The Substack Podcast

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George Saunders, welcome to Substack Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

We are pleased to announce the launch of Story Club, a new Substack by beloved author and teacher, George Saunders. With its unique, educational, community-oriented structure, Story Club will offer a masterclass in storytelling and the craft of short fiction.

The concept is modeled after Saunders’ latest book, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, in which he unpacks a handful of short stories by four of the great Russian writers, considering how their stories work and why they move us. Saunders serves on the faculty of Syracuse University’s MFA writing program; the book was inspired by a class he teaches on the Russians.

With Story Club, Saunders and his community of readers will run with that idea, focusing on a new story each month. The selections will extend well beyond the borders of Russia, and Saunders will also invite his community of readers to help steer the curriculum. “I’m really excited about the spontaneous nature of this,” he said in our conversation, “and the fact that I can keep track of everybody in real time a little bit, and just as I do... at Syracuse, tailor the next class to meet what they need. So I think we’ll see stories from all over the world. I’m sure we’ll get to some fairy tales. In class, I’ll often use bits of movies and TV, because that’s a really interesting form of storytelling.”

Story Club’s posts will include essays and observations by Saunders, lessons on the elements of fiction, writing exercises, and interactive community features.

Saunders’ writing program at Syracuse admits less than one percent of applicants, only six students per year—MFA programs are by nature tiny and exclusive—but he sees Story Club as an attempt at democratizing graduate writing programs, or, as he puts it, “simulating a version of the MFA through Substack.” The privilege to study fiction alongside one of its greatest living practitioners has been available to only those fortunate few students each year at Syracuse, yet now, through Story Club, it is possible for anyone to join the community.

Saunders has kept his distance from social media—“I don’t do social media, because I don’t like it.” He describes Substack, in comparison, as “social media purified by conscience” and feels that it’s the right place for an endeavor like Story Club, “because [here] we’re all self-selected. This is a club based on mutual respect… I think the danger of social media is that you’re always feeling the pressure to say something right now. And with Substack, if I get organized enough (which I'm going to), it means that I can be starting something now, and when it’s ready, when it really has something to say, then I can release it to this self-selected community… The idea of being in some kind of real-time, quasi-personal touch with my readers is really exciting to me.”

Along with the community-driven exploration of great stories, Saunders’ Substack will also include his personal newsletter writing, and he plans to answer reader questions on craft and the writing life.

Saunders expects Story Club to serve as “a conduit between my readers and myself” and to reaffirm that “this writing life is not impossible. There are real people on the other end of books. It’s all about communication, and it goes in both directions. Part of what I offer my students is sort of a demystification of the whole thing. Yeah, it’s really hard. It takes everything you have. It obsesses you in every aspect of your life. But it’s also not impossible. And it’s a continuation of something you’ve been doing your entire life, which is trying to engage other people in your particular mode. I joke with my students that we’re trying basically to refine our charm: How are we charming, and how can we get more so, in prose? Sometimes I think the best thing a writing teacher offers is a little bit of positive reassurance. Just to say, It’s not impossible; you can improve… The real baseline ethos of Story Club is that idea: that we can all participate, and it will make any life better.”

Podcast editing and production by Seven Morris

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

Four years on Substack: A conversation with Bill Bishop, Substacker #1 Oct 15, 2021

Show notes

Four years ago today, Bill Bishop launched the first-ever Substack publication. It was his newsletter about China, Sinocism, which he had been writing for free for five years for an audience of policymakers, diplomats, academics, investors, executives, and journalists.

I had known Bill for almost a decade from my previous life as a reporter and was a regular reader of Sinocism. Around the time that we came up with the idea for Substack, Bill had been telling his readers that he was planning to introduce a paywall for the newsletter. I jumped into his inbox and suggested that he be Substack’s first publisher. Happily, he agreed!

Chris and I promptly flew to Washington, D.C., where Bill had recently relocated after 10 years in Beijing, and started figuring out how we could build the first version of the product around his needs. By October 2017, Bill was ready to launch, and on the 15th of the month he enabled paid subscriptions. By the end of that day, he had brought in six figures of revenue, heralding the arrival of two businesses at once: his own, and Substack’s.

To mark the four-year anniversary of the launch of Sinocism, I interviewed Bill for a special episode of the Substack Podcast (there it is, up there, behind the big play button). We talked about the early days of Sinocism, what he has learned from four years on the platform, and why he set sail for the world of paid-newslettering in the first place.

Says Bill: “It just really felt like there was a moment where the internet and consumers were ready for this kind of a model.”

I think he was right about that.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

Q&A recap: Navigating the pandemic with kids Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Last week, Substack hosted a briefing and live Q&A with health and parenting experts aimed at answering questions about the latest data on kids and COVID, including back-to-school safety, vaccine timelines, and risk trade-offs.

We organized the event in order to tap into the collective expertise of parenting and data expert Emily Oster and epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, two Substack writers who’ve been sharing valuable, data-driven information with their readers. By getting these experts together in a (virtual) room and in conversation, we hope to provide a resource for parents and anyone else grappling with making informed decisions as they navigate the ongoing pandemic with the children in their lives.

The discussion between Emily Oster (publisher of ParentData and bestselling author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet) and Katelyn Jetelina (publisher of Your Local Epidemiologist and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center) was moderated by Christina Farr (publisher of Second Opinion, health-tech lead for OMERS Ventures, and former health reporter for CNBC).

The Q&A covered a wider range of reader-submitted questions, with discussion touching on everything from shifting vaccine timelines for the under-12 set, to the unknown long-term effects of COVID in kids, to what to do if your child comes down with the sniffles.

Listen to the full audio transcript above, or watch the video below:

Read more from the panelists by subscribing to Emily Oster’s ParentData, Katelyn Jetelina’sYour Local Epidemiologist, and Christina Farr’s Second Opinion.

Want to hear more Substack writers get together in conversation? Leave a comment to suggest who you’d like to listen in on.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

Spotlight On: Fiction Writing with Elle Griffin of The Novelleist Jul 07, 2021

Show notes

Last Wednesday, we hosted a workshop with Elle Griffin of The Novelleist to learn about how to serialize fiction on Substack.

When Elle finished writing her first book, she began to research the best way to publish it, but what she found was distressing. 98 percent of books published in 2020 sold less than 5,000 copies, and traditional publishing offered few viable paths for less established authors to make a living. Elle summarized her learnings in a Substack post called, “The one where writing books is not really a good idea.” The article’s sharp analysis of the publishing industry hit a nerve, garnering the post more than 70,000 views.

In the article, Elle analyzes online platforms like Wattpad, Patreon, Amazon, and Substack as potential alternatives to traditional publishing. She makes the case that while there isn’t yet a perfect home for fiction online, Substack presented the most promising opportunity to publish and monetize her serial novel.

