The Roost is a publication written by Londoners for Londoners. We want to show the city as it really is; fun and exhausting, exciting and creative, endlessly frustrating and full of possibilities. We are not just home to bankers and politicians; London is a city of 9 million people, it is alive and complicated and brilliant.
Our tagline is “interesting writing about London” because we do not want to narrow ourselves down any further. The Roost has an editor, of course, but it aims to be guided by its writers; journalists young and old, living in the centre and the suburbs, recent additions and third-generation city dwellers, keen and jaded.
There will be writing about art and writing about politics; funny stories and occasionally bleak ones. We want to create a space in which Londoners can talk about the place they love and sometimes loathe, because we believe that no-one else is doing it at the moment.
As for our name, it comes from Benjamin Disraeli, who once said that “London is a roost for every bird”. We agree.
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FAQ: readers
What is The Roost?
The Roost is a weekly newsletter that wants to provide you with interesting writing about London.
What’s the deal?
We are mainly on Substack but can also be found on Patreon and on Twitter. If you pay us the equivalent of a zone 2 pint each month, we will send you one article every Thursday. If you want to try it out first, you can sign up to our Substack for free and get one article every month.
What next?
Initial funding for the setup and first editions of The Roost were contributed by Dmitry Grozoubinski of ExplainTrade, but we are otherwise entirely funded by subscribers. The more paying subscribers we have, the more content you will get, which is fun. The next step is to get enough paying subs to be able to send you one article a week and one long read a month. The step after that, fingers crossed, will be to commission two articles a week and one long read a month.
Things may of course change, who knows, but for now that is where we intend to stop. There is only so much to be written about London: we aim to be all killer, no filler.
How can I get in touch?
You can email us on everybird@theroost.london. We would love to hear from you.
Who is “we”?
Well that’s a bit of a trick question, isn’t it. “We” are currently just Marie Le Conte, who does not think she is a monarch but instead uses “we” because she wants the website to be shaped by its writers just as much as she is shaping it herself. She is now writing in the third person and is wondering if that is even weirder. You can’t win, can you.
Oh, and who drew these wonderful little birds on your logo?
The one and only Katherine Hardy (@kardyology), who is a freelance-London based illustrator.
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FAQ: writers
[Please note: we’ve temporarily stopped taking commissions as we’ve received so many great emails already. Check back in soon!]
What kind of stories are you looking for?
We are looking for “interesting writing about London”, and yes, we are being purposefully vague. Do you live in London? Do you usually write about culture, food, art, politics, life, sex, weird random things, fun interesting things, anything else? Then we would like to hear from you. Tell us what you would like to write about and we can take it from there.
More details please?
Every article is around 1000 words - can go up to 1,200 but cannot be under 900 - and is currently paid a flat fee of £250. Our first goal is to get enough paying subscribers to raise this flat fee to £300. The newsletter goes out on Thursday so we would need you to file by Monday evening.
What do you not want?
Please do not send us full articles - we will only ever discuss pitches. Please do not pitch us opinion pieces - some level of first person is fine, but only as long as it includes some reporting. Please do not pitch us listicles, unless you feel confident it is a very strong idea that would only work in that format.
How should I get in touch?
You should email everybird@theroost.london.
