I joined the internet writing platform Substack a year ago. My poor laptop was overloaded with creative writing that had no obvious path to publication and I was going through a period of political re-examination and wanted to be able to, as it were, think out loud.
It turned out to be a far better decision than I could have expected. Not only could I post whatever I wanted—without needing to negotiate with editors or pay a submission fee to a literary magazine and get a form rejection in response—but there was a genuine community. It was common for writers to post paragraphs-long comments on other people’s work, and an air of thoughtfulness and civility prevailed that was rare in the era of quick-twitch social media.
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