We asked Elle to host a Spotlight On because of the rigor with which she has approached serializing her fiction on Substack. Elle has also been uniquely generous to fellow writers in the fiction genre – finding and gathering nearly 500 writers in the Substack Writers Unite Discord group, and also spotlighting other writers on her own Substack.

The transcript has been edited for length and readability. You can listen to the full interview as a podcast in this post.

To sign up for future writer interviews and workshops, head here.

Why did you decide to serialize your upcoming novel on Substack?

After I finished writing my novel, I set out to do what every writer does: pitch it to agents. I pitched more than 120 agents, and they all rejected it.

As I was going through that process, I realized why all these agents were rejecting my book. It’s a strange little gothic novel. It’s a book that will appeal to a certain kind of person, but it won't appeal to every kind of person.

If you're a big publishing house, what you're looking for are blockbusters – the Dan Browns of the world who are going to write a novel that’s going to sell millions of copies. The publishing house takes 70% of those royalties, and that's how they fuel their business. Meanwhile, only 0.01% of books will sell more than 100,000 copies. In fact, 96% of books sell less than 1,000 copies total!

Well, my book is definitely not a blockbuster. If I'm only going to sell 1,000 or 2,000 copies – because that's about as big of an audience as I can picture – how can I effectively monetize it? If I put the book up for sale on Amazon for $3 each, then my family and 100 other people might find it, and I'd make a couple hundred bucks.

At the same time as I was researching the publishing industry, the creator economy was emerging. New tools are allowing creative people to monetize a really niche audience. It only takes 1,000 people paying $8 a month for a creator to make a living of $100,000 a year.

Writers were tapping into the creator economy through Substack, but most weren’t writing fiction yet. I knew writers charging people from $5 a month up to $40 a month; on Substack, there were people earning millions of dollars a year.

Here's this platform that already has the business structure ready to go, so I wanted to try it for fiction. If there are 1,000 people out there who are willing pay $8 a month to subscribe to my novel as a serial, then that would work out financially for me. I could fund my writing. After all, this isn’t a new idea. The Count of Monte Cristo, Charles Dickens, and more classic books were all initially serialized.

How have you grown your email list so far?

I started my Substack in February, and it has grown by almost 1,000 readers in the last two months.

In trying to grow my audience on Substack, I figured the easiest way would be to learn from other Substack writers. I stalked everyone I could find on Twitter who used the combination of the word “fiction” and the word “Substack” in a tweet. I messaged them and invited them to a Discord server so we could learn from each other. There are hundreds of fiction writers in the community now, all talking about what has worked and not worked for each of us. We have a little spreadsheet called “cross promotions” where we put in our Substack URL and genre so we can contact each other and exchange mentions of one other’s work.

But what was most helpful for growth was writing two articles that took me a really long time to produce. One took me all of 2020 to research. The other one took me another six months to research. Those two articles were about the publishing industry at large. It turned out that they resonated with people because publishing is a black box, and there are a lot of writers also trying to understand how it works.

I shared those two articles a bunch of different ways, including on Hacker News. You can share your link on there, and sometimes they go viral and sometimes they don't, but one of mine did. That article had something like 60,000 views in one day, and a lot of subscribers came from that one piece of writing that really resonated.

How are you approaching charging readers for a serialized novel?

Fiction writing is not the same as writing nonfiction on Substack. With nonfiction, you're expecting rolling admissions. You're getting new subscribers every month, and it doesn't matter where those new people start reading because the next article you publish isn't necessarily attached to the last one.

For fiction, the posts are sequential, so I’m following the funding model you see with an online course. In these courses, you have to take the first class before the second class. There is a clear order, and people running courses often open enrollment just once a year. During those enrollment periods, they send tons of promotional communication encouraging people to sign up for their course. After that period, the promotions die down.

That's how I'm going to approach it with my novel. September is my “enrollment period.” My plan is to publish the first four chapters in September to my entire newsletter list for free. At the bottom of each of those posts, I’ll tell readers that in order to keep reading in October, they’ll need to subscribe and pay an annual fee. I’m charging $10 a month or $50 a year, so my hope is to encourage everybody to buy into the full year in September – essentially, they’re buying the whole book by doing so. When October hits, my audience should be locked in. Everybody will be signed up to get the book as paid posts, and all of them will be receiving installments at the same time.

I plan to do this same process every year. This first book will be done in June. I'll have July and August off, and in September, I’ll start my second book. So there will be a new book in the same window of time as when Substack starts saying to readers, “Hey, by the way, your annual subscriptions are about to renew.”

I think this annual approach is easier on writers who aren't used to asking for money because you just need to do so once a year, and then you can focus on writing.

Elle’s extra tips for fiction writers

* Use sections to delineate different topics and chapters. In addition to writing her novel, Elle publishes a Substack newsletter about fiction writing. She uses Substack’s sections feature to separate her posts into categories for readers, and shares in her demo (above) how other fiction writers are using sections to guide readers through the chapters of books.

* Prepare for readers to join mid-story. Update: since this workshop was hosted, we have created a feature that allows writers to enable “next” and “previous” buttons on their posts in the Publication Details section of the settings page. This allows readers to quick navigate to sequential post.

* Consider paid plans unique to fiction writing. Elle plans to publish four free chapters that go out to her entire list. After that, her chapters will be gated and paid. Elle noted that you can also try a founding member plan. Sasha’s founding plan includes a print copy of the book when it’s completed. Learn more about how to customize your subscription settings.

Hoping for more tips on how to start a fiction publication on Substack? Join Elle’s Discord community here.

Spotlight On is a series of live events hosted by Substack. The goal is to learn from writers across categories who have experienced success on Substack. Stay tuned for our next events here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

Spotlight On: Local News with Tony Mecia of The Charlotte Ledger Jun 24, 2021

Show notes

Last week, we hosted a workshop with Tony Mecia of The Charlotte Ledger to discuss covering local news on Substack.

Tony worked in journalism as the business reporter and editor with the Charlotte Observer before he decided to strike it out on his own. He started The Charlotte Ledger and grew it the old-fashioned way, building relationships locally and relying on word-of-mouth from friends. Today, The Charlotte Ledger is a thriving business with a team of freelancers and regular contributors.

Writers like Tony have paved the way for independent local news on Substack. In our workshop, we brought together the greater community of local news writers to learn from Tony’s experience and absorb best practices for local news publishing on Substack.

Hamish McKenzie, the co-founder of Substack and a writer himself, hosted the interview with Tony and discussed his journey publishing, growing, and going paid. At the end of this post, we also share Tony’s quick tips for polishing your newsletter.

