Two travel memoirs · One long road · Seeking representation

Long Road Words

By Phil Rodgers

Two books about leaving, returning, and the miles that change you.

Out of the Glass Box begins in September 2003, when Phil Rodgers leaves the UK for Bangkok with no clear sense of what comes next. Southeast Asia brings release, Australia brings weight, and the journey becomes less about escape than endurance.

The Middle Miles carries the question forward: what happens after the escape, when the road is no longer new and the work of becoming someone different has properly begun?

Both books sit inside the same Long Road Words world: honest, journal-rooted travel writing shaped into narrative memoir.

Start with Out of the Glass Box or continue into The Middle Miles.

Read Glass Box Opening Explore The Middle Miles Request Manuscript

The books

Two connected memoirs built around distance, work, escape, consequence and the uncomfortable bit nobody talks about enough: coming back changed and still having to live with yourself.

Out of the Glass Box

The first book follows the 2003–2004 journey through Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the long way home. It starts as freedom and slowly becomes a harder story about money, routine, work and endurance.

About Glass Box

The Middle Miles

The second book moves beyond the first escape and into the aftermath: the quieter, tougher stretch where the road is still there, but the easy romance of leaving has gone.

Explore Middle Miles

A short extract from Out of the Glass Box

Enough to hear the voice before deciding whether to read further.

That morning in London had the wrong sort of sunshine — the kind that makes everything look normal when you’re not. You can be stood in the middle of a crowd and still feel like you’re watching yourself from above. He was trapped in glass, obviously. But we all do it in our own ways, don’t we — build a little box around ourselves out of routine and safety and “I’ll do it later”, then get comfortable enough that you stop noticing the walls.

Continue into the opening pages About the Book

Read or request the books

The opening pages of Out of the Glass Box are available to read now, with The Middle Miles presented alongside it as the next Long Road Words book. Manuscripts are available on request for agents, publishers and serious industry enquiries.

Read Glass Box Opening Explore The Middle Miles Request Manuscript

Contact

agents@longroadwords.co.uk

hello@longroadwords.co.uk

About the Book

Synopsis, structure and background

Other Work by Phil Rodgers

The Middle Miles What happens after the escape?

The Railway She saw him before anyone else.