispatches from a smallholding in the west of Ireland on what changes when you unplug.
After he gave up technology in 2016, Mark wrote his articles by hand and sent them by post, and the paper printed readers' comments and mailed them back to him each month. The conversation went both ways, just more slowly.
Read Mark at The Guardian →
Selected Columns
From the archive
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December 2016
Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it
The column in which Mark announced he was giving up complex technology: phone, computer, internet and electricity.
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February 2017
On life after technology
The first weeks without a phone or electricity: the practical challenges, and what came to fill the space.
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March 2017
On boredom
What happens to the mind when there are no screens to reach for, and why boredom might be worth getting to know.
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May 2017
On rewilding and wildness
A challenge to environmentalists who seek to “domesticate” wild places, and an argument for real wildness.
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Series
The Moneyless Man
The series that followed Mark's years without money: food, shelter, community, and the questions money raises.
For Editors
Commissions & reprints
To commission an essay, request a reprint, or invite Mark to contribute to an anthology, please get in touch by email or through the contact page. Mark writes by hand and at his own pace, so please allow extra time.
Get in touch →