My name is Niall and I when I’m not writing poems, I write essays about films, art, gaming and poetry.

Rusty Niall was launched in October 2021 when I decided that I needed a clean break from Twitter and that getting back into blogging might be the best way about it.

In early 2023 I decided to migrate from Substack to Buttondown because of several concerns that I had about the former.

Rusty Niall has chopped and changed a few times in the past few years but it’s settled into a regular essay format recently. I’ll continue to post poems and other creative writings on my upcoming digital garden project. I’ve recently crossed the boundary of 100 posts so there’s plenty to get your teeth into if this is your first visit to the site.

Rusty Niall is not paywalled and, after playing around with different options, I think it will remain that way for the foreseeable future. You can still upgrade to a £3/month paid subscription but that won’t buy you any perks, it will simply help to support me and my work. It’s more of an automated tip jar. If you don’t want to commit to a monthly tip, then you can buy me a coffee via my ko-fi page.

If you'd like to get in touch you can find me on Bluesky and Mastodon or by emailing me at (get rid of the spaces and replace the “at” and “dot” with their equivalent characters) rusty niall at i cloud dot com .

Rusty Niall

Poem: count them!