Lena Ortiz

lena.molby.app/writing

Archive

31 pieces from ten years in four places — 12 essays, 8 episodes, 5 talks and 6 threads. Filter them, or press / to search every word.

2026

  1. EssayLow Tide, issue 265 Rooms, not feeds Why I finally gave ten years of writing one address — and what I noticed moving in. 3 min read
  2. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 48 The sound of a room Every room has a voice before anyone speaks in it. Acoustician Inês Carvalho on churches that hum, cafés designed to feel busy, and why the quietest room she ever measured made people anxious. 41 min
  3. ThreadThread Things I learned moving 312 posts into one home I just finished moving ten years of writing into one site. 312 pieces. A few things I learned, in case you are thinking about it. 6 posts
  4. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 47 Inbox zero was never the point A solo episode about email, unanswered letters and the difference between being reachable and being available. With three small rules I actually keep. 29 min
  5. EssayLow Tide, issue 263 What the 28 tram knows about patience Forty minutes, four kilometres, and the slowest lesson Lisbon has taught me. 2 min read
  6. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 46 Walking as a writing tool Novelist Tomás Reyes walks eleven kilometres every morning and writes for ninety minutes after. We talk about gait and sentences, getting lost on purpose, and the notebook he keeps in his sock. 44 min
  7. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 45 Small websites, big lives Priya Natarajan has designed personal sites for poets, bakers and one retired lighthouse keeper. Why a home on the web still matters, and what makes a small site feel like a person. 38 min
  8. ThreadThread A short thread on reading slowly I've been reading one essay a day, on paper, with a pencil. Some notes after a month. 4 posts
  9. EssayLow Tide, issue 261 Listening at half speed Everyone I know listens to podcasts at double speed. I tried the opposite for a month. 2 min read
  10. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 44 What radio taught me Before podcasts I spent four years at a community radio station in Hackney. A solo episode about live mistakes, the 3 a.m. listener, and why I still talk to one person, not an audience. 27 min
  11. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 43 Fado and the art of the pause Fadista Marta Lobo on singing in a room of forty people, the silence the audience owes the singer, and why the most important note in a fado is the one she doesn't sing. 47 min
  12. EssayLow Tide, issue 259 Ten years, four platforms, one me An inventory of a decade of writing in public, and why I stopped renting. 2 min read
  13. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 42 Reading on paper again Jonah Feld runs a secondhand bookshop in Porto and has watched a generation come back to paper. What changes when a book cannot notify you. 35 min
  14. EpisodeSlow Signals, episode 41 The patience of maps Aiko Tanabe draws maps by hand. We talk about what a map leaves out, walking a city to draw it, and the year she spent mapping one street in Kyoto. 40 min
  15. ThreadThread Lisbon sounds, ranked Lisbon sounds, ranked, by someone who records them for fun. 6 posts
  16. EssayLow Tide, issue 256 The second draft is a walk I write first drafts at the table and second drafts with my feet. 2 min read
  17. TalkInkwell, Porto Own your archive Writers publish everywhere and keep nothing. A practical talk about gathering ten years of scattered work into one home you control — and why being findable is a form of care for your readers. 24 min
  18. ThreadThread On titles A good title makes a promise the piece keeps. A clever title makes a promise and then winks. 3 posts
  19. EssayLow Tide, issue 253 Notes from a waiting room Two hours at the immigration office, no phone signal, and a small defence of boredom. 2 min read
  20. EssayLow Tide, issue 250 A city that sounds like itself Lisbon has a sound you can recognise with your eyes closed. Here is how I learned to hear it. 2 min read
  21. ThreadThread What a good podcast intro does in thirty seconds What a good podcast intro does in its first thirty seconds: 5 posts
  22. EssayLow Tide, issue 246 Saudade is not nostalgia A word my neighbours use every day, and the English I keep failing to find for it. 2 min read

2025

  1. ThreadThread The year in small websites My favourite thing this year: friends who quietly started personal sites. 3 posts
  2. TalkSound Matters, Berlin Writing for the ear What changes when your words will be heard instead of read. On sentence length, breath, repetition, and leaving the pauses in. 31 min
  3. TalkUrban Sound Forum, Barcelona Cities you can hear Soundmarks — the sounds that make a place itself — are disappearing faster than landmarks. A short talk with recordings from five years of listening to Lisbon. 18 min

2024

  1. TalkSmall Web Day, Online The slow web isn't nostalgia Personal websites are not a retro hobby. They are the most durable, findable and humane way to publish — and they are easier to own than ever. 22 min
  2. TalkNewsletter Craft, London Letters, not content Eight years of writing a letter every other Sunday, and why I still write to one reader instead of an audience. 27 min

2023

  1. EssayLow Tide, issue 188 Against the infinite scroll A page should end. When it does, you get to decide what happens next. 2 min read

2021

  1. EssayLow Tide, issue 121 Why I moved to Lisbon with one suitcase Five years ago I left London with what fit in the overhead bin. 2 min read

2019

  1. EssayLow Tide, issue 65 Learning to write short My first editor cut my best paragraph. She was right, and it took me two years to admit it. 2 min read

2016

  1. EssayLow Tide, issue 1 The first letter Issue one of Low Tide, unedited, from September 2016. 2 min read

Low Tide

A letter from Lisbon, every other Sunday.

Essays first, before they land here. No tracking pixels, no ads, one click to leave. 6,400 people read it; the next one goes out on Sunday 1 November.

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