Here’s what this newsletter will be about, and how you, too, can join the party.
Image: Em & Friends
Dear Friend,
I’m a writer who has been through a thing or two and lived to tell the tale. I bet many of you are, too (because, life).
My 83-year old father, like many wise people, say it’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s how you respond to what happens to you that matters most. But my motto is:
It’s not what happens to you but how you write about it.
I say this glibly. I tend toward gallows humor. But I also find this to be true. When you understand that life gives you content, and not just suckage, it becomes a tiny bit easier to make it through.
Writing has been my way of not-sulking through the kind of hard things that make, break, or reshape you. Writing has been my way of connecting with a world outside my head. It’s been my path to staying (relatively) sane.
I wrote through breast cancer, a double mastectomy, and chemo. I wrote through the first (and, I thought, last) Voldemort administration. I wrote through a car crash on the highway in which I broke my neck. I’m still writing through my dear neighbor’s death at 61 and my best friend from childhood’s early death two weeks later and my mother’s sudden accidental death six months after that. I’m still writing through my partner’s multiple layoffs and my family’s downward financial slide. For more fun stuff, you’ll have to wait for the next book—it’s my third. I promise it’s not doom and gloom. It’s also not the opposite. What it is, is real. (It’s currently out on submission, so it won’t appear until, earliest, 2026. In the meantime, I might share snippets now and then in this space. Please stay tuned.)
TLDR version:
I’ve been laugh-crying my way through the past chunk of years, years that have been characterized by monumental change in my own life and in the world. And this, I sometimes believe: if we can make meaning or beauty on the page, if we can go through that which we aren’t sure we’ll survive (or, as my friend CJ Lonoff the Wise says, Grow Through It) and again find beauty/humor/joy, if we can ease each other’s suffering here on earth by finding the words that help us all feel less alone, then no matter what’s happened to us, we’ve won.
So, What Is WHAT THE FLUX?
I’m creating this weekly newsletter to share writing in and through times of great tumult, personal and political. Often, both. I’ve been writing and publishing for many years. Much of what I written of late wraps around stories of family with sharp feminist (and other) commentary woven through. For the writers among us, I’ll also be sharing resources and inspiration—a quote, a comic, a link to an upcoming class, or a book recommendation or two.
Image: Em & Friends
I’m still experimenting, having been on this here platform (Substack) for all of five minutes. So thank you in advance for bearing with me. I think I know where I’m headed, thanks to a fabulous workshop that helped me figure out why I’m on Substack in the first place with Substack Writers at Work guru and my dear friend .
For now, everything I’ll share is totally free. There’s an option to “pledge” should I decide to put up a paywall and offer paid content or live writing coaching sessions or workshops through here, and I thank you in advance to any of you who decide to pledge because you wish to see this grow.
Every other week I’ll share a flash personal essay or a snippet of a longer essay (under 1,000 words)—mine or yours or another’s. It might be fresh. It might be something already published somewhere. It may very well be a work in progress.
It could also be a poem. I don’t write poetry, but I love poetry. Reading poetry makes us better writers. I also believe that poetry saves lives. (Rest in power, Nikki Giovanni.)
In terms of essays, what I’m looking for is crafted and descriptive. It’s not: “This horrible thing happened and I lived.” It’s: “Early in the pandemic, my partner lost his job. My neighbor Diane found me crying on the sidewalk worrying about how we’d make our mortgage. That Friday night, and on Friday nights throughout the pandemic, Diane showed up at our door with a mouth-watering feast for my family of four—grilled chicken, asparagus, babaganoush, chocolate pudding cake—that lasted us through the weekend. My heart grew another chamber. She taught me how to neighbor. She was, and forever will be known to my family as the Challah Fairy of Crain Street….”
If you’ve written or come across an essay or a poem that you think might fall into this category of big-change-happens/meaning-is-made and would like to submit it for consideration, please feel free to share a link in comments, or message me. (If this takes off and I can’t keep up, I’ll create a better way to submit.)
We all encounter the hard changes. None of us gets through unscathed. Some of us write about it from time to time. This newsletter is for those who are interested in words that help us grieve, process, protest, critique, or, when called for, surrender to what is. Words that help us be more human, words that help us heal.
Consider this newsletter company for the journey for people who don’t love the word “journey.” Bleh.
I hope it speaks to you. If you know someone you think would like it, please feel free to share.
Everything’s better when we’re not alone.
We word on,
Deborah