The interview has been edited for length. You can listen to the full interview as a podcast in this post.

To sign up for future writer interviews and workshops, head here.

Why do you care so deeply about local news?

My background is in local news. I worked as an editor and reporter here in Charlotte for more than 10 years. I saw the connections that you can make here reporting, and how important it is to have somebody in your local community who is watching out for citizens, not paid for by marketing or advertising, and who can actually report honestly and straightforwardly. We've lost that, especially in smaller to mid-sized markets like Charlotte.

As local news in Charlotte weakened, I started looking at my options. I wasn’t going to move somewhere else. I don't want to move to Washington or New York for a job in journalism. I've lived here for more than 20 years. My home is in Charlotte and I care about Charlotte. So I thought, well, maybe I can start something.

At this time, there were a lot of national newsletters – Morning Brew, The Hustle – but there weren't a whole lot of folks using the newsletter format as a vehicle to report original local news.

Tell me about the moment you decided to go independent. What were you most nervous about?

The difference between writing nationally and locally is that your potential audience is a lot smaller when local. If I'm writing about cybersecurity or technology or national politics, the whole country may read that. Charlotte's a city of about 900,000 people in a county of 1.1 million in a region of 2.3 million. But I just thought, let’s try it.

I started in March of 2019. The first editions went to 12 friends and family members. My mom was very happy to get it. I posted it on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, since our focus is business-adjacent news in Charlotte. I asked that folks read, and if they liked the writing, that they please tell people about it. I had no idea what was going to happen.

What I found was the readership just kept growing. The total list is just a very steady upward line. That made me think, okay, I've got something here. We were publishing three mornings a week, and it was all free at that point.

How did it feel making the leap to paying subscribers?

The Charlotte Ledger was free for almost an entire year. The typical advice from Substack is to wait three months, or less in some cases, before going paid. But I was nervous that our growth would slow down once because we'd be putting a lot of writing out for paid subscribers that would no longer be shareable.

That actually hasn't been true. That first day when we turned on the paid subscriptions, I expected that a handful of people would sign up, but money just started pouring in. It was a few thousand dollars, and I thought, wow, this actually resonates with people. People are willing to pay for this.

It was a tremendous feeling. It wasn’t as if it was so much money that I could retire, but it was a good feeling to know that what you're producing is worth something to somebody.

If I had to do it over again, we probably wouldn’t have waited an entire year before turning on paid subscriptions. That hesitancy was just because of my nervousness. Waiting a year, with no income, with no revenue coming in is a long time. It worked out – my wife works, and we had some severance from a previous job and all that – but in hindsight, we should have turned on paid a little faster.

Why did you decide to cover business news rather than just local news in Charlotte?

I'm not opposed to doing local news, and we do a fair amount of general news, but our theory has always been that we want to do writing that's better than what's already in Charlotte, and we want to do writing that's different than what's already in Charlotte.

The number of business reporters here in Charlotte had declined, and I saw an opening content-wise. My background was in business news. It’s something that I knew and felt comfortable covering. There's a pretty big market for it in Charlotte. We’re a business town with banks and tech companies. It's a pretty big city. Business writing also has the advantage that if the newsletter is useful to an employee, they can charge the subscription cost to their company as a business expense.

What wisdom can you pass on to other local news writers who are considering Substack?

Two things. First, it's hard for journalists whose background is in reporting a story to all of a sudden have to think like a business person. But you need to think about your audience. There's a temptation with local journalism to think, “I'm writing about Charlotte, so anybody in Charlotte is going to be interested in it.” To succeed, you’ll need to hone that down a little bit more.

Ask: Who are you trying to appeal to? And how will you find them? You need to think strategically about who the people are who are most likely to read your work, then determine where they hang out physically or online and how you could reach them where they are. Use your marketing or business brain on those strategy questions.

Second, you're not alone. I've gotten a lot of good advice from fellow local news writers – City Hall Watcher in Toronto, The Mill in England. I'm not saying that we've got all the answers, but we've done this for longer than most people in the local news space on Substack. Steal good ideas from other people.

Tony’s quick tips for local news writers

* Don’t overthink your paid vs. free strategy. The Charlotte Ledger has days of the week where their posts are free. Their “paid days” are Wednesdays and Fridays. On occasion, they cover free topics that may be outside their publication scope because the team believes they may be shareable.

* Let free readers know what they are missing. For every paid post, The Charlotte Ledger sends out a shorter “teaser” version to their free subscribers. If free subscribers want to read the rest, they need to subscribe. Because of this tactic, The Charlotte Ledger sees new subscriptions even on “paid days.”

* Include guidance about subscribing at the top of every email. “Although we don’t want to be ‘annoying,’ we do have to think like a business.”

* To promote locally, consider partnerships. There are no magic growth hacks with local news. Instead, you’ll need to do a lot of little promotions consistently. Partner with a variety of people in your community to get in front of different groups. Tony has partnered with Charlotte’s local radio station, local Facebook Groups, and even hosted an awards show to ensure members of his community bump into The Charlotte Ledger.

* 10,000 readers is a useful benchmark. If you believe you can build a list of 10,000 free readers, you have a strong chance of converting 10% (1,000) of those people into paid subscribers. That’s enough to support a livelihood.

Hoping for more tips on how to start a local news publication on Substack? Check out our comprehensive playbook here.

Spotlight On is a series of live events hosted by Substack. The goal is to learn from writers across categories who have experienced success on Substack. Join us for our next Spotlight On: Fiction with Elle Griffin.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

Spotlight On: Investing & Finance with Mike of Nongaap Investing Jun 11, 2021

Show notes

In early June, we hosted an interview with Mike of Nongaap Investing to discuss finance writing on Substack. Mike is a former activist investor who writes about investing, corporate governance, board dynamics, and the power of incentives.

We asked Mike to speak in part because he’s a lot of fun, and also because Mike’s an inspiring example of the success we are seeing many finance and investing writers experience on Substack. He’s doing so well that he even turned Substack into his full-time focus and sits among the top paid publications in our Business category.

Linda Lebrun of the Substack Partnerships team hosted an interview with Mike and discussed his journey publishing, growing, and going paid. At the end of this post, we also share Linda’s quick tips for polishing your newsletter.

The interview has been edited for length. You can listen to the full interview as a podcast in this post.

To sign up for future writer spotlights and workshops, head here.

What surprised you most about what happened when you started writing on Substack?

The biggest surprise was that anyone would even read my writing in the first place.

My goal was just to become a more focused thinker for myself, not for anyone else. To get such a positive response very early in the process was a shock. I’m still shocked, even today, that anyone would pay to read my stuff. I just checked, and I think I’m number two in the Business category. That there are enough people out there that not only want to read about corporate governance but want to read it enough to pay a few dollars a month, remains amazing to me.

