Gestation & magic beans...
*nine month anniversary & money
Photo credit: David Horgan art. Here I’m reading the brilliant Austin Kleon- check him out!
Hello there!
…to any new followers thank you for joining and to any older followers, ‘hello’ and thank you for staying. As it is now my nine month anniversary on Substack I wanted to send a small update newsletter before my next official post which is all about Greece! (This is my very first post which gives you the lowdown on why I started a Substack in the first place.)
I could have gestated during the last nine months but instead I wrote some bits and bobs….you can read extracts of my ‘work in progress’ novel here, recommendations lists here, some personal essays (fish out of water tales) here, and some other literary flotsam and jetsam here and here.
If you’re interested in my recently published book then the preface to Roaming Wild, the Founding of Compassion in World Farming can be found here.
I post something either once or twice a week and the vast majority of the writing on here is absolutely free but occasionally I will put a longer-form piece behind a paywall. A month’s subscription costs five pounds (about 96 pence a week), or fifty for the year (discount!). It’s a one-(& a half)-coffees equivalent a month cost, if you have an oat flat white and live in London and it supports my writing! I’ve pasted writer Emma Gannon’s sound reasoning for why one might chose to pay for Substack below.* However, if you are really intrigued by a piece that’s behind the paywall and can not afford it please email me and I will gift you a subscription gratis, (I know times are tight and no questions will be asked).
Thank you for reading and do get involved by leaving comments, questions, and so on below! I appreciate you.
Love,
Emma x o x o
*Emma Gannon on: Why would anyone pay for a Substack?
It’s a good question! The other version of this question I’ve heard recently is: “Why would I pay for a writer’s Substack if I could just pay for The Times?” You could absolutely pay for The Times and not delve into Substack but the offerings (in my mind) are fundamentally different. I still pay for the news. Substack is not where I get my news from — it’s where I get my inspiration and enjoyment from. Substack is this wonderful universe of wonderful writers, writing for you. We’ve had a bit of a dry spell when it comes to reading essays/blog-style articles. There’s lots of ‘content’. There’s lots of dogs wearing hats and people doing dances, but where is the long-form writing? It’s in Vogue or ELLE somewhere if you skip past the 80 pages of adverts. In 2015-2018, for example, the Internet was thriving with great personal writing. Remember The Hairpin? The Awl? Rookie magazine? It was the year of The Personal Essay Boom. “Cat Person” went viral. But magazines/writers could not figure out how to make money in a world dominated by big corporations. Now look! Even Tavi Gevinson has just joined Substack. I am more than pleased to pay for my favourite writers. I feel fed and nourished on Substack (from both writing and reading) — I didn’t realise how starving I was for this sort of content back in my life.
This piece is from Emma’s longer piece which is here.