I write about culture and the city, and also about wellbeing, belonging, technology, and Norway. I’m interested in stories that tell us something about what it’s like to live now. Get in touch: jessica.furseth@gmail.com
I’ve been published in The Guardian, BBC, Vox, Time Out, Dwell, CNN Travel, Slate, The Independent, Dezeen, Bloomberg CityLab, Vice, Taste Magazine, New Humanist, Atlas Obscura, Huck Magazine, Men’s Health, The Cut at New York Magazine, Kinfolk, Eater, Outside Magazine, Quartz, The Simple Things, Prospect Magazine, Mic, Hazlitt, BuzzFeed, Stylist, WhyNow, The i Paper, Al Jazeera, New Statesman, and elsewhere.
Here’s an extended selection of my clips:
Urbanism and the city
* In defence of a little urban dereliction – Dezeen
* Lessons from the Overground, London’s living room on rails – Dwell
* Inside the wild swimming revival sweeping Europe’s major cities – Bloomberg CityLab
* The last days of East London’s favourite gasholders – Time Out
* Sound and the city: How urban silence became endangered – Curbed at Vox
* Chasing ghost signs – Hazlitt
* Terrazzo’s staggering comeback – Curbed at Vox
* Cities exist because of rivers – we’re finally putting them back at the centre of urban life – Dezeen
* The colour of your city: The architecture and psychology that colour our cities – Curbed at Vox
* Drummond Street, London’s original South Asian food haven, is fighting for survival – Time Out
* I thought I knew London – then I walked the Capital Ring – The Independent
* How the Elizabeth line is reshaping London’s neighbourhoods – OnOffice
* Where to swim in Amsterdam, city of water – The Independent
* The curious skyline appeal of London’s fire drill towers – WhyNow
* Pints at dawn: The last days of London’s earlyhouse drinking culture – The Guardian
* Why London is full of old pubs with secret Thai kitchens– Out of Office at Mic
* Going to the pub in lockdown London– October at Pitchfork
* To save Europe’s rivers, it’s back to basics – Green European Journal (I also talked about this story on Standard Time, the talkshow from Eurozine)
* What it’s like to swim in the tidal Thames in London – Men’s Health
* Inside London’s secret ‘love hotels’ – Huck Magazine
* The last graffiti on the Lord Napier in Hackney Wick – Garage at Vice
The Disappearing City – a Huck Magazine series about the changing urban landscapes of London:
* A trip down Greek Street, old Soho’s final frontier
* Raves and resistance: The hidden history of King’s Cross
* The lost freedoms of East London’s strip pubs
* Meanwhile, a garden: The fight to save London’s green spaces
* Are these the last glory days of Hackney Wick?
* The uncertain future of London’s queer spaces
* Eel Pie Island: How an island in the Thames became a hedonistic hideaway
* The curse of the British pub refurbishment
* Welcome to the Villages of London: Urban life during lockdown
* How we reignited our love of indie bookshops
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Culture of technology
* How ear protection is becoming the new sunglasses – Slate
* At bedtime, nothing soothes like a YouTube video about space – Well+Good
* A moment’s silence: What we lose when plugged in to constant entertainment – New Humanist
* Welcome to Bang Bang’s changeable tattoo revolution – Teen Vogue
* The Big Picture: What we lost in the wilderness years of photo storage – “Finding CTRL” (a project by Nesta and the EU’s Next Generation Internet initiative)
* Meet Ai-Da, the arts robot powered by artificial intelligence – Kinfolk
* Wearing your noise-cancelling headphones on ‘silent’ is a modern life hack – The Guardian (I also talked about this story on BBC Radio 4)
* How I learned to stop worrying and love gaming – The Guardian
* The absolute state of the Apple weather app – WhyNow
* How listmaking apps help share the emotional labour of daily life – The Guardian
* ‘Like’ if you support my divorce – The Outline
* How ‘Africa’ by Toto became the internet’s favourite song – Motherboard at Vice
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Wellbeing and health
* What Seasonal Affective Disorder can tell us about ourselves – Vox
* The case for the Scandinavian duvet divorce – Dwell
* If you could prevent your kids from getting the family illness, would you? – Future Human
* Storage units: A space for furniture, and all our hopes and dreams – Dwell
* When women aren’t given pain relief for invasive gynae procedures – Broadly at Vice (I also talked about this story on the Vice Guide to Right Now podcast)
* Maybe that restlessness is actually unexpressed creativity? – Elemental
* What do you do with a 20% chance of cancer? – BuzzFeed
* On the misplaced shame of ‘everyday’ PTSD – Tonic at Vice
* The unspoken sexual side effects of pre-cervical cancer treatment – Tonic at Vice
* The wild, necessary world of online advice for UTI pain – The Cut at New York Magazine