What benefits did writing have for your career as an investor?

The forward button for a newsletter may be the most powerful networking tool you’ll ever have. That endorsement is social proof of someone who followed you forwarding your writing on to someone they respect.

I tell folks who are trying to break into the investing world not to wait until they are in an interview or pitching a stock to put themselves out there. Your writing or thinking doesn’t have to be perfect to get started. Think of writing as a journey where you are iterating and demonstrating how you look at the world and how you think of the world. Doing that will help you find other people that respect and align with your own perspective, instead of trying to purpose-build a pitch or a stock thesis retroactively.

It seems that meeting people has been even more satisfying than the business value you’ve seen from your Substack.

Absolutely. I think Substack is an even more powerful networking tool than a business tool for the average writer. You can 10x or 100x your professional reputation as long as you stay authentic with what you’re trying to do. People pick up on that, and you’ll build a real bond.

The people who you really want to reach in life – the really interesting thinkers – everyone in the world wants to get an introduction to them. Few things actually open the door like a thoughtful piece focused on that person’s company or preferred style of investing. If you say something thoughtful, they’re more likely to come to you than they would in any other networking effort. You’re demonstrating that you would be an interesting conversation.

What are key pieces of advice you have for writers who are just getting started?

Don’t be afraid to grow slowly. There’s sustainability when you’re willing to go slow.

I know there’s pressure to build up your subscriber base as quickly as possible. That’s a valid way of doing it, but for me, it was important to not feel like I needed to push all of my writing out at once because that wouldn’t have been sustainable. You need to make sure that you find a cadence that fits your style and your life, because this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Substack is a business, but it’s also a personal development tool, a networking tool, and for me, an opportunity to get better as an investor. You’re going to get better with every piece you put out, and you’re going to slowly build an audience that will hopefully help you push the forward button and spread the word.

Linda’s quick tips for finance & investing writers

* Customize the “About” page to explain what readers can expect from you.

* Customize your “Thank you for subscribing” email. Consider including examples of some of your best past posts so new readers can dive right in.

* Include a preview image before you share a post. Consider using Unsplash to source images.

* Fill out your writer profile to demonstrate knowledge about the topics you cover.

* Social sharing helps people know your publication exists. Two helpful, simple tips for promotion: include your Substack link in your social media bios and pin a Substack post to the top of your social media profiles.

Spotlight On is a series of live events hosted by Substack. The goal is to learn from writers across categories who have experienced success on Substack. Join us for our next Spotlight On.

Should we be hosting a Spotlight On session with you? Tell us more about your Substack here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

