Taking her out for a test drive

The Substack experiment begins

Look, over there! It’s yet another Substack!

Thanks to those of y’all who have given this Substack a follow since I first wrote for

Joel J Miller

back in the summer. I’ve been mulling plans for it ever since, and have a few ideas I want to test out in 2025.

For the time being, though, let me introduce myself, what I intend this Substack to be for the time being, and launch a couple of regular features.

Who I am

The usual end-of-essay blurb or dust-jacket bio will tell you I’m Jordan M. Poss of Rabun County, Georgia, a Clemson alumnus who studied Anglo-Saxon military history and who now teaches history at a technical college in South Carolina, where I live with my wife and five kids.

Those are some who’s-who basics. A bit more personally, I’m a writer who loves history, or—perhaps a weaker claim—an historian who loves writing. I’ve loved stories and history since childhood. I’ve wanted to be a writer as long as I can remember. And what did I want to write about? History. As non-fiction, certainly, but also from the fictional perspective that, per GK Chesterton, allows the reader to experience history from “the inside.” My animating question, in researching, teaching, and writing, is “What was it like?”

I’ve published five books, all historical fiction. My latest novella or short novel is The Snipers, set during World War II. My most recent full-length novel is Griswoldville, which takes place in my homestate of Georgia during the American Civil War. Some of my other stories are set in Viking Age Iceland and the Roman Republic, and I have several more novels in progress, with one I intend to finish editing and publish this year.

You can check those and others out at my personal website here. All are available through Amazon. For my non-fiction work, including book reviews and a non-fiction treatment of the Battle of Griswoldville, see here.

My goals here

I have a long-running blog at my personal site. I don’t intend to relocate that activity here, but rather to use this Substack to supplement it, newsletter-digest style, with links to essays and articles I’ve found interesting or informative (but haven’t had the chance to respond to on my blog) as well as book recommendations and updates about what I’m reading and writing.

I plan to include paid-level pieces here at some point as well, including some new fiction and contemporary short stories.

What’s going on

Now for what I intend to be a few regular features:

Currently reading:

• Ian Fleming: The Complete Man, by Nicholas Shakespeare

• Gabriel’s Moon, by William Boyd

• The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander—Bedtime read-aloud for me and my wife

• Troubled Waters, by Sophie de Mullenheim—Bedtime read-aloud for my kids

The latest from the blog:

This week I wrote:

• a review of UFO, by Garrett Graf, a flawed but interesting and informative history of research into the UFO phenomenon by both the government and private enthusiasts;

• a review of Eight Hours from England, a novel by the great actor Anthony Quayle about an SOE officer’s frustrating mission to Albania in 1943-44, based on Quayle’s own experiences during World War II; and

• a short reflection on the balance of moral drama and action struck by older spy thrillers, their bifurcation since John le Carre, and the hope that more modern novels can reunite these twin strands.

Additionally, with the start of the new year I posted my annual reading and movie year-in-review posts. “2025 in books” turned out to be surprisingly extensive, with lots of good fiction and non-fiction reading. I cheated and split my Favorite Fictional Read of the Year commendation between Eric Ambler and Tim Powers, from whom I read six and five books, respectively.

Recent acquisitions:

This week I picked up the Gabriel’s Moon, by William Boyd, on the recommendation of Alexander Larman, whose review I quote in that blog post about spy thrillers, and during a family trip to Cowpens National Battlefield yesterday I got Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution, by Charles Royster. Robert E Lee has been a lifelong interest (today is his 218th birthday, by the way) and though I know a lot about his wastrel, absent father, I have never read a book specifically about him. This looks to be a good option, especially as a teacher of US History, since it delves into the long afterlife of Light-Horse Harry’s Revolutionary career, a reputation he leaned on through many political and personal ups and (predominantly) downs in the Early Republic.

Recently in history:

Speaking of Cowpens, Friday the 17th was the 244th anniversary of the battle, a small but crucial engagement in the Southern theatre of the Revolutionary War. Yesterday we visited for the park’s annual living history encampment, which was, as always, a joy. Cowpens and the nearby Kings Mountain have been favorite historical sites for years—I visited both for the first time on Presidents Day 2012, when my wife and I were dating, a favorite date and one of the surest signs to me, at that point, that she was the one—and are well worth visiting.

A Devil of a Whipping, by Lawrence Babits, is a solid history of the battle, or you can read a shorter account from the American Battlefield Trust here.

Continental regulars and a lone redcoat during the black powder weapons demonstration at Cowpens Saturday

Finally, about the name

Quid? Like a chaw of tobacco?

During college I ran a weekly newsletter called the Tornado Watch, which was published on behalf of a campus group I was a member of, and that gave young me a young Edgar Allan Poe-like taste of the joys of running my own journal. I started toying with the idea of my own occasional literary newsletter, with short fiction and reviews, and somehow I settled on Quid for the title. It’s Latin for what or something.

I can’t say exactly why, but I liked that. That Quid never got off the ground, but I’ve held onto the name. And a Substack sounded, to me, like the perfect what or something to christen a new Quid.

Oh, and happy 216th birthday today to Poe, too.

Until next time

Hopefully this gives you some kind of idea of what to expect here. Thanks to those of y’all who have encouraged me to pursue this. If any of the above sounds intriguing or there’s anything else you’d like to see in a regular Substack digest, let me know. Thanks for reading!