Hello. Kia ora. G’day. Etc.

Hermit.Monster is the virtual cave in the woods of the person who, for the purposes of this site, is known as The Hermit.

The site is inspired by comments made by The Hermit, such as:

• Not leaving the house. Am hermitting.
• BRB, off to live in a cave.
• Time to return to the trees, methinks.
• #BushHut4Lyfe.
• Moving to Mongolia and becoming a blacksmith is looking better by the day.

Hence the virtual cave in the woods (with Wi-Fi) and all the hermit jokes.

I am aware this is ridiculous. That is the point. Life is too short not to lean into some silliness sometimes, and what better place to do that than here? Bring back the small web and the weird web! Remember blogs? Forums? Being online actually being fun, and not just an endless battle against cookie banners (yeah that’s compulsory, sorry ‘bout that), creepy tracking, constant ads, and assholes? Hermit.Monster is my attempt to carve out my own little irreverent space away from all that bollocks.

That’s nice, but who are you really?

I have many names.

I am known professionally as one thing, creatively as a couple of others, and have a few different nicknames to boot. For the purposes of this site, I am The Hermit or HM. Maybe even H.E.R. Mitte. If I link something I’ve done under one of those other names I will pop (The Hermit) next to it, so you know it’s me.

What else?

As Tolkien said, not all those who wander are lost.

I’m not very good at staying in one place and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love to travel. I call both Australia and Aotearoa home and am currently based in the Middle of Middle Earth, aka Wellington, NZ. I support Australia in the cricket.

I’m a woman, a historian, a writer, and 50,000 other things besides. Some days you will find me by an actual campfire in the wild, and other days curled up with a hot cuppa and a good book. I love learning, making things, and might be addicted to the sled push at the gym.

This site is not intended to be “serious adult is serious” at all. I have plenty of other places to be that. I don’t have any agenda here other than to have a light-hearted virtual campfire around which to hang out and chill. Maybe share some stuff I made, things I love, photos, whatever. We’ll see how it goes.

Heyyy

You can contact me via email: hermitmonster at proton dot me. I am not online 24/7.

All the site policies can be found on the LEGALESE page.

If you enjoy the site and you’re so inclined, you’re welcome to toss a coin to The Hermit via the tip jar on Ko-Fi but this is absolutely not required.

You can also subscribe to the newsletter – a fortnightly or so roundup of posts, no spam! – via the *squints* slightly wonky form below.