As part of my attempt to create a greater sense of organization to my daily newsletter posts, while ensuring that I still make my fiction writing my priority, I have decided to publish a recommendations post every Thursday, alternating between a post that looks at what I have been listening to, reading, and watching, and one that talks about and recommends particular substack newsletters and post I think some of you might find interesting.
When I started my own substack in April of 2022, the only substack I had subscribed to (and I didn’t even realize it was on substack) was Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter called Letters from an American. Richardson is an historian, who writes about current politics by putting the events of today into an historical context, and I subscribed to her newsletter after numerous people recommended I do so.
Her newsletter continues to be one I read every morning, first thing, even before opening my online editions of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.
Obviously, I recommend this newsletter, but since I April 2022, I have signed up for 90 plus other newsletters. When I started this process, I was mostly curious to see how other writers were using substack, to see if there are any tips I could apply to my own newsletters. Initially I simply did some searches on topic like publishing and aging, or took a look at newsletters that substack itself recommended, and my interest was in things like how often they published, did they offer paid subscriptions, how did they organize their posts. Then, what slowly happened, was I began to have some favorite newsletters that I was reading for my own enjoyment, and that when one of these writers would recommend another newsletter, I would often go check that newsletter out and if I liked it, I would subscribe. And for some newsletters, particularly those that I find myself reading every issue from top to bottom, I even upgrade from my free subscription to paid.
Now, I can assure you that this doesn’t mean I read 90 newsletters a day. Frankly, I seem to be one of the few writers who are insane enough to actually post daily, with most of people publishing their newsletters only once or at most twice a week. In addition, not every newsletter I subscribed to has panned out. Some started strong, but never developed any consistent pattern, or they seem to have fizzled out.
This reminded me of ten or so years ago when setting up a blog was the “thing to do” if you were an indie author, or even a traditional author. Since then, many authors abandoned their blogs, or post very rarely (what happened to me) as they shifted over to other forms of expression (podcasts, you-tube, Instagram, newsletters.) I suspect the same thing is happening to some of the people who set up substacks but aren’t producing posts. I am slowly un-subscribing to those.
There are other newsletters that I skim quickly to see what they are talking about, but seldom read all the way through, only staying subscribed because occasionally they do have a piece I find interesting.
However, there are about twenty to thirty newsletters that I normally spend the time to read from start to finish whenever they come out. And as I looked at the list of those particular newsletters, it revealed something fairly startling. Unlike what I watch, read, and listen to, which seem pretty standard and consistent for a woman of my age, the newsletters are a very eclectic bunch!
I have subscribed to newsletters that specialize in history, science, writing fiction, writing non-fiction, being traditionally published, being self-published, politics, and what I would call human interest stories that explore a wide variety of topics covering everything from pregnancy, parenting, dating, traveling, working, and aging.
I have no idea which of these newsletters any of you will find interesting, but I suspect that many of you will find those newsletters that either are devoted to or often have specific posts on aging as interesting as I do. Consequently, in this, my first substack recommendations post, I will tell you about a newsletter and a post that fit into this category.
The first is the newsletter, Oldster Magazine, which on its about page says it “explores what it means to travel through time in a human body—of any gender, at every phase of life. It focuses on the good, the bad, and the ugly we experience with each milestone, starting early in life. It’s about the experience of getting older, and what that means at different junctures.”
My favorite posts from this newsletter are the interviews of people, usually in their fifties or older, and the personal essays by different writers. For the interviews, everyone is asked the same set of questions, so part of the fun is looking for common themes. Here is an example of an interview I particularly enjoyed (perhaps because the persons was 70.) Age may also explain why I resonated to this personal essay “Coming up for Seconds in My Old Age,” by a 90 year-old!
The Oldster Magazine is put out by Sari Botton, and I have also found her personal newsletter fun to read as well, what a life she’s led!
This next recommendation is for a newsletter called CAFÉ ANNE by Anne Kadet, described on the home page as “a weekly newsletter with a focus on New York City that takes a fresh look at the everyday, delights in the absurd and profiles unusual folks who do things their way.”
Now, I’ve never lived in New York City, only visited it a few times, and I have lived most of my life in suburbs (and one small college town.) In short, there is no obvious reason why I would enjoy this newsletter so much, but I do. I think it is simply that the author has a wry sense of humor and she is an excellent story-teller with a wonderful way of making her subjects come alive. However, to follow the theme of aging, I do suggest you check out her recent post where she interviewed senior citizens she discovered on her wanderings.
I would love to hear from you if you went to check out any of these links, and what you thought of these newsletters.
Finally, a reminder that clicking on the little heart tells me when you have enjoyed a post, and I would love to get comments from any of you who went off and checked some of these links and found something fun to read.