I hesitate to tell my writer friends to join Substack, because sometimes it feels like a bit of a pyramid scheme—there are lots of writers trying to ‘make it’ on here, and I don’t know if it’ll really happen for most people. Most writers I know still want to be Real Writers. They want to publish books, get reviewed in the New York Times, go to Yaddo, etc. I don’t think Substack will lead to that stuff. And of course most writers hope to eventually start making money from their work.

But for me personally, Substack has been great. It’s so nice to write something and send it out and see people respond to it. Like, I’ve been writing for twenty years, but it’s only with substack that I’ve had the experience of actually…being read? Of writing something and sending it out and feeling like someone is really engaging with it and happy to read it. Sometimes I’m like…”Is this the grown-up version of becoming a fan-fic writer?” But if so, who cares? It’s just so much fun. I’m having so much fun.