A zeitgeisty time capsule of words
On 1 December 2020, we launched I Thought About That A Lot: an advent calendar for your brain, not your belly. We published one essay per day in the countdown to Christmas. We’ve added a new set of essays every year since. To celebrate five years of the project, we collated 24 essays that we've published between 2020 an 2024 and created a book.
The team
Amy McNichol – founder, curator and editor
As a teen, Amy was obsessed with magazines. She loved the way every issue captured a very specific moment in time – preserving a slice of pop culture in a time capsule. The essays do something similar.
The idea of I Thought About That A Lot was born during the first UK lockdown in 2020. Nobody was able to do much so everyone was thinking a lot. Amy helps organisations and governments articulate complex stuff for a living, and she wondered if she could do the same for people and their busy brains. The hope was that sharing anonymous essays with strangers on the internet could create connections during a time of isolation.
Jack Sheppard – designer
From bed times to train commutes, stories have been a part of Jack's life since it's very start. People's personal stories of joyful moments, quiet introspection or brutal teary-cheeked honesty make working on I Thought About That A Lot a hugely rewarding way to spend a winter.
Jack designs things for organisations, to help them do better things with technology. The essays are a very good thing to do with technology.
Joanne Schofield – editor
Jo’s been an admirer of, supporter of, and sporadic contributor to, I Thought About That A Lot since it illuminated her Christmas countdown in 2020: a literary beacon in a year of uncertainty, resilience, and learning the dance to ‘You can’t touch this’.
Jo is usually a freelance content designer and strategist, set on making services accessible, inclusive and work for people who need them the most.
She lives in Manchester, where she often runs, occasionally silver smiths and endlessly crisps.
Nia Campbell – editor
Nia has loved I Thought About That A Lot since it launched, and still thinks about essays like 'Colleen and Bob' and 'Mum, the internet, and cashless society'. She’s always been drawn to the small, everyday stories people carry, the ones that linger long after you’ve heard them.
As a content designer and strategist, Nia spends her days helping people communicate clearly and humanly. She’s valued the chance to edit some of this year's essays and help each story find its shape.
Ralph – illustrator
Ralph is a service designer who spends most of his days in meetings. He was delighted to help Amy turn 5 years of brilliant essays into something you can hold. Ralph designed, produced and illustrated the I Thought About That A Lot book.
Rosemary Evans – editor
Rosemary is a writer who lives in London, and has had the pleasure of contributing to and helping to edit I Thought About That A Lot for the last three years. She is a firm believer in writing as an outlet for everyone, as a way to connect, to protest, to work things out about ourselves. Which is partly what makes this project – which opens its arms to writers and non-writers alike, and makes them equal with the gift of anonymity – so special