The Book of Man is one year old this week! To us it simultaneously feels that we’re still brand new, and that we’ve been around forever. Our mission to investigate the profound changes going on with men today seems to have hit a nerve, and certainly we’ve joined a wave of conversations around masculinity that are unthinkable even a couple of years ago. Things arechanging, and even a casual glance at stats on mental health alone, would reinforce that they need to. So while we’ve come a long way as a publication, we’re only just getting started.

Anyway, we could have spent our birthday recounting our achievements, but that would have been narcissistic. Also, if we looked, we may not have found all that many (“…oh, that time I was working at 4am and ate a whole cheesecake?”). So to swerve any such awkward revelations, we’ve decided to celebrate the week by simply handing the keys over to someone else. And while we air our verrucas on the dashboard, who’s at the wheel? Why, only The Connor Brothers.

Yes, the acclaimed artists, mental health campaigners, also known as James Golding and Mike Snelle, are becoming guest editors for the week. Every day they’re going to writing stories for the site, doing interviews, and generally making the place 73% handsomer and 89% cooler. In fact, out of curiosity and an undignified fit of self-imposed jealousy, we asked them for a quick heads-up on their plans:

What have you got planned for your guest edit?

We’ve written a bunch of articles about things we care about, from cocaine addiction and mental health, to the reasons artists get away with behaving like massive dickheads. We also have an interview with the extremely talented Loyle Carner, and a couple of pieces of short fiction. Lastly we have a print give away and a social media experiment. 

Do you have any experience with digital publishing? Are you going to break the Book of Man/the internet?

We’ve published a few articles over the years – not sure whether that counts. A week’s worth of publishing stuff is definitely new to us. Not sure us banging on will break the internet unless it can be bored to death. 

​Tell us about the piece you’ve done for the site…

‘We Must Be Careful About What We Pretend To Be,’ is a quote from the late David Foster Wallace. It seems fitting to our takeover of The Book of Man because it’s relevant to pretty much everything we’ll be talking about. 

What have you been working on recently other than this?

We’ve just had our first museum show in Bulgaria and are working on a new series of work which we’ll show later in the year, probably in LA. Also we have recently been asked to be ambassadors for CALM and have a bunch of projects lined up with them.

What do you hope people will get from your guest edit?

I guess we hope that some people connect with what we’re saying and it’ll spark a conversation about things we feel are important to talk about. It’d also be nice to win a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Genius Award.

Ah, yes, let’s talk about the piece they’ve done for us, ‘We Must Be Careful About What We Pretend To Be’: well you can win a print of it!

All you have to do is sign up to our daily newsletters, and one person chosen at random will win the art. If you’ve already signed up, you’re already in the draw. If you’re new, well rest assured there’s been credit cards with more names on than our subscription base, so the odds are decent.

Sign up here – it’ll mean you’ll also be the first to read the Connors’ work this week…

Huge sincere thanks then to The Connor Brothers. We are thrilled and humbled to have them spend their time and energy on The Book of Man, it means a lot. And their stories will hopefully mean a lot to you when you read them…

Like this first one, ‘Can’t Beat The Feeling’.

The Connor Brothers are ambassadors for suicide prevention charity, CALM.