Welcome to It's All About the Words Substack-style.
Thank you so much for taking the time to come and visit my new writing space—it genuinely means a lot. I’m sure many of you have come across from Insta to say hello and show support and I’m very grateful for that. And to those of you who are completely new to me, hi I’m Claire Holden {waves}, you are very welcome here.
I’ve been a writer my whole life. Books both my nurture and nature, the need to write my own words has always felt innate. But I pushed that need deep down inside over the years, for various reasons, all rooted in fear and lack of confidence. Back in 2019, I began a LONG (ongoing) journey to actually becoming the writer that I knew I was. The first step was joining Instagram. I was looking for a way to tentatively put some words out into the world for the first time, and writing about my favourite thing—books—seemed like the perfect way to do that. It’s All About the Words was born.
Over the years, I’ve loved the community and connection that comes with being part of bookstagram, but as my writing confidence and enthusiasm have grown, I’ve started to feel restricted in how I can show up there as a writer. Put very simply, I have a LOT of words and thoughts, and caption sizes do not easily enable me to share them! But more than that, I suppose I’ve been looking for a writing space where I can feel a bit freer—to say more, both lengthwise and breadthwise.
Substack is first and foremost a newsletter platform. So for those who subscribe I will send a weekly newsletter diving into books, TV, films, writing (there’s a novel-in-progress behind the scenes), life and all the interesting interconnections I find between them. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m excited already!
Beyond the newsletter, Substack offers lots of other ways to connect and I’m really interested in exploring those too. Threads can spark discussions with subscribers and I plan to send out a ‘What This Week’ thread each Sunday, so we can come together to talk about the books and films and TV and whatever else has inspired us over the week.
There is also an opportunity to share podcasts through Substack and I would love to look into this in the future. To host chats with bookstagrammers, writers and bookstagrammer writers (an elite and flourishing cross-over faction!), discussing reading, writing and the glorious connections between the two.
Subscribing means It’s All About the Words directly in your email inbox or via the Substack website or app. There is no feed or algorithm, you can read my words at a time that suits you. I want to keep all my words freely available for now, so you won’t miss out if you sign up as a free subscriber. If you would like to support my writing and my ability to keep it available to all, then there are various paid subscriber options and my heartfelt gratitude is yours. Over time, I plan to introduce some paid-subscriber benefits, so watch this space.
Substack seems very much to be having a moment. Writers such as Emma Gannon and Farah Storr have absolutely flourished here in the past year, and regularly promote the virtues and values of Substack as a space where you can easily share your words and create a community of interested readers. So this really feels like the time to jump in.
I know that many writers are interested in what Substack can offer, so also stick around if you want to find out more about my experience of the platform itself, as my dear friend and mentor, Helen Redfern, and I are planning on seeing just what a year on Substack looks like. Helen has been here sharing her brilliant words and courses on writing and creative confidence for over six months, and I’m starting today from absolute zero, so we thought it would be really interesting to document and share our journey across the year. Watch out for the first podcast chat in that series next week, our January reflections.
So then, off we go!
Thank you for reading this. And thank you in advance if you click the blue button and allow my words a valuable place in your inbox.
Love what you're doing here Claire - and honestly I'm in awe of your writing! 🌺📚I'm excited to be here on Substack too, what a lovely place it is. Enjoying your podcast too with Helen, really useful for a newbie to Substack and a fabulous idea. Thankyou 🌻
Congratulations on launching your Substack, Claire! This is going to be amazing, so looking forward to your beautiful writing!