The Notebook

Notes from the Bench

Open tickets, repair stories, research rabbit holes, and dispatches from Gault Mills.

All Craft Stories Almanac Repair Log Behind the Book

Stylized panoramic illustration of shop winter night in Gault Mills.

BEHIND THE BOOK · SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · 1 MIN READ

The Ticket Stays Open

Six weeks after Fixed to Death launched, a plain thank-you, a note on what this blog has been since March, and why the series keeps a ticket open.

Read the post →

Archive · March 2026

Almanac · Mar 31 · 2 min

The Town and the River

Gault Mills is a town I am inventing for the mysteries I write. The first fact I settled about it is that it starts at the river.

Craft · Mar 24 · 3 min

Why I Write About Broken Things

For twenty years I wrote down how things broke. This is why I turned that work into mysteries.

Reading paths

Curated trails through the notebook

New here? Start at the bench

What this notebook is, and the ideas the whole book rests on.

Building Gault Mills

The invented town, board by board — its river, its mill, its streets.

Broken things on the bench, and what their wear quietly confesses.

Most read

01 Four Fields on Every TicketCraft · 4 min 02 The Staples in the FiddleStories · 15 min 03 Reading WearCraft · 3 min

Dead Short book cover

Out November 14 · Pre-order now

Dead Short

Ten years ago a lineman named Roland Strom died under the Gault Mills Christmas display. The county ruled that he went up after his own lights in an ice storm and that the storm did the rest. The second Repair Café Mystery.

Pre-order on Kindle →

From the archive: September 2026 (4)August 2026 (5)July 2026 (4)June 2026 (5)May 2026 (4)April 2026 (5)March 2026 (2)

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