Standing in our values
Flexible Office, Hidden Gems of Marketing, and continued action
UPCOMING WAYS TO BE TOGETHER :
Crafting Hidden Marketing Gems In Your Newsletters : Live class Tue Nov 21 at 1pm EST
Email Marketing and writing a creative newsletter are two different things that also have a lot of crossover. If you’ve started monetizing your newsletter or writing essays in this format you might be confused where marketing fits in. The good news is: there is a formula and it can be fun! Storytelling and sales can be magic spells, not just a phony weird way of selling that makes you feel slimy or awkward.
In this Live Session, we’ll learn to write about our work and our offerings in the container of newsletters, how to create sections so that your marketing is separate and clear, and how to weave them together so that your readers don’t feel like they are constantly being sold to.
This is also a place to dig into how we weave our values into our newsletters. When we decide to talk about what is happening in the world, in our own lives, and beyond.
Flexible Office : Digital Co-Working - Tuesdays and Thursdays November 2 - December 28 Live on zoom
My favorite place to be! A clubhouse for tornado people looking to use their time in a new way. 8-10am PST / 11-1pm EST we meet for two hours twice a week to vision our goals, projects, admin tasks, creative work, and anything else that we are longing to carve out TIME for. There is a Discord server for connection, collaborative resource library, and so much more!
“Desirous of a beautiful life I get out of bed, but it’s Monday and I’m in the throes of a genocide. I make a cup of coffee and pick up a poetry collection, both of which I attend to at my living room window; for a few minutes, I think of nothing besides coffee, poetry, and windows, which feels like a small rebellion. In the corner of my eye I see a banner I constructed months ago that says no settlers / in the future. I’m not in the future. I’m in the present; this means I’m as lonely and as brief as a country.”
Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body
Hello dear reader thank you for tuning in to another week of Monday Monday. Your readership continues to be a gift beyond measure, something I do not take for granted. Every time you open an email from me I picture you wrapped in a cloth of clouds, completely protected. Ready to face your creative practice and life with reverence and devotion. May it be so.
Today I am experimenting with using the top half of the email for promoting and then transitioning here to our usual essay. Marketing to me is one big experiment, which keeps it fun and an extension of my creative practice rather than a heavy lift, a feeling of being smarmy and as the saying goes “like a used car salesman”.
I’d like to argue though that the use of balloons, colorful signs, fun TV advertisements, and jingles - all tactics of a used car salesman - are incredibly fun and creative. Something many of us have needed and bought in our lifetimes is … a used car. Our constant need to distance ourselves from this feeling is fascinating to me. What if we strived to be more like a used car salesman - weaving in colorful and fun ways of selling and sharing our work - which like a used car is reliable yet not too fancy but very important and helpful to have.
My newsletter has always been a place to practice my writing, the synthesizing of my day to day. It has also always been a place to share what I am up to, how we can be in the digital or real life space together, and a peek into what it is I want to draw the reader’s attention toward. The paying attention section, where I redistribute paid subscriptions, and what I weave into the essays is how I center my values and role in the ecosystem of action.
My heart each day is attuned to the people of Gaza, taking continued action and using this space to cultivate an awareness about the ongoing genocide that is happening. I was incredibly moved by my friends committed to direct action with Jewish Voice for Peace at the capitol last week and continue to follow the lead of the Anti-Zionist Jewish people in my life fighting for Palestine. 1
I finished a new quilt while I watched Democracy Now and carry my grief into that action. I am reminded by my students2 that even a baby quilt is a political act. When it’s time for a break I keep stitching and turn to Dawson’s Creek. I remember that without my little moments of sheer nothingness in Capeside watching Jack McPhee come out of the closet I will drown in the sadness.
I do my morning pages, my walks with June, and tend to the fire. October is right on the edge of wood stove season, but some mornings it is needed and feels nice to have a task to tend to throughout the day. June is thrilled to be on her bed in front of it. I am thrilled to be free of my Summer depression.
When we use creative spaces to talk about politics and current events, which for many of us feel inextricable if we are living within our values, there are risks and repercussions. While within self employment I cannot be fired, in the past few weeks I have seen my paid subscriber number drop significantly. There is power and resources that can be lost in these times, and we have to ask ourselves if it is worth it, safe, and correct for us. Only you can answer this question for yourself.
This newsletter from
really impacted me
“And so I am desperately reminding people of the systemic. I’m desperately reminding my friends and community members that we know what systemic oppression looks like.
I cannot shield you from that, my dear friends, even in your grief. I cannot make a silo for my words so that they only hit people who will not be hurt by them. I cannot and I should not. Because your grief and our collective fear of adding to that grief is being used to justify a silencing in the wake of a genocide.” -
I notice that by no longer using social media I don’t have a heightened sense of stress or confusion about the war or wondering if there is a need for solidarity in the fight for peace and demands for an immediate ceasefire, it is just a clear yes. I don’t see people fighting in comments, sharing or not sharing, the non nuanced back and forth isn’t in my face anymore. I see where this has ultimately lead me to clearer and more concise action in my life and in the spaces I take up or stay out of.