Substack Podcast #022: Pandemic economics with Nathan Tankus Aug 13, 2020

Show notes

For the final episode of this season, we spoke with Nathan Tankus of Notes on the Crises, who writes about the pandemic-induced global depression and how policymakers should respond to it. Nathan started his newsletter at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in order to analyze the economic impacts of the global crisis.Nathan has been recognized as a prominent voice in economic policy. His newsletter has followers ranging from journalists to economists, including those working at the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of the Treasury. We talked about why Nathan decided to write about the pandemic, what it’s like to write in the field of economic policy, and the Bloomberg profile that skyrocketed the success of his platform.We’ll take a brief pause as we wrap up this podcast season, but stay tuned for more conversations next month. Let us know if you have suggestions for who we should interview next season!Links* Notes on the Crises, Nathan’s newsletter* Nathan on Twitter* A 28-Year-Old With No Degree Becomes a Must-Read on the Economy, Nathan’s Bloomberg profileHighlights* (1:35) Why Nathan decided to start covering the pandemic* (7:44) How Nathan built his initial following* (24:28) The role of credentials in the field of economics* (35:26) How a Bloomberg profile led to achieving his long-term goals* (57:39) Nathan’s thoughts on monetizing his newsletterOn writing about a crisis:Of course, crises are terrible things. But the one thing that analysts really relish in a crisis is that it's very easy to make a crisis, and analyzing what's going on in the crisis, your full-time job. Because it's such a timely and urgent issue, there are people who are always willing to have these conversations with you and to argue with you. It's the perfect instigator for public conversation and debate. On having the ability to write freely:I was writing so much that first week. I wrote 21 pieces for Substack. I wrote one piece for another publication in a month. I was publishing a piece basically every weekday. That scale, that pace – there's just no other publication that's set up to do that kind of thing, especially not in the freedom that I had to just focus on it and do it the way I wanted to do it. Doing it myself was just complete freedom to define it how I wanted to.On his decision to focus on one topic:For other publications, it's not necessarily "news" to say the same thing ten different ways. But I felt it was news. To really understand the pandemic ... you can't just read one piece that explains it to you. It has to be something that you engage with day in and day out for weeks.TranscriptNadia (00:00:31):You write Notes on the Crises, which covers in your words the play-by-play of the current pandemic-induced global depression and how policymakers should respond to that. I remember seeing your name pop up around mid-March. You started your newsletter on Substack at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. What prompted you to start writing?Nathan Tankus (00:00:51):Well, I hadn't really been paying attention. I had a lot of other things going on, a lot of other things that I was focused on. I hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on. I sort of vaguely knew what was going on, especially because I was following the Democratic primary, but not in detail. Then, March 9th was the first time I got a wake up call about what was going on. That was when free market trading on U.S. Treasury securities - when the prices went way up, which means the interest rates went way down.Nathan Tankus (00:01:35):We actually temporarily hit negative interest rates on some U.S. Treasury securities. That really made my eyes open up wide, and try to understand exactly what was going on. Around the same time, the oil price collapsed. Those things were signals to me because generally, the interest rates on U.S. Treasury securities fall because people expect that the Federal Reserve is going to cut interest rates a lot, and that they're going to hold them low or at zero for a long period of time. Generally, the Federal Reserve does that when there is a big recession.Nathan Tankus (00:02:28):That was the signal to put the market stuff aside and put whatever else was going on in my life aside and figure out, “Wait, what actually is going on here? Why is there a big depression coming?” I started reading up, thinking about the coronavirus, and started thinking through the implications of what we really were facing … reading some of the epidemiology literature backing the projections of what was going on, especially the College of London study that came out early on. That made me really wake up and think, this is the big one. No one in my life really gets it.Nathan Tankus (00:03:13):None of the people who are outside of the economics world really get it. Even the people within the economics world who I regularly engage with, they aren’t fully taking seriously the implications of what was going on. No one was really being paid to really spend all their time to focus and do that. I had been thinking about starting a Substack for a while to produce my own commentary. I had some other projects that I wanted to finish first, but this seemed to take precedence for me over all of that. It was time to just try to get out early, and try to do as much as I could to find what was happening.Nadia (00:03:55):It's like the perfect research problem. Because you're already well positioned to be thinking about this kind of stuff. You were working in a research capacity already, right? This is the most timely thing you could focus in on full-time.Nathan Tankus (00:04:08):Yeah, exactly. Of course, crises are terrible things. But the one thing that analysts really relish in a crisis is that it's very easy to make a crisis, and analyzing what's going on in the crisis, your full-time job. Because it's such a timely and urgent issue, there are people who are always willing to have these conversations with you and to argue with you. It's just the perfect instigator for public conversation and debate. With the collapse of journalism and the way that economic policy is structured in the United States, there was a real gap that I could fill. I think my experience over the last four months really shows that I was right in my estimate that if I started writing right then, it would be something that could define a real turning point in my career.Nadia (00:05:25):Which seems to be playing out already.Nathan Tankus (00:05:27):I mean, it couldn't have played out much beyond what I could have ever imagined.Nadia (00:05:30):Really?Nathan Tankus (00:05:31):I had some sense, but as I announced recently, I'm planning on turning Notes on the Crises into a full fledged publication, hiring guest writers, and hiring investigative journalists to investigate some things around the state unemployment insurance systems for me. I just could never have imagined having the resources to do that before this. I sort of had the idea I could have a decent, nice income like the Bloomberg profile talks about. Everything from the Bloomberg profile on me since has changed the scale of what I could do.Nadia (00:06:18):Yeah. You've had a really incredible trajectory. I have an entire section of this interview devoted just to talking about the Bloomberg profile.Nathan Tankus (00:06:23):Sure.Nadia (00:06:23):I'm excited to dig into all of that with you. I'm curious, you're saying that you felt like when you started writing, no one you really knew was talking about it. Nobody even in the economic circles that you were in were talking about it. When you started writing, were you thinking of having this be for the economic circles that you're involved in, or to make this entire situation palatable to a broader public audience?Nathan Tankus (00:06:46):I think I always thought of it as both - as really engaging the people I was in the economic policy conversation with, and writing broader things to make what was going on more accessible. I'm definitely still thinking of this as a two-tier thing. The thing is, there are people who I think broadly agreed with me about the scale of the crisis. But they're just not writing every day the way that I could. They didn't have the freedom. Even if they could write frequently, they didn't have the freedom to take a research perspective of trying to break down all the set of interrelated issues, and try to do it the way I was doing it.Nathan Tankus (00:07:44):The other thing is that I was writing so much that first week. I wrote 21 pieces for Substack. I wrote one piece for another publication in a month. I was publishing a piece basically every weekday. That scale, that pace - there's just no other publication that's set up to do that kind of thing, especially not in the freedom that I had to just focus on it and do it the way I wanted to do it. Doing it myself was just complete freedom to define it how I wanted to.Nathan Tankus (00:08:30):The other thing is, a lot of what I was doing was repetition, different ways of saying the same thing. For other publications, it's not necessarily "news" to say the same thing ten different ways. But I felt it was news. Because it's one thing to hear that it's a worse crisis than the Great Depression. It's one thing to hear it's the worst unemployment situation, far worse and far faster than the Great Recession. But to really understand that, to really have a grasp of what that means and the scale of the problem you're talking about, you can't just read one piece that explains it to you. It has to be something that you engage with day in and day out for weeks.Nathan Tankus (00:09:18):Then it fully starts to sink in, the scale of what we're talking about. Definitely when I was starting to write around mid-March, the scale even in economic policy circles wasn't being taken seriously. We're still not anywhere near responding to the crisis with the scale that it requires. I was talking about leaving a $3 trillion package just for households alone, let alone state and local governments. And leaving at least $1 trillion for state and local governments just over the first four months or six months or so. We still haven't reached that scale. That definitely was not the economic policy conversation that was happening in March. I was already, from the word “go” basically, making that point - talking about how the CARES Act, the big thing Congress ended up passing, which they did pass quickly, was far too small. That definitely was not the conversation, even among people who understood that we were in a big recession.Nadia (00:10:34):It's interesting to just think about the opportunity that presents itself when you have these big crises like this, this particular pandemic being the most extreme example I can think of, where it's a time when suddenly everyone you thought was an authority maybe isn't an authority anymore. No one really knows what's going on. Everyone is searching and grasping for anyone with a coherent narrative on the story. It seems like you were really well positioned to be able to do that.Nathan Tankus (00:11:01):Yeah, I was well positioned because that was my experience in the last crisis. What got me interested in economics was having this feeling that this was the most important thing going on, and that the assigned experts didn't really have a good handle on what was going on. That was fascinating to me. There's danger in that. Things aren't about crises all the time. Up until the public health crisis, I don't think we were necessarily facing some big economic crisis that was happening or going to happen in the next few years.Nathan Tankus (00:11:37):It had been over a decade since the 2008 crisis. When your introduction is a crisis, there's a danger of expecting that crises are going to happen all the time, which is something I had to be wary of. Entering that way, the advantage is that when crises do happen, you are prepared for them. You can think about what is often missing in the conversation during those crises, and what would be useful to someone who is just trying to get a handle on economics and a handle on the crisis in the moment, on the fly.Nadia (00:12:25):I'm particularly intrigued by this lack of gatekeeping that seems to emerge, even outside of crisis mode, in the realm of economics and finance-related writing. There are just so many prolific writers that are available at anyone's fingertips on the Internet. We've seen a lot of finance writers on Substack. It feels like there is this alignment with the idea of independent writing and this particular area of study. I'm thinking about Byrne Hobart - he writes finance and focuses on business on Substack. He also doesn't have a bachelor’s degree and has written about the experience of being hired at a hedge fund without one. Why do you think this particular vertical lends itself so well to a lack of gatekeeping? What comes to mind for me is maybe money as the ultimate metric or credential. But then is the converse also true, where in other fields of study, where there aren't these clear metrics or numbers involved, maybe those verticals are more likely to gatekeep than in economics or finance?Nathan Tankus (00:13:27):I think there's two layers. First of all, there are two different things there. There's gatekeeping and credentials in finance, and then there’s gatekeeping and credentials in economics and the economic policy conversation. They're a little distinct. For finance, I think that there are credentials. There are things that people are seeking, but they're not necessarily educational credentials. Finance is more of a quirky culture. It sees itself as distinct from the hierarchies that exist elsewhere in society.Nathan Tankus (00:14:04):Often, they're looking for a certain type of thinker or a certain type of person. Ultimately someone who can do the work that has some alternative way of proving their credentials besides an educational credential. They're ultimately looking for a product. They're looking for something useful. I think in the economic policy conversation, it's less that there aren't gatekeepers, but that there are people who can shepherd you. In the same way that with a golf club, you don't need to have a golf membership. You just need to be brought in by someone with a golf membership who decides to bring you in. I think that's what happened in the economic policy conversation. Someone following you on Twitter is a bit of an endorsement. Someone tweeting out your pieces is somewhat an endorsement, sometimes a really strong endorsement.Nathan Tankus (00:15:16):A lot for me was Joe Weisenthal and Bloomberg. Joe, as soon as I started writing, helped me. We've been friends for a while, and people who’ve talked and engaged for a long time. As soon as I started writing, he was super supportive. Tweeted out every piece really, really aggressively, along with the most extreme praise that you could possibly give someone as a writer. Him and then others - Miles at Yahoo Finance, various people put their weight behind what I was putting out there. People were then just engaging and arguing with me. David Beckworth from The Mercatus Center was quoted in the Bloomberg profile, and he did a big interview with me talking about Treasury issues, the coronavirus crisis, and the Federal Reserve.Nathan Tankus (00:16:25):I had a lot of people who were engaging me and taking me seriously, and having these back-and-forths gave me the legitimacy and signaled that I was really someone they needed to pay attention to. I…

