Privacy Policy
Being an honest accounting of what we know about you, what we do with it, and who we'd sooner burn the ledgers than hand it to.
Let's be plain, because you've earned plain. When you join the list — whether you signed up here or traded an email for one of the dossiers — you hand us a small amount of information, and you deserve to know exactly where it goes. No forgetting. That's rather the whole point around here.
What we collect
Your name, if you choose to give it, and your email address. That's the entire file. We don't ask for your mailing address, your phone number, your mother's maiden name, or the thing you did in the summer of 1998. If you write to us directly, we'll naturally have whatever you put in that message.
How we collect it
You give it to us, on purpose, when you subscribe to the newsletter or claim a free dossier. We do not buy lists, scrape names, or lift your details out of anyone else's ledger. Everyone on this list chose to be on it.
How we use it
To send you dispatches — new releases, the occasional confession, podcast news, and the next of the Pattern Files. Nothing more. We will not flood your inbox, and we will never, under any circumstances, sell, rent, trade, or otherwise traffic in your information. Some things are currency. You are not.
Who else touches it
Two services help us run this operation, and your information passes through them to do its job:
Squarespace, which hosts this site and sends our email.
BookFunnel, which delivers the dossiers and the free books.
Both are reputable, both keep their own privacy policies, and neither is permitted to use your information for anything beyond helping us deliver what you actually asked for.
Regarding The Manassean Society
We will do our absolute best to keep your information out of the hands of The Manassean Society. In the interest of full disclosure, however, we are obligated to note that — given the particular gifts of certain longstanding members — they very likely already know your most closely guarded secrets, your childhood address, and precisely what you were thinking when you turned the last page. We regret that this is beyond our technical control. Keep your analog instincts sharp.
Your choices
You are free to leave at any time. Every email we send carries an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and a single click removes you for good — no questions, no guilt, no follow-up asking what went wrong. If you'd prefer we delete your information entirely, or you simply want to know what we have on file, write to us and we'll handle it.
Cookies
This site uses standard cookies to keep it running and to understand, in the aggregate, how people find their way here. Nothing sinister. You may disable them in your browser if you'd rather move through the world unobserved — a philosophy we happen to respect.
Changes
If this policy ever changes, we'll post the revised version here with a new date. We won't alter the terms in the dark and hope you don't notice. That's a different organization's method.
Contact
Questions, requests, or confessions of your own: elwoodwest.author@gmail.com
Last updated: August 2026
Don't think us evil. We're only keeping records — the honest kind