Capabilities & Formats
Ned's Folly is built around a simple premise: a well-told failure is more useful than a polished success story. Below are the formats we produce and host, each designed to help you examine your own blunders with curiosity rather than shame.
Our signature format: deeply researched reconstructions of spectacular failures, from doomed architectural projects to legendary kitchen disasters. Each essay traces the full arc—the flawed premise, the moment of collapse, and the unexpected lessons that emerged from the rubble.
Recent pieces have examined the Leaning Tower of Pisa's two-century construction saga and the engineering oversights behind Boston's 1919 molasses flood. Every essay ends with practical takeaways on iteration and resilience, not abstract platitudes.
A reader-submitted archive of personal missteps, published anonymously or attributed as you prefer. These are not cautionary tales told from a safe distance—they are honest, first-person accounts of creative work gone sideways.
Each confession is paired with a brief reflection from our editors, framing what the mistake reveals about process, judgment, or the courage to try again. Submissions are lightly edited for clarity and always treated with respect.
A hand-picked collection of titles on failure, innovation, and the messy middle ground between them. We read widely and recommend sparingly—each book earns its place by offering a genuinely useful perspective on why things go wrong and how that knowledge shapes better work.
Selections span engineering history, creative practice, psychology, and memoir. Every entry includes a short note on what we found valuable and who might benefit most from reading it.
A small, supportive gathering where members dissect their own recent missteps in a structured, non-judgmental setting. Each session focuses on one or two volunteer stories, with guided discussion on what went wrong, what was learned, and what might be tried differently.
Sessions are capped at twelve participants to keep the conversation intimate and productive. You leave with a clearer sense of your own patterns—and a few new ways to think about the next attempt.
The essays provide historical depth and analytical frameworks. The confessions ground those ideas in lived experience. The bookshop offers further reading for those who want to go deeper. And the salon turns passive reading into active practice—a place to test what you've absorbed against your own real-world blunders.
You can engage with any single format on its own, but regular readers find the combination most useful. A confession that echoes an essay's theme, or a salon discussion that references a book from the shop, creates a loop of reflection that sticks longer than any single article.
Common Questions
Straight answers about how we review submissions, run the salon, and handle the stories you trust us with.
We look for a clear moment of failure with a real consequence—a project that collapsed, a design that backfired, a decision that seemed sound at the time. You don't need to be a professional writer. A few honest paragraphs about what you attempted, where it went wrong, and what you took from it is enough to start.
We favour stories with a concrete arc: a specific mistake, a moment of realisation, and a lesson that reaches beyond the original context. Historical blunders, engineering mishaps, and kitchen disasters all work if they carry a detail or insight we haven't seen before. We read every submission, though we can only publish a handful each month.
Yes. The virtual salon is a small gathering where members walk through a recent misstep in a supportive setting. You can attend as a listener your first time. There is no requirement to share until you feel ready, and everything said in the room stays in the room.
You can. If you prefer your name not appear alongside your confession, we will publish it under a pseudonym or as "Submitted anonymously." We only ask that the details you share are truthful, since the value of these stories depends on their accuracy.
You will receive a confirmation within a week. If we want to move forward, an editor will contact you with notes and a proposed timeline. If we pass, we will let you know promptly and may suggest another outlet or a revised angle for a future submission.
We edit for clarity and flow, not for voice. Your story should sound like you. We will tighten sentences, fix structural gaps, and check factual claims, but we will not turn your account into something generic. You will see the final version before it goes live.
Have a different question about submissions or the salon? Reach out to our editors and we will answer within two working days.
Reader Notes
We hear from people who came for the essays and stayed for the conversations. These notes reflect the practical shift that happens when you start treating mistakes as material rather than misfortune.
I run a small product studio, and the essay on the Pisa foundation changed how I talk to clients about scope. We now schedule a deliberate "what if this fails" review at the end of every sprint. It sounds grim, but it has saved us twice already.
Marta Ellison
Product lead, independent studio
The molasses flood piece stayed with me for weeks. I used it in a team workshop about project risk, and it landed better than any slide deck I have ever made. People finally understood why we slow down on structural decisions.
Daniel Okafor
Engineering manager, infrastructure team
I submitted a folly confession about a catering launch that went sideways. The monthly salon gave me a way to talk about it without shame, and the feedback helped me see the sequence of small decisions that led to the mess.
Priya Raman
Chef and small business owner
As a writing teacher, I assign the spaghetti tree essay to start discussions about sources and credibility. The historical angle makes the lesson stick. My students now ask better questions about what they read online.
Helen Marsh
Lecturer in media studies
The bookshop recommendations led me to a history of failed inventions that I would never have found on my own. It changed how I frame creative risk with my design team. We keep a running list of "useful failures" now.
Tomás Ferreira
Creative director, brand agency
I joined the salon expecting a casual chat. Instead, I found a structured space where people dissect decisions without ego. I have applied that same format to my own monthly retrospectives at work, and the quality of discussion improved noticeably.
Grace Liu
Operations lead, nonprofit
Every note above describes a concrete change in habit, process, or perspective. That is the outcome we aim for: not comfort, but a sharper way of looking at your own missteps.
Formats & memberships
Three ways to engage with the archive of grand mistakes, each with a different level of depth and a different kind of conversation. No prices, no tiers — just the shape of the thing.
For those who prefer to observe the wreckage from a safe distance.
For those ready to share their own missteps in a supportive space.
For those who want to dissect failure in real time, with others.
Not sure which fits? Read a sample essay first — the Boston molasses flood is a good place to start.