Full show notes at the publisher

Substack Podcast #021: Cookbooks with Paula Forbes Aug 07, 2020

Show notes

We spoke with Paula Forbes of Stained Page News, a newsletter about cookbooks. For her, it’s a place to geek out about cookbooks - where she can write about news, recipes, and upcoming releases. Paula has a multifaceted view of the culinary world. She worked as a professional cookbook critic for over a decade, writing for publications like Eater, Epicurious, Lucky Peach, and Food 52. She also has a background in cooking for restaurants, and in 2008 she published her own cookbook, The Austin Cookbook.We talked about the worlds of food blogging and cookbook writing, what makes a good cookbook, and what it was like for Paula to write her own cookbook after years of reviewing them. Links* Stained Page News, Paula’s newsletter* Paula on Twitter* The Austin Cookbook, Paula’s cookbook Highlights* (2:23) Paula’s writing journey, from writing cookbook reviews to blogging to starting her newsletter * (12:38) Why people buy cookbooks, even though so many recipes are online now* (18:42) How the 2008 recession coincided with the rise of food bloggers* (25:44) Paula’s favorite types of cookbooks, and the overall qualities that make good cookbooks * (37:34) The process of writing a cookbook On similarities between cooking and writing:The feeling you get from cooking in a restaurant and writing a solid blog post that goes up really quickly is very similar to me. A very speedy, quick strategy is involved. You have to be very efficient.On having a community of newsletter readers:I think that in the grand scheme of things, you're never going to make it rich with a cookbook website or TV show. But being able to focus on a self-selecting audience who has said, "Okay, I'm interested in this topic. I'm interested in cookbooks. I want to hear what you have to say about them.” It amplifies what you're saying so much more.On the process of writing a cookbook:It's a hell of a process. You have to be so organized and you have to be just on top of everything. It's so much more data than just writing the text of the thing. Cookbooks are so much work and I have so much respect for anyone who tries to write one.TranscriptNadia (00:22):We see a lot of food writers on Substack, but your publication, Stained Page News, stood out to me because you're specifically focused on cookbooks - which just said to me that this person isn't just really into food as a broader topic, but you have this truly geeky obsession with cookbooks specifically that I really want to hear more about. How did you come to fall in love with this topic?Paula (00:44):Way back when I graduated from college, I originally thought that I wanted to go to grad school and go into academia. And what I wanted to do was ... This was not really a thing that existed then, but I wanted to look at food cultural history of the 20th century through the lens of books as a literature.Paula (01:19):I applied to grad school a bunch of times and didn't get in because people kept saying, "You're a great candidate, but we don't have anyone here who can help you study that." So, in the meantime, I started writing book reviews, freelance, for a Typepad blog because this was what, 2007, 2008? And then later for outlets and I've been covering cookbooks ever since.Nadia (01:52):Wow, this got me even more excited about this topic. So, you really are coming at it from a researcher mindset way back in the day of wanting to just understand cookbooks as a genre, it sounds like, before you got into writing. You mentioned writing on a blog in the early days and then writing professionally and now you have a newsletter on Substack - how does that experience of early blogging compare to writing today?Paula (02:23):That's why I started the newsletter, it’s because I missed blogging. So, I started writing cookbook reviews and later just about everything else for a blog called Eat Meat Daily that no longer exists. And they looked at the liberal arts of food. It was art, it was film, it was books. And just generally weird stuff with a good sense of humor.Paula (02:52):So, I started there and that was a very late odds style blog. And then from there, I moved on to writing for Eater, which is a different style of blog.Nadia (03:13):So, for folks who haven't read Eater, can you tell us a little bit about how it's different?Paula (03:23):I can't really speak to their current style of blogging, but when I worked there, it was very quick hit news, re-blogs, everything with a sense of humor - sense of humor and a point of view of restaurant insiders. But the two were different and that one was very much ... Eater was very much volume-driven when I worked there, so it was very much get in, get out of the story. Get it up, have the best headline, that kind of thing.Paula (04:02):And I missed that. I also have a background in cooking in restaurants and the feeling you got from cooking in a restaurant and writing a really solid blog post that goes up quickly is very similar to me. A very speedy, quick strategy is involved. You have to be very efficient - so figuring out how to do that in my head scratches the itch of like, "Okay, now I'm working." And that doesn't really exist anymore in media, near as I can tell, at least not in my circles.Paula (04:48):So, I missed it. I missed talking about cookbook news which I didn't really see anyone doing. And I just started tweeting stuff. And then, people started picking up stuff I was tweeting and I was like, "Well, this is not great because I'm a freelance writer, and I would like to be making some money off of the scoops I'm finding." There is one in particular that was after Anthony Bourdain passed away.Paula (05:29):They announced that they were going to be publishing a book that he had been working on when he passed away. And so, I tweeted about it and everyone linked to the tweet. People magazine linked to the tweet. It was wild, and I was just like, "Why am I just throwing the stuff up on Twitter when I'd be writing it?" So, that's a very long way of saying that the newsletter scratches both the quick hit, how much information can you relay in one sentence thing that I got from blogging, and also fills the hole of the cookbook news that I wasn't seeing other places.Nadia (06:14):That makes sense. It sounds so simple but I feel like the addition of an email list really just changes that relationship. Even if you have a popular blog post and it goes super viral and everyone is reading it, you never really know who's on there and they kind of go off into the ether and do something else. But when you have a place for people to subscribe and get more of it, then it's you're actually building this relationship within an ongoing audience.Paula (06:41):Yeah, and especially with a topic like my topic which is so focused. I think that in the grand scheme of things, cookbooks are not ... You're never going to make it rich with a cookbook website or TV show or whatever but being able to focus it at a self-selecting audience who has said, "Okay, I'm interested in this topic. I'm interested in cookbooks. I want to hear what you have to say about them.” It amplifies what you're saying so much more.Nadia (07:13):I'm curious whether you feel like you've created a different sense of community because you're this independent writer at the center of your work versus writing about cookbooks and reviewing them on say Eater or Food 52’s communities.Paula (07:29):Gosh, not really. I don't allow comments on my newsletter.Nadia (07:35):Oh, interesting.Paula (07:37):So, I actually did on today's newsletter but it's a rarity for me. The newsletter management for me is very much about the path of least resistance in many ways. And it came down to: did I want to