Changes
I originally meant for this newsletter to be pure fun.
A day after my most recent installment I wanted to share a word about this newsletter, my original intentions for it, and how it has been organically shifting in a more serious direction.
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I launched āAdventures in āJournalismāā last May because I thought it would provide a fun opportunity to write about what I considered a lighter aspect of my life ā a subject unlikely to unsettle or upset people.
I had been feeling stuck as a writer for decades, censoring myself because I worried friends and family might feel hurt or angry over what I revealed, or insulted by my opinions about certain things. It seemed as if writing about something less emotionally charged would free me up and allow me to flow creatively. What the heck, Iād also decorate the newsletter with colorful drawings I made.

I decided I would repurpose material Iād generated during the first #1000WordsOfSummer program author Jami Attenberg generously offered in 2018 ā mostly self-deprecating shtick about what a strange route Iāve taken, career-wise, because, I believed, I was a kooky misfit weirdo, and also someone who has never been able to strike a balance between impatience and too much patience while waiting for opportunities to materialize.
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As Iāve been going along, though ā at a time in the world when scales have been falling from our eyes ā Iāve been seeing many of my past work experiences in a new light.
Iāve begun realizing the ways in which the media and lit worlds asked me to make myself small if I wanted to hang on, and the ways in which I complied. Iāve begun realizing the sacrifices and compromises I made so that men in my my life āĀ colleagues, bosses, partners, relatives ā wouldnāt feel deprioritized or threatened. Iāve begun realizing that to some degree, the playful story Iāve told myself about being a kooky misfit weirdo has been another way of making myself small and non-threatening.
Yes, Iām a little off-beat, and yes, Iāve taken an untraditional, circuitous route. But in part, that has been because there wasnāt room for me on the straight and narrow. I adapted, creating versions of myself that didnāt get in anyoneās way. And still, in some places I found myself diminished or erased.
(Iām reminded of an incisive Longreads piece by A.N. Devers about the way in which Brigid Hughes was pushed out as editor of The Paris Review and erased from its history.)
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Iām not saying this newsletter will never be playful or fun again. Iām not saying I wonāt sometimes grab my crayons and doodle for you. What Iām saying is thereās more to my work history than I used to see āĀ than I wanted to see. Some of it is not pretty, but I feel newly compelled to look at it. I hope youāll stick around so I can show it to you.
I love the direction this has taken.