I forgot our anniversary and I’m sorry.
I started writing in this space on March 5, 2019. On March 5 of this year, we were a week away from the stay-at-home order still currently in place and my brain was foggy. The main emotion I felt was fear, and when I did write here in March I tried to do so from that place of distraction and loneliness, a place filled with a fog so thick I could barely see my own hand in front of my face, much less do any real ruminating on what this space is for and what it means. But here we are, a full two months later, and I’m feeling more clearheaded and more energetic and more optimistic about what we can do in this space together. Plus, I’ve started to be able to read again.
Poetry month revitalized me in a way I hadn’t expected. Getting to read and edit the guest contributions that I sent out reminded me that part of why we read is because we want to feel inspired, and a huge part of why we write about what we read is that we want to share that feeling with others. The same inclination that forces you to slide your drink across a fancy bar for your date to try also makes you carry a book in a bag to a friend’s house without asking and drop it off in the hopes they’ll love it to. We write about what we read to understand it more and to interact with the work in a new way, but we share what we write about what we read because ultimately, we want to share the feeling it gave us.
When I started this newsletter, media was in a bad place. Now it is in a worse one. I viewed this as a platform to publish the stories I wanted to write that no one had the freelance budget to pay for. Weird stories about women who wrote novels about being spinsters at age 30 and got women who got dragged in their own obituaries. I wrote these newsletters to be read. I wrote them to share knowledge. But when this newsletter, in retrospect, is at its most successful is when this is a place to share not just knowledge, but joy — to relish in what writing can do for us and what it can’t, to talk about how books evolve.
Right now, books are not the important thing. In the scale we operate on now (one of thousands of human lives lost because of an inadequate government that refuses to do anything), a book doesn’t really matter. I don’t believe that bookstores should be open. I don’t believe that a book will save us. This isn’t ever going to be a newsletter that believes books are inherently good or that they are any more powerful than they actually are. But something doesn’t have to be so big to matter. Something can matter because it allowed you to escape for a single day, or because it made you smile. That’s enough.
This past month, as so many of you emailed to tell me what you’re reading or how the poems effected you, or what your hang ups were, I realized how much this little letter means to me. This isn’t just a list of people who read this newsletter because you like books. You are people who care about women’s writing and who more seriously, seem to care about me. You have emailed me when I have written emotional letters, and when you found a book you loved. (One of my new favorite authors came from newsletter reader Libby Nelson!) You have texted me to tell me you’re learning to like poetry and you’ve emailed to tell me that you’re having a hard time too.
It’s a daunting, wonderful thing to realize that this space matters to so many of you and that it matters to me more than I knew. Right now, all of the money I have made for the last two months has come from this newsletter. Substack awarded Written Out a grant, which I used to pay my bills and to pay our contributors last month. This career, writing, is barely one. There is absolutely no security and very little future. You “make it” as a writer with a fair dash of lucky and whatever nepotism you can scrounge up and you pray it sustains you. This is different. Unlike everything else in my career, this is stable until I want it not to be. It’s one of the only things I control. This is personal.
As we continue into year two (lol we are already two months in), I’m trying to remind myself that this is a space for joy. I am going to do more interviews with authors with new books out for you. I am going to find more old out-of-print books to love and share with you. I am going to tell you some weird as hell stories about history’s women writers we may have forgotten. Next week, I promise you, has two straight bangers: a story about the American Agatha Christie everyone forgot, and an interview with the author of one of this spring’s biggest books.
The only real change on your end is to the subscriptions. More of the work that I write is going to be free this year. This isn’t an economy where I feel good about paywalling things that are for everyone. The stories that are behind the paywall will be there because they are very personal or petty gossip, both of which do not belong to everyone.
If you want to subscribe, I’m putting subscriptions on sale until the end of the month at 20% off with the code STAYATHOME (or just click this fancy button):
Your support funds this newsletter, but it also funds my ability to write it. Your support allows me to take this seriously and to feel secure in writing as a career in a moment where not a lot of people can say that.
If you can’t subscribe or already have (thank you) please consider sharing this newsletter with someone else who might like it.
Year two has already started, but with poetry month behind us, I think we’re already off to a good start. As always, email me all of your hopes and dreams, books and authors. Happy Friday.
xo
K
Painting is Franz Nölken’s “Schreibendes Mädchen”
I just wanted to say thank you so much for your writing and your commitment to us as readers. I love reading your posts because of both your style and your content. When they pop in my in-box they are definitely the highlight of the day. So, thank you.