The Pencil Company That Makes Pens.

A pivot from the temporary to the permanent.

My favourite pencil.

(Note: I haven’t been paid to write this. I’m just a big fan of Blackwing. With that said.. if you do ever want to get anything from Blackwing, I’d love you to use this link so I can get a very small nibble of the sale. Sales also benefit music & arts programs in schools.)

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February 3rd, 2026
New York, NY

There’s something inherently suspicious about a pencil company making a pen.

It feels like a betrayal. It’s like a vegan butcher or a sober Australian. Blackwing has built an empire on graphite, on the impermanence of the grey smudge. And yet, yesterday, they shipped me a mysterious box that contained a heavy, machined aluminium traitor:

…The Blackwing Pen!

I wanted to hate it. I wanted to tell them to stay in their lane. But then I picked it up, and by gum, they actually pulled it off.

It has this sort of ergonomic half-moon shape, which is interesting. This is supposedly to stop it from rolling off your desk (which is useful, because my drawing board is a landscape of bullshit where gravity is the only organising principle)..

But the unexpected selling point for my neurodivergent noggin is the click. The letter I got with it describes it as a “satisfying tactile click”, which is an understatement. It is a fidget toy that also happens to write. I clicked it for forty-five minutes before I even touched paper. It felt medicinal. This is not at all what they intended.

When I finally did put what they described as the “smooth rollerball” to the page, I decided to test it with the highest stakes possible: The New York Times Crossword. Doing the crossword in ink is usually a sign of sociopathy, but it lays down such a confident line that I felt bloody invincible. I moved on to sketching some New Yorker roughs. It has a nice, balanced weight. It’s hefty. I don’t know if I’d carry it in my pocket, but I might. It’s less like a piece of stationery and more like a very small, very polite weapon.

They claim this thing is designed to help you “slow down”. I don’t know if I slowed down, but they really made something interesting here. I’m going to write about the Wren soon (my other new favourite scribbling tool). Parts of this pen kind of remind me of that.

Anyway. Try one. Tell me what you think.

‘til next time.

Your pal,