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A Wild and Simple Life
Where a quiet kind of magic
is woven into everyday life
About A Wild and Simple Life
A quiet corner of the internet for those who still love stories, nature, printed things and slower ways of living.
A Wild and Simple Life is an independent Australian storytelling and publishing house created by writer Julie Ann. Through original audio fiction, thoughtfully made printed publications and literary essays, we explore the enduring pleasures of a life lived close to nature, the wisdom of older ways and the richness of ordinary human experience.
Our work is inspired by the changing seasons, the places we call home, the skills and customs passed between generations and the stories that connect us to one another. We believe there is still a place in the modern world for beautiful things made slowly, for stories told simply for the pleasure of listening, and for the kind of attention that allows us to feel part of the living world around us.
Where My Story Began
Although the idea for A Wild and Simple Life began taking shape during my travels through northern Thailand, I suspect its roots reach much further back, into my childhood in Scotland and the many places I have called home since.
I resided in my hometown of Scotland and lived there until the age of six, when my family moved to Australia. My heritage is Scottish and Irish, and I have always felt a strong connection to the histories, landscapes and traditions of those places. At nineteen, I returned to Scotland and spent a year living with my grandmother in a small village. Each morning I caught the bus into Edinburgh, where I worked for Historic Scotland, an organisation responsible for caring for and preserving the country's historic places.
During that year, I had the opportunity to explore castles, ancient buildings and historical sites, many of them tucked into the hills and countryside. I was fascinated by the lives of the people who had inhabited these places, by the work of their hands and by the customs that had shaped their everyday existence. The buildings themselves held only part of the story. I wanted to know how people had lived within them, what they had believed, how they had worked, celebrated, struggled and made a life for themselves.
That curiosity has accompanied me through much of my life. Over the years, I have been fortunate to travel extensively, exploring parts of the United Kingdom, Southeast Asia, Japan, Indonesia, South America, the United States and, eventually, much of Australia. I have always been especially drawn to the places where ordinary life can be observed at its own pace, away from the familiar routes of tourism.
The Making of the Cottage
It was during our travels through northern Thailand that something began to shift in the way I understood the possibilities of a good life.
In the rural villages and provinces, my family and I encountered communities whose daily lives were closely connected to the land and to one another. Food was grown locally, produce exchanged at neighbourhood markets, and homes were often constructed from materials gathered from the surrounding environment. I was particularly moved by houses built from the earth itself, structures that would one day weather, soften and return to the ground from which their materials had come.
There was a resourcefulness in the way people lived that stayed with me. Their days were certainly not without hardship, and I was conscious that we were visitors seeing only a small part of their lives. Yet I admired the strength, generosity and sense of community we encountered, and the grace with which so many people approached the challenges of ordinary living.
I began to question some of the assumptions I had grown up with about what made a life comfortable, successful or fulfilling. I wondered how much of what we considered necessary really was, and what might become possible if we allowed ourselves to want a little less.
What Happened Next....
In 2020, my partner Lucas and I renovated a vintage caravan and set off with our son, Phoenix, to explore Australia. We wanted to experience the country slowly, spending time in its small towns and communities, getting to know the landscapes beyond the familiar tourist destinations and discovering what it meant to live a smaller, simpler, yet deeply rich existence.
We were interested in the everyday life of the places we visited. The character of a town beyond its main street, the people who had spent their lives there, the stories held within its buildings and the relationship between a community and the surrounding landscape. Travelling this way gave us the freedom to stay longer, become familiar with places and notice things that might otherwise have passed us by.
During those years I began writing about our days. My observations were often concerned with nature, community and the ordinary experiences that seemed to reveal something larger about the way we live. Eventually, I began recording some of these pieces and sharing them on Spotify. I also created a home for my writing on Substack, hoping to find a small community of readers who appreciated the same things.
For a time, I enjoyed sharing my work in this way. Yet gradually I found myself drawn back into the very online world I had been trying to step away from. The platforms were different, and the conversations were often more thoughtful, but there was still that familiar pressure to remain visible, to publish continually and to spend more time participating in the digital world than I wished.
So I stepped away for a while.
