Flexing my fingers, flipping my coattails
Warming up for a return to your patient inbox
Here I am!
Limbering up to get back to newsletter-writing.
I’ve missed being here—but taking a break for the summer was definitely the right choice.
You will, I’m sure, be pleased to know that I’ve used the time well, and in the margins around life, aka providing infinite meals and snacks for a small person (a moment of solidarity to all fellow parents navigating weeks of relentless food provision—summer-holiday parenting is in large part accepting your role as a human vending machine), I have thought a lot and read a lot. And written copious notes on both.
Finally, I’m starting to find my way to the creative headspace I’ve been searching for for a long time. My list of plans and stash of draft newsletters are both lengthy and juicy—I have notebooks bursting with connections and recommendations I can’t wait to share over the coming weeks and months.
My plan is to send out a newsletter weekly. Once a month this will be recommendation-based—catching you up on the best of my watching and reading (What This Month, if you will). There will be plenty of deep-dives, newsletters focusing on cultural interconnections (you know how much I love finding and sharing the magic), and perhaps a little more creative non-fiction from time to time.
And there will, of course, be a return to podcasting with the wonderful
.I’m not sure anyone will have any great preference about this, after all one of the many beauties of Substack is being able to read the newsletters you subscribe to at your own convenience, but I have previously posted on a Friday and a Sunday.
(Let’s be completely transparent here, the asking of this question is also strongly motivated by wanting to have a play with the poll tool!)
I’m aiming to send out a newsletter next weekend, sharing the best of all I’ve read and watched over the summer, and then get going with themed newsletters again from September. I’ll also restart paid subscriptions at the beginning of September.
Admin covered, plans shared—tick, tick.
As a way to ease myself back into the posting flow, and in case new subscribers to It’s All About the Words missed these delights first time around, I thought today I’d share some older newsletters.
Consider this a finger flex, a coattail flip, before the show begins in earnest next week.
The magic of nature and nature writing is my most liked and engaged with newsletter so far. I loved putting this one together. Not what I’d been planning to write that week, but where I felt I was being led. Literally and metaphorically.
Edward Enninful’s memoir blew me away when I read it back in February. Reading the British Vogue editor-in-chief’s life story was incredibly inspiring, but what hit me deeply was his drive to create—it crackled off the pages like magic. So this is a favourite newsletter because of how much the book touched me (spoiler alert: I do now have a signed shelf copy and a Vogue subscription), but also because it flashed through my mind this was perhaps too niche to share and actually I received lots of messages saying how much readers enjoyed and engaged with this one. Note to self: always share what you care about, your enthusiasm will carry the reader wherever you want to take them.
On reading felt special to share as it was a piece I submitted for a course a few years ago, and marked a shift in my determination to get out of my own way and let myself actually get on with writing. Feeling emboldened to share it with the wider audience of my Substack readership felt like a further step on my writing journey. Over the summer as I’ve reflected on what I’ve done here so far, I can see that the creative non-fiction I’ve shared, whether a paragraph or two about our lives within a What This Week or the focus of a full newsletter like this one or Travels with my daughter, is some of my favourite writing and (I think) something you’ve enjoyed reading. Watch this space for more.
Aaaaaaand finally, well I had to mention Frescoes in fiction! If you live for the interconnections you can find in your reading, then Ali Smith is an absolute gift of an author (I mean she is for many other reasons too, please see newsletter for details), and I found so many wonderful ideas and further readings (and watchings) to share after I read How to be both. Something felt extra magical when I pressed publish on this newsletter, and that was reflected back in the excited responses I received from readers disappearing off down rabbit holes. Then lo and behold, I found that it had been shared on Substack Staff Picks! Over. The. Moon.
So there you go, a few of my favourite newsletters so far, in case you’ve missed them. There are a raft of other deep-dive newsletters available to read here, and eighteen (count ‘em, eighteen!) editions of What This Week positively brimming with book, film and TV recommendations. And if you’re interested in writing and growing on Substack, here are all the episodes of Our Substack Story—a podcast where
and I have been sharing our experiences and reflections so far this year. (We will be back soon, I promise. Helen has been very patient while I’ve been MIA this summer!)Thanks for reading.
Thanks for waiting patiently to read some more.
See you very soon.
(Includes affiliate links to Bookshop.org, an excellent bookselling website supporting indie bookshops)
“Note to self: always share what you care about, your enthusiasm will carry the reader wherever you want to take them.” Yes! Yes! Yes!
Wey hey!! so glad you're finding your way to that creative space. And the nature giving you back the magic piece and the connections you made around Edward Enninful (of whom shockingly I had not heard) are both fabulous. I think I was in NZ when they were posted as I don't recall them and I'm sure I would have as they're both terrific.