About Rob (The Long, Unhinged Version)
— A Statement from the Bothán —
\n\nRob Partridge: A Gloriously Flawed Saga
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\nLook, I'm Rob Partridge. Author, librettist, poet, podcaster, and professional wringer of words until they confess something interesting. And if my life were a book, it'd be the one with coffee stains on every page, plot twists I never saw coming, and a protagonist who's equal parts "why did I say that?" and "actually, that went quite well."
\n\nI live in a bothán in rural Galway with my husband Bradley, having traded the chaos of Galway City for a weather-beaten stone cottage that leaks when it rains (which is always), creaks when it's windy (which is all the time), and occasionally startles us with animal noises that neither of us can explain. We moved expecting peace and quiet. What we got was a muddy, magical rollercoaster of roof leaks, rogue livestock, and the slow, humbling business of learning to belong somewhere that doesn't really care if you belong or not.
\n\nI've been scribbling stories and verses since the age of nappies — I just spent most of that time not doing anything with them. Self-taught? Absolutely. Self-sabotaging? Occasionally. Self-deprecating? It's practically my love language. One critic called me "a hot mess with a hot pen" and I've never felt more seen.
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The Book That Almost Killed Me (In a Good Way)
\n\nMy debut collection, Bothán Bound: City to Countryside Canticles, is out now. It's a poetry collection chronicling our first year in the bothán — a lyrical song-cycle, if you will, tracking five seasons of emotional and physical reclamation. These are poems steeped in turf smoke and rainlight, where queer love, mythology, DIY disasters, and rural realism all get tangled up together. Think: the giddy terror of realising the septic tank is your problem now; the spiritual awe of bog walks at dawn; and the quiet miracle of finding that the person you married is still the person you want to be trapped in a small stone room with, forever.
\n\nI also have Legacy coming soon — a family drama about secrets, betrayal, and what happens when a dead patriarch's will turns out to be less of a distribution of assets and more of a detonation device. And I'm wrestling Dread Hunter into shape — a poetic sea adventure about a ship savagely attacked by a kraken. One reviewer said I "summon tempests in twelve lines." I think they meant "typhoons of typos," but I'll take it.
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The Opera Years (On the Ragged Edge of High Art)
\n\nThrough Opera Unhinged, which I co-founded with Oran (who is smarter than me and has the patience of a saint), I write libretti that somehow find their way onto actual stages without anyone noticing the plot holes. Our mission, to quote the website, is to "tear down the velvet ropes and bring opera to everyone, everywhere." What this actually means is that I get to write unhinged gems like:
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- King's Shadow — a royal rumble of intrigue and betrayal that keeps sopranos scheming and audiences hooked \n
- Neon — an electric fever dream of cyber-noir vibes and synth-soaked arias \n
- And others that twist history into heartbreak, one high note at a time \n
We also run themed salons across the country, produce original operettas, and generally behave as though the 18th century never ended — but with better lighting and a lot more queerness.
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The Messy Middle Bits
\n\nSo how do I actually write? People ask me this as though there's a secret ritual involving candles, moonlight, and a muse named Greg. The truth is far less glamorous: I open my laptop, stare at the blinking cursor, wonder if I should just watch TV instead, give in to at least three YouTube rabbit holes (usually involving videos of squirrels), and then, somewhere around 11pm, when the rest of the world has gone to sleep and the bothán is dark and still — I write. The words come eventually. They always do. They just need me to stop pretending I have a process.
\n\nI call it "gremlin trying to meet a deadline with crumbs on his jumper."
\n\nMy website has, on occasion, dramatically shit the bed and vanished into the digital abyss — which I wrote an entire maintenance page about, because if you can't laugh at your own technological betrayal, what's the point?
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What You'll Find Here
\n\nThis blog, The Bear's Den, is where all of me lives under one roof — the poet, the librettist, the sex-positive blogger, the man who moved to a bothán and discovered that the most dramatic thing that can happen to a person is learning to be still. You'll find:
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- Poems and short stories (some that rhyme — shh, don't tell the critics) \n
- Writing challenge entries (I set myself a brief, panic, and somehow deliver) \n
- Thoughts on queer life, rural living, and the intersection of both \n\n
- Updates on bothán life, book releases, Opera Unhinged productions, and whatever else catches my attention \n
This is the Bear's Den. There's room here for poetry and smut, for high art and low comedy, for tender moments and filthy jokes. Because that's what a life well-lived is, isn't it? All of it, at once, without apology.
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"Writing from the bothán — with my bear, my books, and the bog."
\n\n— Rob Partridge, sometime around midnight, in a bothán in Galway, while a kettle boils and a husband sleeps
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