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Brett Braley-Palko

Brett F. Braley-Palko (Baron St. Maur) is a freelance writer and marketing consultant based on his farm in rural Pennsylvania with his husband and a household zoo of dogs and cats. Brett is interested in gardening, baking, languages, chicken rearing, literature (particularly the Interwar period in Britain), aristocracy, and the noblesse oblige. When not tottering around, Brett has worked and written for international publications and has consulted or produced content for a variety of companies. You can find his work at brettfbraley.com. He is working on his first novel.

Brett Braley-Palko

The Best Non-fiction Works are Letters

Brett Braley-Palko·
How does one know a place fully? Or, for that matter, a time period? I have found that movies can only do so much to tell the truth, often being made all the more palatable for audiences. The same goes for textbooks, which tend to dumb down reality to cram as much information into the smallest amount of real estate as possible. Then there are nonfiction works, which may read more towards the author’s bias than the veritable truth. So - what’s left?
Reading

Are Khakis Cool Again?

Brett Braley-Palko·
For many Men of a Certain Age, khakis have never really gone out of style. But for me, at 30-years-old, it’s been a bit of a more contentious relationship. My formative years were growing up in the mid-aughts, where skinny jeans reigned supreme. A decade on and I’m happy to report the pendulum has now swung to the classic khaki.
Menswear

A Hobby for Hobby’s Sake

Brett Braley-Palko·
A strange thing happens when you begin to get paid for your talent, your relationship changes with it. Writing was once a hobby of mine, a craft I had perfected over years. Now that I’m paid to write, I treat it like another job. What people don’t tell you is that much of writing is emailing, invoicing, and thinking of what to write.
Lifestyle

An Ode to the iPod

Brett Braley-Palko·
Recently I was opening what I assumed was a box of Christmas decorations, but was really a memory box of sorts from my high school and university years. Here, a pendant from school; there, a ticket to an amusement park. I felt like an archeologist, digging up remnants of the Lost Civilization of the Aughts. And below the candy wrappers and movie ticket stubs laid the Rosetta Stone of this excavation: my iPod.
Music

It’s Almost the New Year. Are You Ready to Improve Yourself?

Brett Braley-Palko·
While I would like to think that I am not totally susceptible to the sway of the New Year, I know that this is false. For one, I recently re-upped my gym membership. For another, I have scheduled appointments with a dermatologist, dentist, and nutritionist for the upcoming weeks. No, this is not because I favor Quasimodo in looks, but rather so that I can start 2022 on good footing.
Christmas

A Kitchen is like a Man’s Wardrobe

Brett Braley-Palko·
I am driven mad nowadays with the need for every possible kitchen scenario to be instantly and effectively treated with a gadget that can only do one specific thing. I got a targeted ad the other day for a handy-dandy countertop egg steamer. “Perfect every time!” it exclaimed at me in bold font. Well, I thought, those poor dears who bought theirs. Surely they don’t have running water and literally any sized pan.
Lifestyle