On the page · Essay · Lead essay
The measure decides everything
Pick the line length first. The typeface, the size, the leading and the margins are all downstream of it, and most bad pages started somewhere else.
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Every second Thursday
One essay or a set of notes, by email and on the site. Never more than twice a month.
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No ads, no tracking
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Leave by replying
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Start with a series
Most essays here belong to one of three long arguments. Each series page lists its essays in the order they are meant to be read.
On the page
Measure, margins, figures and the stranded line: the decisions made once that govern every line after them.
Metal and ink
Letterpress, proofing and the printing trade, mostly as it survives in small shops that were never modernised.
Reading slowly
Rereading, attention, notebooks and the case against treating a book as a quantity to be got through.
Who writes it
Written from a typesetter’s desk in Belfast
I am Vera Ostlund. I set books for small publishers for a living, and since 2019 I have written here about the decisions that make a page readable, and about reading itself.
- 2019
- 140
- 6,840
Six days from notebook to inbox
Every letter goes through the same week. It is slow on purpose, and it is why the letter is fortnightly rather than weekly.
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Notebook
Every piece starts as a page in a paper notebook: a measurement, a complaint, a sentence I cannot stop rereading.
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Draft
Written straight through, then left overnight. Most drafts lose a third of their length the next morning.
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Proof
Read aloud, then printed and read again with a pencil. Nothing goes out that has only been read on a screen.
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Letter
Sent to every reader and published here at the same moment. Replies go straight to my inbox.
Membership
Who pays for VERSAL? Its readers.
No ads, no sponsors, no paywall on the letter. 612 members pay for the time it takes, and in return they read everything.
Free
£0 for good
The letter, every second Thursday.
- Every free essay and note by email
- The public archive on the site
- Replies read and answered
Member
Most readers choose this£60 a year £6 a month
The whole of VERSAL, and the reason it exists.
- Everything in Free
- The members’ essay on the last Thursday of each month
- The full archive, 140 pieces since 2019
- The Proof Sheet: a quarterly PDF of annotated pages
- Comments and the members’ reading group
Founding member
£150 a year £150 a year only
For readers who want to keep it going.
- Everything in Member
- A letterpress broadside, printed and posted each December
- Your name in the colophon, if you want it there
- First look at every series before it starts
What changes when you become a member
Free
- The fortnightly letter by email
- Around half of each year’s essays
- The shelf and the series pages
- RSS for the free posts
Member everything in Free, and
- Every essay, note and series, as it is published
- The members’ essay each month, 3,000 words or so
- The complete archive back to 2019
- The Proof Sheet, four times a year
- The reading group: one book a season, in the comments
- A private RSS feed with full text
Letters from readers
Replies arrive every fortnight. A few, printed with permission.
Dear Vera,
I have set type for twenty-two years and your piece on the second proof is now pinned above my desk. My apprentice has been told to read it before she reads anything else.
Hello from the night shift,
Your letter arrives on the one evening a fortnight I have to myself. I print it, which I realise you would approve of, and read it with a pencil.
Dear Versal,
I became a member after the essay about rereading one book every January. I have started with a novel I hated at nineteen. We will see about year eleven.
Vera —
I run a two-person press and we used your margins essay to settle an argument that had gone on for a month. You were on my side, so I am renewing.
Most read this year
Browse the archive
Metal and ink
What a proof is for
Reading slowly
Reading the same book for the eleventh year
On the page
The margin is not empty space
Reading slowly
Notes on rereading in winter
Questions about membership
- What is the difference between free and member?
- Free readers get the fortnightly letter and roughly half of what is published. Members get everything: the monthly members’ essay, the full archive back to 2019, the quarterly Proof Sheet and the reading group.
- How much is a membership?
- £6 a month or £60 a year, which is two months free. The founding tier is £150 a year and adds a letterpress broadside, printed on a hand press and posted every December.
- Can I cancel at any time?
- Yes. Reply to any letter with the word “cancel”, or use the link in your receipt. Monthly memberships stop at the end of the month; yearly ones are refunded pro rata if you ask within 30 days.
- Is there a student or hardship rate?
- Yes, and you do not have to explain. Write and ask for a free membership. About one in twelve members has one, and the founding members pay for them.
- Can I give a membership as a gift?
- A year’s membership can be given as a gift. Send the recipient’s email and the date it should start, and a short card goes out that morning.
The next letter goes out on Thursday.
One essay or a set of notes, every second Thursday, free. Join 6,840 readers and read it with your coffee.