Willow & Blake

Willow & Blake is all about writing – good writing. The three founders – Bree Johnson, Erika Geraerts, and Jess Hatzis – strip down the dusty confines of ‘traditional’ writing and approach their craft with the sincerity and frankness of a fresh sheet of paper.

Their blog is a love letter to friends, strangers, and neighbours; a motley collage of the pedestrians in our lives. The faceless come into focus, their stories collecting on the website like portraits hanging on a wall. An ex-lover. The mysterious Truck Man who lives next door. An older Greek gentleman with broken English.

“We come into contact with hundreds of people all the time, and you would look at them or see them in a café every day, or pass them on the street or stare at them on the train, and that’s all you see or know of them – yet they are experiencing heartache, excitement, opportunities, friendships, everything that we do, but they’re living it in another world. We find that fascinating.”

Most writers would give anything for a decent byline, but at Willow & Blake ego is set aside. ‘I’s’ are exchanged for ‘we’s’ to form one collective voice.

“We love that Willow & Blake is anonymous,” they say. “There’s also a stereotype attached to 20-something female writers, like that whole Carrie Bradshaw bullshit. We didn’t want people to have any idea in their head about what it was until they read it. We wanted the words to speak for themselves.”

They’ve also found that removal of the ego creates space for honest writing. “It’s not about you, it’s about the person you’re writing about.”

And if you do find yourself under the point of Willow & Blake’s pen, don’t expect to be decorated with glitter macaroni.

“We don’t like how people glorify people in articles…Melbourne is inundated with creative people, but the people who are really good at what they do are quite humble about it, they would never stand there and be like, ‘yeah, I’m the fucking best artist in the world, or I’m the best writer.’ So why should you speak about them that way?”

“At the end of the day, they’re a person. We could write about a photographer but never once mention photography because people are so much more than just their career.”

Make friends with strangers at willowandblake.com.