I say this without judgement but just a noticing, it is rare my opinions feel radical to be honest. They normally feel pretty simple and not so out of the box. But the fear of saying the wrong thing or hurting people seems to lead to vague winding statements where I’d rather just read about anything else. I’d rather see someone’s skincare routine and drive to Sephora for the newest serum. The lack of clarity shows me how scary it is to step up to the plate, how ingrained it is, and how much social media turned us against each other. I am not saying the fear isn’t warranted, I just wonder what you might say if you really really really stood in your values today?
I say this as someone always in the learning, often too slow to the level of action that is asked of me in the past and sometimes still. I say this without judgement of the artists in my life whose value it is to not weave in their stance on current events, oppression, or what is happening outside of their art studio. To me by getting clear on what I include and do not include in my work leads me to clarity on how to quilt it all together. Imperfectly, but in community, in spirit, in hope. We are not each required to speak on every single thing, but when something close to our beloveds emerges, this for me is an invitation to participate.
I turn towards authors, friends, activists, and teachers who speak to my belief system on other topics and see how they bring together the nuance. I have been listening to Freedom Is a Constant Struggle - Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis this week and it’s so helpful to see how things relate to each other. If I believe in abolition how does that trickle out into understanding the rest of the world.
My heart feels broken in a number of directions these days and that feels like the clearest feeling to name. I lost a few of my most significant relationships this year, the collective grief that is upon us, and the loneliness of rural living lead me to the pain in my heart. Naming it feels like it becomes closer to releasing it.
I ask myself, how does showing up to the page with a broken heart work? How does turning away from my own life and towards service help heal this wound? How do I let my silence be just as deep of a well? I see the rush to take up space and the urgency to do so become just as damaging as the choice to say nothing.
Barney has a great newsletter this week on Silence as medicine. I felt into this this week especially not being on social media. The in between space between newsletters created so much quiet to process and integrate and learn.
I love whatever way you are showing up right now, let this be known as my truest truth. I love if you are writing grief essays, sharing the new metallic socks your company is selling, promoting the class you are about to teach, launching your new book. We need wild, colorful, imaginative art right now. We need to be rested for the long haul. We each have a part to play, and your part adds to the ecosystem of care. My part is different than your part, and thank goodness. I need someone to tell me what colorful socks to buy without hearing about war at the same time.
I need someone to tell me they wrote a whole book about what they care about so I can take a break from what I care about. I need someone to tell me about the greatest love story so that it may be a beacon of joy amidst sorrow. I need reality TV to keep being about everything and nothing at once so I can zone into the abyss. I need painters and quilters and dancers to make shapes so I can make my own meaning.
May each thing that you bring forth be a benediction of hope for a more just world. No matter if you are quietly caring for your family and learning slowly, or on the front lines of action. Each piece of our offerings create the whole. I am with you.
May you let your heart break a million times over, and while it’s breaking, act accordingly
You can check out the latest Friday Thread for my most recent list of what I’m paying attention to. Also known as - what actions are bringing me into hope. You are invited to participate in the comments there and add your own. My list is also below. Some additions here :
Another great newsletter from
- offering a beautiful lens on taking in news and information and the pressure of the “immediate response” as an autistic person
Jacqueline Suskin’s beautiful new book A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression is available for pre-order and I’ll be reminding you of this for months to come!
MY LIST :
Listening to or watching Democracy Now! for my news
Extremely inspired by friends who showed up in DC this week
Watching Bachelor in Paradise for numbing out
Quilting while I watch Dawson’s Creek
Calling Gary Peters daily and leaving messages - JVP makes it SO EASY to call your senator to demand a ceasefire now
Attended a teach in with the Palestinian Feminist Collective
Talking to neighbors and friends
Encouraging more conversations
Reading Freedom Is a Constant Struggle - Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis
Walking June even if it’s misty and rainy
Planning with Brenin where to put the humaure composting system
A portion of October’s paid subscriptions will go to the Palestinian Feminist Collective
I’d like to give my public gratitude to Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Jade Forrest Marks, and Dori Midnight - who have done so much to educate me and fold me in to this work as my friends and peers. We do not do this work alone.
Thank you shivani mehta bhatia for this
Not sure how I missed this when it came out, but reading now I want to thank you for your courage, vulnerability, humility, steadfastness, openness, and the craft of your writing that articulates what many of us feel. Thank you.
became a subscriber right now to say thank you for articulating the difficulty of these days and sharing action-oriented information.