Darklings! (Shut up, David.)
Earlier this summer, I had the chance to participate in a new series called Substack Originals (produced by Cash Studios) that highlights the quality of work and diversity of voices on the platform through beautifully produced videos. Filming it made me think about how far we’ve come—a small newsletter we started almost two years ago with a smattering of subscribers to a full-fledged community, here to learn from, support, and laugh with each other.
With the video series now premiering, I wanted to take the opportunity to reintroduce myself and the Listening in the Dark newsletter to those that have been here from the start and those new to the community. (HI! WE’RE ALL-CAPS-LEVEL EXCITED THAT YOU’RE HERE!)
Though many podcasts, newsletters, and other creative endeavors were born during the first year or so of the COVID pandemic, I wasn’t moved to start this newsletter until I found myself sifting through the disorienting years that came after. At the end of 2021, I dealt with a number of devastating losses, the largest of which was losing the man who was like a second father to me, my writing mentor, poet Jack Hirschman. I wrote about that catastrophic grief and finding my way through missing him and missing just…everyone and everything I had once thought so permanent. I described it as feeling like “I [had] been walking around for the last two years feeling like a body spit out by a tornado, having no idea where I’ve landed, what’s happened to my life, the people I love, or what the future holds.”
I wanted to feel a sense of reconnection, of writing to and for people again, a sense of creative and restorative reciprocity between our broken spirits and the world we found ourselves living in. In fall of 2022, I published my seventh book, Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition. I launched this newsletter with the same intention that anthology carried: to help rekindle a connection to one another and to our intuitive selves. That connection felt severely ruptured—if not severed—in many ways from everything that occurred between 2020 and the start of the newsletter in January of 2023, and I wanted to write about all of it. You know, just some super chill, low-stakes stuff.
With the help and incredible support of managing editor, Aly Sarafa, (Aly, do not even try and cut this sentence!!) we have spent almost the last two years building an incredible community of thousands of like-minded folks—many of whom I’ve gotten to know through our weekly Good Riddance chats, one of my favorite things that we do here—and have shared everything from my favorite summer dips to essays on my history as a political activist and my work as a writer, director, and actress. We’ve had Q&As and writing prompts from some of the greatest living authors and video interviews with some of the most inspiring leaders across industries. We couldn’t have done it without the support, passion, and kindness of this community. We’re truly honored you’re here. (Yes, we really, really mean it every time we say it in our email headers!)
All that being said, there’s a change in the air. (Literally, it was 46 degrees Monday night here in Upstate New York.) Last week, we test ran a very impromptu live gathering over Zoom after my week-long trip to the Democratic National Convention. I loved it so much, I decided to make it a regular feature called The Short and Sweet, an hour-long live Zoom I’ll host each month for our paid subscribers. (No relation to Sabrina Carpenter’s recent album of similar name…unless that makes you want to upgrade your subscription, in which case this is fully endorsed by Sabrina Carpenter…unless she sees this, in which case, please (please please) don’t sue us.)
We’re going to roll up a bunch of our favorite paid series into The Short and Sweet: A Reading + Prompt, but make it live over Zoom! Here, Take This, I Love You giveaways, but make it live over Zoom! Political discussions, writing workshops, intellectual discourse about how Glen Powell is so basic and yet so insanely hot—but live on Zoom!
Mark your calendars, The Short and Sweet will have its first official get together on Sunday, September 29th from 1-2pm ET. The link will be sent to paid subscribers thirty minutes prior to the Zoom, but stay tuned for more details here in the meantime!
As always, thank you for being here and making the LITD community what it is.
With love,
Amber + Aly
In addition to those linked in the piece above, below are a few more of my personal favorite posts we’ve published on LITD since our inception:
Special Sunday Edition: The Case for E. Jean Carroll and the Fight to End Silence
Tits to the Test: My First Mammogram: Putting the humor back in cancer screenings.
Champion of the Chapbook: A look inside the old art form.
Medieval Female Mystics, Motherhood, and Listening to Your Gut with The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino
Check out all of our previous Good Riddance chats here, including my greatest hits, “Helping my mom clean out her storage locker,” “That time I somehow got three paper cuts on the SAME DAMN FINGER??” and “Giving my dog a haircut that traumatized my child.”
Extra special shoutout and thanks to the Cash Studios creatives behind the video series: Writer and Director, @Ivan___cash; Co-directer and Lead Editor, @Meatntomatoes; Director of Photography, @Peterpascucci; and the entire team at @Cash_studios and Substack that made it all happen.
Declaring My Love for You: A Celebration of Our Community