Substacks upon substacks

No editors were harmed in the writing of this substack about substacks.

I used to write a weekly column. It was on literature and the intersection of technology and writing, and it was published by the now defunct GOOD magazine.

I adored writing it. It gave me a rhythm—every week, a new topic, some research, some writing. (It went to twice a month after awhile, and then, with mutual agreement, we ended it. Columns should all have sunset dates.) I worked with fantastic editors, who helped improve my work. I was paid decently, and on time.

Boy would I love to have such a weekly column again (I actually pitched this substack as a column to one publication, but they didn’t bite). I would work harder on each post; I would do more research; I would have an expert with experience improve it; I would be paid. But the landscape of journalism and cultural publications today is vastly different than it was even a few years ago, and unimaginably different from just ten years ago when I had that column.

From that column came one book, many seeds of longer pieces, and …