Welcome to the Burning Archive – the author website of Jeff Rich.
I am a writer, historian, content creator and recently retired government official. You can find all the links to my books, essays, poems, podcasts, videos, tweets, and newsletter via linktree here.
The Burning Archive blog began in 2015, and since then I have expanded from writing for the drawer to writing for many channels. So I am renovating my site to highlight those channels, and keep my readers informed of what I am doing across all platforms. The homepage is your guide to my content and the ‘other ‘Best of the Burning Archive’ page displays my posts in traditional blog format.
I have also collected, edited and curated my writing on the Burning Archive into two books.
From the Burning Archive: Essays and Fragments, 2015-2022 is being released on November 28 2022 and is available as both a paperback and e-book.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat presents my essays on politics and governing on the blog and over the course of a 33-year career in a minor provincial government in Australia. It will be published in the first half of 2023.
I write poetry too, and have also published Gathering Flowers of the Mind: Collected Poems, 1996-2020.
Before the bureaucracy I was an historian – completing a PhD at Australian National University in the early 1990’s. I am planning to publish the PhD over the next year or two, and have also returned to writing on history on the blog and on my podcast.
My podcast began in April 2021. There I tell stories about how the past makes itself felt today in the multipolar world – history, culture and geopolitics. It’s available on all common platforms. Check it out.
I have also recently started a YouTube channel, which presents my audio podcasts in video format, and where I am now presenting face-to-camera videos – history, geopolitics, booktube, authortube. It’s a creative experiment!
My sub-stack newsletter is here
My twitter is here