spend a ton of time moderating comments? And I've decided that that was not for me.Nadia (08:03):I really like that. I respect that. Actually, I noticed that you started writing Stained Page News a few years ago and then you went on hiatus and then you brought it back. And I just thought it was great because a lot of writers struggle with getting into this rhythm and feel maybe over-obligated to do more or maybe respond to or moderate comments or write all the time and consistently. Do you have any advice or learnings from this experience of being able to step away and come back again?Paula (08:36):Yeah. Gosh, how did that happen? I mean, the money is the big part of that, not to get into the weeds about the money - but as a freelancer, you can only spend so much time on things that don't pay. So that was part of why I stepped away, just I couldn't excuse it anymore. I couldn't make the time and I wasn't about to give up weekends or anything. You know, freelancers deserve downtime too.Paula (09:07):So, having an outlet where I could make some money off of it was honestly a huge, huge deal for me. I priced it pretty low, I think. It's five bucks a month and I did that specifically because I know that things come up where you can't do it occasionally and I didn't want people to feel like we're paying her 20 bucks a month or whatever it is, and then she doesn't write. That's not to say ... I write pretty much every week.Paula (09:45):But things come up. You get sick. You want to take a vacation, whatever. It's not going to happen every week, but I do think that if you're consistent in your publishing week to week, you will see it in open rates and you will see it in click-throughs and you will see it in the number of people who respond to the newsletter and it snowballs for sure.Nadia (10:09):You mentioned one of the reasons for stepping away is that you couldn't justify it as a non-paid thing you're doing versus the other paid work you had to focus on. Had you considered doing paid subscriptions previously? I know you did end up adding them when you moved to Substack.Paula (10:28):I didn't. It hadn't really occurred to me as an option. I had tried to figure out how to do affiliate links. Amazon doesn't let you do affiliate links and emails as I'm sure you know and people listening might not know. But I was doing a thing where I would send the email and then I would put the text of the newsletter on my website, but I really have to completely reformat it just so I can put in the Amazon links and then no one was ever using that.Paula (11:01):So, it's this huge thing and I was just like, "There's just no way. There's no way I'm ever going to be able to make money off of this." You all made the paid subscription thing really easy honestly.Nadia (11:16):How has having paid subscriptions changed your relationship with your writing if at all - since I imagine it does allow you to focus a little bit more time on that?Paula (11:25):Yeah. I feel a responsibility to my readers even though I tried to price it affordably. I'm never, ever, ever going to take for granted the fact that someone would give me money to read an email from me. So, I definitely take that into consideration. For example, recently, I used to send my newsletters Wednesdays and Fridays because new cookbooks come out on Tuesdays so I wanted it to be when books would come out and also that there had been articles written about the books would run Tuesday or Wednesday when food sections publish also.Paula (12:11):So, the Wednesday articles are the free article and the Friday issue was the paid and I was noticing that the Friday paid issue was kind of skimpy. So, I moved it to Tuesdays so that there would be more time and more time for things to happen so that I could give my paid subscribers a meatier issue every week.Nadia (12:38):That makes sense. I'd love to just dive into cookbooks themselves since we've been talking about you and your publication a bit, but you also write about this really fascinating topic that you have a lot of insight into. I would love to just maybe kick things off by talking about why people buy cookbooks.Nadia (12:57):I think about the cookbooks I've received from my mother. She loves cooking. I do too, and so food has become this way for us to bond - especially when I was younger and making that transition from angsty teenager to a person that my mother can actually converse with.Nadia (13:13):And so, my experience of cookbooks has been that they bring us closer to other people or remind us of a sense of place. Does that align with what you've seen? Why do people buy cookbooks in a world where so much cooking now happens through online recipes?Paula (13:29):Sure. I mean, gosh, I think there are tons of reasons why people buy cookbooks. Where do I start? So, first of all, I think that there are two different ways that people react or interact with cookbooks, which is that some people are very recipe-driven. I'm going to follow this recipe. I'm going to panic if I have parsley and not basil. I'm going to frantically text my friend, Paula, to see if I can cut it down to serve four instead of eight, that kind of thing, because I do get these texts.Nadia (14:07):You must be that person for all your friends.Paula (14:11):And then the other people who just glance at it and, "Oh, kale, potato, sausage soup, great." And just do whatever they want. So, I think you start there. So there's just two schools of people. The people who are real sticklers for the recipes are the people who are buying very generalist cookbooks. I'm talking about The Joy of Cooking or New York Times Cookbook, those kinds of things, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.Paula (14:42):But also a lot of the books that are like weeknight dinners, the healthy food that still tastes good, basic pastas, those kinds of things, things that are very action-oriented. So, those consumers of cookbooks, people who are like, "I'm buying this book because I literally want to make this thing for dinner."Paula (15:04):Then you have the other people who are buying them for inspiration for ideas, launch pads, and those are people who are maybe buying more restaurant books, international cookbooks, books that are very visual. There's also professionals buying cookbooks and there's also people who are buying them to read them as literature. And there are people who are buying them as status objects to have on their coffee table.Paula (15:38):And there are people who are buying them as souvenirs. I went to this restaurant on my vacation and then now I want their cookbook as a totem of that time that I spent at that restaurant. So, I think there's a lot of different reasons that people buy cookbooks.Nadia (15:56):Yeah, sounds like it. You had a little brainstorm right there. Do you find that cookbook publishers nudge authors into appealing to one of these certain kinds of markets the way that we might expect an editor for someone who's writing in journalism to maybe nudge them towards certain kinds of audiences? Does that happen with cookbooks?Paula (16:21):Absolutely. I would even take it a step further and say those certain publishers tend to publish different books for different audiences. I mean, that's not 100% true across the board, but if you look at Phaidon for example, they are known for doing these big artsy chef and restaurant books from renowned chefs around the world. But then also they do these “food bibles” where it will be the big book of Irish cooking - or those are the most recent ones. That's not the title but it's called The Irish Cookbook.Paula (17:01):Anyway, they've done them for Indian, Thailand and Mexico and all these different countries. So, they gear that way, these big books. You got Ten Speed which does a lot…

