Welcome to the Reboot

If you can imagine a piece of modern intellectual property, it has probably undergone some kind of reboot or reimagining during the 2020s. Welcome to mine.

For those new to this space, I'm A J. Black. For those who have followed me for a while, you'll also know me as Tony. By day, I'm a middle leader in a secondary school. By night, crimson avenger of the poor and desperate--or more accurately, a writer of TV, film and popular culture. Over the last decade or more, I've written for the Express and websites such as Flickering Myth and Film Stories, who I pen the most for these days on their website and in their magazine.

I've published, to date, four books on topics as diverse as Star Trek to Sean Connery. I've spoken about them at venues such as the Midland Arts Centre and on BBC radio. More books will happen eventually once I'm free of the time-consuming madness (and plenty of joy) in my third job, raising my infant daughter.

I'm also a prolific podcaster, active since 2014. I've produced (not featured in, I must point out) around 1500 podcast episodes in that time on a range of largely film and TV subjects. My longest show ran for 10 years. From it came a podcast network called We Made This, gathering together a whole community of talented podcasters, which later was incorporated into the growing Film Stories empire. It is, these days, the creative outlet I devote the most time to.

Writing is, however, my first love. In 2017, after some years penning Letterboxd reviews, I started my own blog initially called Cultural Conversation to write on film, TV and anything else popular culture. For a long time, it brought me immense satisfaction and I wrote a huge amount I was very proud of. Truthfully however, I was never entirely happy on Wordpress, where the blog has remained in the years the regularity of it ebbed and flowed. It was always challenging to build any sense of readership.

Hence the pivot to Ghost, which many have described as a more ethical, less toxic alternative to Substack. For some time, I've wanted to try and move to a newsletter readership and try, alongside my writing and podcasting with Film Stories, to build my own following. That's immensely challenging in the current media climate. Written websites are collapsing as 'content' on YouTube and elsewhere reigns supreme. Social media's implosion thanks to bad actors has split the follower base across numerous venues. Trying to find a voice anywhere in the 2020s is like shouting into the abyss.

Yet, I don't want to give up. I love writing. I love podcasting. I love sharing my thoughts on the media I enjoy and, I think, some people enjoy hearing them. I believe I create podcasts that enrich the work done by those we're talking about, and I believe I can write with interest on many of these subjects. One thing I have learned, as the time and space to do these has shortened with parenthood, marriage and other responsibilities, is that we shouldn't give it all away for free.

So, I'm starting over. Rebooting. And part of that will mean a good amount of my work will be paywalled very soon. My podcasts are free and will remain so, unless any future Patreon offerings are launched. My writing on Film Stories I am paid for anyway so you can also read that, and I will try and link that here. On this blog though, while some pieces will be free to read, most of it will require a subscription and contribution to support what I do in the next few months. I hope you'll want to be involved and help me build not just a following but another community of intelligent readers and writers seeking a safe, enjoyable space for discourse amidst all the guff.

Why 'Reliable Narrator', then? It felt a fun play on a cinematic trope, a catchy moniker for a blog, and hopefully conveys a bit of trust. What I write will be genuine. It'll be me. It'll never be augmented by AI. For better or worse, I'll be a reliable narrator.

Thanks for reading and please subscribe if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new work is published.

See you 'round the galaxy...

A J. Black, January 2026