I gave myself the freedom to live without trying to turn every experience into something to publish. I spent time with my family, returned to the things I enjoyed and considered what I really wanted my writing to become. I knew I still wanted to share stories, but I wanted to do so in a way that left enough room in my life to experience the very things I was writing about.
The Cottage Was Born
I later returned to Scotland with my son to spend time with my grandmother, who sadly passed away during our visit. In the years that followed, our travels continued, taking us to Japan and back onto the open roads of Australia in our vintage caravan. Along the way, we spent a memorable year living on a rural property, where I developed a particular fondness for Silkie chickens and the simple pleasures of country life. Eventually, our curiosity drew us back to northern Thailand, where we spent another couple of months immersed in the places and everyday rhythms that had first inspired us.
At Baan Kang Wat artist village in Chiang Mai, I had wandered among little shops filled with beautiful handmade objects and discovered a bookbinding stall that I found particularly captivating. I loved the care given to the work, the individuality of the finished pieces and the simple exchange between the person who had made something and the person who had come to appreciate it. Here were people sharing their skills and creations through the market itself, without the elaborate online presence that so often seems necessary to run a creative business today.
That experience eventually inspired the idea of creating a small printed publication of my own, something readers could fold and assemble at home, bringing a little of the pleasure of handmade publishing into their lives.
But the larger question remained. How could I share my writing and creative work with people beyond my immediate community, from our home in Australia, without allowing the demands of technology and the internet to swallow the life I wanted to live?
If you've read this far, you will perhaps agree that it took time and a rather large and wonderful journey to find an answer. The answer was A Wild and Simple Life.
I began imagining a small cottage tucked away in a quiet corner of the internet. A place where people could arrive when they wished, find something thoughtful to read or listen to without distractions and algorithms, and leave again without being asked to surrender more of their time and attention. A home for my stories and publications, where the work itself could take precedence over the endless business of being online.
And so, little by little, the Cottage came to life.
Stories to Listen To.
Stories to Hold.
At the heart of A Wild and Simple Life is a love of storytelling and the many ways a story can find its way into someone's life.
The Listening Room is home to our growing collection of original short audio fiction, written and narrated by Julie Ann and brought to life through immersive sound design. The stories take listeners into imagined places shaped by nature, memory, traditional skills and the experiences that connect us across generations. They are made for the pleasure of listening, whether during an afternoon walk, a quiet evening or a few unhurried moments in an otherwise busy day.
Our printed literary zine, dòigh beatha, takes its name from the Scottish Gaelic words for way of life, a small acknowledgement of my heritage and the traditions that continue to influence my writing. The publication grew from that early fascination with handmade books and the enduring pleasure of printed things. Each issue brings together original writing, reflections, illustrations and invitations to explore a wilder, simpler way of living.
Through The Print Circle, members receive a new issue in their letterbox each month, accompanied by a collectible art print and a personal letter from the Cottage.
The Almanac is our collection of literary essays, exploring the customs, experiences and older ways of knowing that have shaped human life, along with our changing relationship with nature, work, family and the places we inhabit.
Our printed works are published under WSL Publishing, our independent Australian publishing imprint. We hope to build a library of stories and publications that readers will want to keep, share and return to over the years.
The People Behind the Cottage
I'm Julie Ann, the writer and creator of A Wild and Simple Life.
Before establishing the Cottage, before all the travel and before our son was born, I spent time working as an independent actress, producer and television presenter. Lucas was an independent filmmaker, and between us we developed a lasting appreciation for the craft of storytelling, both through the written word and through moving images and sound.
Those earlier creative experiences have found a new home in A Wild and Simple Life. I write and narrate our stories, while Lucas brings his experience in editing and sound design to the audio productions, helping create the immersive listening experiences found inside The Listening Room.
Our son, Phoenix, has been part of this journey from the beginning, travelling alongside us and discovering the world through the places we have lived and explored together.
A Wild and Simple Life remains a small, family-run creative endeavour, shaped by our appreciation for the natural world, our curiosity about history and the lives of those who came before us, and our desire to preserve time for the things that matter most.
We continue to learn what it means to live according to our own rhythms, to make things with care and to share our work in a way that feels meaningful.
Step Inside. Explore The Cottage
Whether you've come looking for something to listen to, a thoughtful piece of writing or a small publication delivered through your letterbox, we're very glad you've found your way here.