What are we really avoiding?
Writer · History rabbit-hole enthusiast · Professional reader
The stories behind our decisions.
I write about the choices we make, the choices we postpone, and the histories that prove one decision can redraw an entire life.
Who was edited out of the story?
What happens when tomorrow finally arrives?
Pull a thread.
Follow it honestly.
Follow it honestly.
Inside the writing room
Questions worth following
Nonfiction, neglected history, and novels about the split second when a life turns. Choose a trail and open the notebook.
Book in progressNonfiction
What’s Hanging From Your Clip Strip Today?
Procrastination is not laziness. It is emotional avoidance wearing a convincing little hat—and sometimes reorganising the pantry while it is there.
Essay · Human behaviour
The Moment My Autopilot Slipped
A date written differently, a habit interrupted, and the tiny crack that proves our patterns are not permanent.
Read the articleEssay · Human behaviour
Bloody Earworm!
How a song from a 50-year-old musical marched into an art-journalling session, pulled up a chair, and refused to leave.
Read the articleEssay · Human behaviour
The Internal Grocery Store Meltdown
What a crowded mental trolley can teach us about overwhelm, avoidance, and the burden of unfinished things.
Essays · Hidden history
The Footnotes Fight Back
Long-form journeys into people, motives, and events flattened by the version of history that reached us first.
Novel in progress · Contemporary
When Tomorrow Never Comes
A story of delayed choices, distant consequences, and the butterfly effect set against one terrible night in Paris.
Novel in progress · Historical
From Bletchley to Durban
In 1965, a woman with a borrowed name crosses an ocean. The war is over; its secrets are very much alive.
Reading journal · Book review
Winter Solstice
Rosamunde Pilcher’s quiet masterclass in unhurried storytelling, ordinary lives, grief, kindness and the emotional power of one perfectly chosen word.
Read the reviewEssay · Human behaviour
What Were They Thinking?
How one difficult question, a love of processes and a determined reading journey led Leonie into the fascinating world of psychology.
Read the articleBehind the byline
Curiosity, with its sleeves rolled up.
Leonie Stanley writes from South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, where the sea is close and a good historical rabbit hole is never far away.
After decades spent untangling complex systems in the motor industry, she brings the same stubborn curiosity to human behaviour: look past the noise, find the pattern, and tell the truth plainly.
01ClearNo fog machines.
02CuriousAlways one more question.
03HumanChoices have consequences.