* How preventative botox became a form of self care – Vice
* Meet the seniors who CrossFit – Elemental
* How Birkenstock convinced us the breaking-in pain is worth it -–Racked at Vox
* Everywhere has a vegan option – so why am I still hungry? – The Independent
* What happens when you eat too much bacon– Extra Crispy (This story was picked up by the TV station Fox 32 Chicago)
* Cheese – veganism’s final frontier – Wicked Leeks at Riverford Organic
* How cast iron became the manliest tool in the kitchen – Vice
* How we make and remake our memories – The Simple Things
* Uncovering the power and mystery of the Lush smell – Racked at Vox
* How I finally solved my lifelong ‘hanger’ – The i Paper
* Why are Brits so obsessed with Lemsip? – WhyNow
* The new dating rules in the age of Tinder – Vice
* Schrodinger’s Cancer – Catapult
* The BRCA gene, and living with the cancer you may never get – Elemental
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Citizenship and belonging
* “I want that escape route” – Meet the Americans seeking dual citizenship – The Guardian
* How a second passport became key to post-Brexit freedom for Brits – The Independent (This article led to a follow-up with the best reader stories from the comments)
* How Brexit created a new European diaspora – Al Jazeera
* What creates comfort? It depends on where you’re from – Dwell
* Why is the British citizenship test so weird? – Prospect Magazine
* Fish and chips: The immigrant roots of Britain’s national dish – Eaten
* What it means to belong to London in times of Brexit – Catapult
* The heartache of being European in Brexit Britain– New Statesman
* On prepping for a no-deal Brexit – The Goods at Vox
* Our fridges, ourselves: On home tech and expat life – Curbed at Vox
* Look at this absolute unit: The MERL museum, Brexit, and life on a damp island – The Outline
* Half-life: On citizenship – Popula
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Essay and opinion
* My dad and I rarely meet in the same place twice – The Independent
* Before Sunrise at 30, and the ultimate intimacy – Little White Lies
* My gorgeous, terrible eBay sofa – Dwell
* Winter made me miserable – until I got scientific – The Guardian
* Travelling solo has taught me to trust my instincts – The i Paper
* The joys of being a regular – The Simple Things
* My house was my marriage – Curbed at Vox
* The art of imitation: My family’s favourite fake painting – Hazlitt
* Boxing Week, when nothing happens, is the real gift of Christmas – The Guardian
* The case for buying your own presents – The i Paper
* Remembering our Year of Hell – Star Trek
* How lockdown made me fall in love with the phone again – The Telegraph
* Let them eat oranges – but only in winter – The Simple Things
* How two cynical divorcees embraced the relationship contract – The Cut at New York Magazine
* We need to talk about the madness of the German bed pillow – Insider
* Lighthunting: Embracing the little light of winter – The Simple Things
* Life comes back: On cherry blossom – The Simple Things
* On being a couple that looks like each other – Refinery29
* From Franco to Brexit: The surprising politics of time zones – Prospect Magazine
* On Star Trek Voyager, a lost year, and the things that pull you out of the fire – Catapult
* The blowout honeymoon was worth it – even after the divorce – Refinery29
* Why I’m sticking with Summer Time all year round – The i Paper
* Why we go back to Groundhog Day again and again – Prospect Magazine
*How to fix a leak in your bathroom – The Billfold
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Norway
* Rose, snowflake, star, sun: The cross-border journeys of a beloved symbol – Hazlitt
* The revival of lutefisk, Norway’s polarising Christmas dish – CNN Travel
* Into the dark heart of liquorice – Eater
* How hot dogs became Norway’s national snack – Atlas Obscura
* Kvikk Lunsj: How a KitKat knockoff became a symbol of Norwegian nature – BBC Travel
* Take care of your potatoes, and you’ll eat for a year – Taste
* How Korea fell in love with Norway’s strangest cheese – Atlas Obscura
* Why Norway goes nuts over crime at Easter – Atlas Obscura
* The joys of kveldsmat, Norway’s endangered fourth meal – The Simple Things
* How do you preserve a language while still letting it grow? – Hazlitt
* How Scandinavian pragmatism created the ultimate cheese tool – Taste
* Why Norwegians love their country’s strict alcohol policy – Tonic at Vice
* In praise of Fellesferien, Norwegians’ three week summer break – Insider
* The Flåm museum railway, and the ideal route through the fjords – Going
* Å, Norway: A remarkably unremarkable tourist attraction– Popula
* Why are there two distinct ways of writing Norwegian?– Literary Hub
* On brown cheese, and beautifully boring memories– Roads & Kingdoms
Jessica Furseth 