On Saturday I spent nearly the entire day reading essays and articles online. In fact, at 3:00 pm, I was still sitting on my sofa drinking coffee and reading, where I’d been since 8:00 am that morning. It was only when a friend texted me to ask how my weekend was going that I realized what time it was.
What?!?! But what better way to while away the day, I say.
I’m astounded by how much great writing is available online, for free, that you can easily access with a computer and an Internet connection. I still much prefer to read actual books and actual newspapers, because I’m old school like that, but much of the best writing around these days doesn’t exist in those forms.
I subscribe to many, many newsletters, most of which are related to my work as a copywriter/marketer/freelance writer for hire, but my favorite newsletters are those more literary/writing/books/publishing-minded.
For example, The Lenny Letter, the weekly Longreads article round-up, and LitHub, to name three of my favorites.
It’s an embarrassment of riches, I tell you, one that I fell down the rabbit hole of for 7 hours yesterday.
Here are some of the best things I read during that reading binge:
This beautiful essay by author and co-owner of Emily Books, Emily Gould, on the financial costs of writing her first book:
This essay in which writer Leslie Jamison talks about her work as a “medical actor.” The word fascinating was made to describe work like this. Mesmerizing and gorgeously written.
From the afore-mentioned Longreads, this essay by Susannah Felts on her hometown of Nashville, and her impressions of the city’s changes during the many years she was away.
Girlhood Gone: Notes from the New Nashville
Pretty much everything on writer Mishka Shubaly’s blog, but especially this post on his anniversary of being five years sober, where he shares honestly what it’s like to be sober after a long drinking career, saying, “Yeah, I’m sober and I have a pretty decent handle on the whole ‘not drinking’ thing, but I’m still angry and depressed and resentful and irritable and insecure and self-loathing and anti-social and neurotic and detail-obsessed and high-strung.”
And finally, this wonderful piece I came across on Medium, by comedian and author Sara Benincasa. Very relevant for us creative types who sometimes wish we could practice our art of choice as our full-time job.
Real Artists Have Day Jobs: Your job is just your side gig.
Happy reading!
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