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Substack Podcast #020: Gen Z with Terry Nguyen Jul 23, 2020

Show notes

We spoke with Terry Nguyen of gen yeet, a newsletter about Gen Z culture, memes, and trends. Her honest and thoughtful writing covers youth culture on the Internet, technology and consumer trends, and generational commentary – all with the goal of demystifying and humanizing Gen Z.While Terry’s day job is writing at Vox on cultural trends, she started her newsletter because she wanted to share “a Zoomer’s perspective,” pushing the narrative around how people consider her generation and what it’s like to be a young person today. We talked about differences in media coverage toward Millennials and Gen Z, the relationship between Terry’s writing for Vox and her newsletter, and why it’s important to reframe how people think about specific generations. Links* gen yeet, Terry’s newsletter* Terry on Twitter* Gen Z Will Not Save Us, Charlie Warzel’s opinion piece in The New York Times* Rebecca Jennings and Taylor Lorenz, cultural reporters who write about Internet culture* normal beautiful people, Terry’s post where she writes about getting tired of TikTok* Why millions of college students and young adults won’t get a stimulus check, Terry’s Vox piece about coronavirus’ impact on college studentsHighlights* (07:55) The contrast between media coverage of Gen Z and Millennials * (18:17) How Terry balances analyzing the world through her personal lens and synthesizing the bigger picture* (21:05) Why Terry chose to focus on one topic, and what Gen Z thinks about Substack* (32:45) How Terry balances writing for her full-time job at Vox and for her newsletter* (39:48) Emerging Gen Z themes On writing about a topic instead of herself:I felt like writing about myself would be really boring. I don't think anyone would be interested in what I'm doing. I don't have any fascinating hot takes. I did feel like centering around a topic, and especially a salient topic that wasn't too niche that could be expanded upon, like culture and technology and memes...I felt like that just gave me a lot of room to latch onto whatever interested me.On the long-term relevance of writing about Gen Z:I don't know when the conversation will shift. But I do think having a pulse on youth culture while I'm young is an interesting thing. I don't know how I’ll feel about it when I'm like 35, I haven't really thought deeply about the future of that yet. But I do think there is a period of time, very certain key social and political events that define every generation, and I hope to be around for the one that defines Gen Z.TranscriptNadia (00:29):Something I really like about Gen Yeet, just from reading through it, and maybe this is the perspective of a millennial coming through, but it seems like a lot of people that write in public about Gen Z are trying to make it seem really cool and mysterious and hard to understand, because it's, I think, that illegibility that builds their brand and makes them this go-to expert on this topic. Even when it's this earnest take, it seems like it's sort of ... I get the sensation of a bemused tourist looking at a rare species at the zoo.What I really like about Gen Yeet is that you don't do that. You write these really thoughtful essays about Gen Z that aren't really trying to be overly cool or hint that you know more than the reader. You're just a person who understands the stuff and is thinking and writing about it. Does that analysis resonate? Can you say a little more about your writing style?Terry (01:23):Yeah, so what was really interesting to me, in the past year, since I started to create this newsletter, was that Gen Z and youth culture on the internet at large got a lot of attention from a lot of major media publications. It's kind of shocking to see how much more people are now covering that space. For me, my goal has always been to sort of demystify and make it seem like, oh, Gen Z, as with all generations, are just humans. We're socialized during a specific period of time, but I would say that the way we see the world is also very similar to the people before us, because our parents and our teachers and our brothers and sisters are also Millennials, Gen Xers, or Boomers.Terry (02:06):My goal with this newsletter was to give it a little voice, because I felt like a lot of, as you mentioned, the reporting was just sort of earnest. Within the past couple of weeks, we've really seen this sort of explosion into the political mainstream as well, with them realizing, oh, TikTok has political power, and Zoomers know how to organize. My goal is just to really be approachable and be someone readers can relate with, as well.Nadia (02:35):Can you talk a little more about the move into the political sphere? I think there was the Trump rally, maybe, that happened recently. Is that sort of what you were thinking about?Terry (02:45):Yeah. AOC, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted out when the Trump rally sort of ... There was this news that K-Pop stans and teens on TikTok kind of merged forces to reserve an overwhelming amount of tickets for a Trump rally, and it turned out to be the day of, that not a lot of people were showing up, and a lot of people from the resistance, people from the left, were really excited to see this sort of youth activism. I really think that was the first time that a lot of people came to think that, oh, these platforms and these sort of apps and communication styles can serve a political purpose. There's a lot of fascination and a lot to dissect from that. But right now, I think, this sort of mainstream narrative, although there have been writers who've come out and said to be wary of saying that one generation is politically inclined.Terry (03:43):I do feel like people have this impression that Gen Z are really liberal or even really radical because of the period of time that we grew up in, but I do feel like that's going to be a topic of discussion probably in 2020 and beyond. I feel like 2016 was the first election I was able to vote in, but 2020, there's definitely more younger people than me who are able to vote, so I do feel like this topic is going to gain a lot of relevancy in the coming months and years.Nadia (04:19):My first perception of people talking about the power of apps and software tools that we have to play a role in the political sphere started in 2016-ish. My sense of it early on was that a lot of it was almost sort of nefarious and talking about, just like outside interference, and how are these things being manipulated to control us unsuspecting people, or whatever. It's interesting to hear your take on the Gen Z lens of, it sounds like maybe it can be a positive thing of, oh, there are people who understand how to use this in interesting ways that maybe we don't understand, which is similarly still just like fetishizing, I guess, but maybe has a more positive spin on it.Terry (05:05):Right. I do feel like it is a double edged sword, because people are now thinking more critically about how tech platforms are being used. For Gen Z, a lot of us, kind of, are digital natives, depending on how young you are. You might have always been acquainted with the internet or have always had a smartphone, even when you were like, I don't know, 10, 11 or 12. I personally did not have a smartphone until I think I was 14, but still, that's, for a lot of older people, this technology is relatively new. I think we're all discovering the potential of it. That's where it's a little concerning and a little like, we don't know what the unknown is going to be like. I do feel like Gen Z is on the horizon of pushing the boundaries of what can be done with being online, through youth activism, organizing groups using tools like Google docs, or Google sheets to organize information and make it more accessible for other people.Terry (06:07):We definitely saw a lot of that around the Black Lives Matter protests with a lot of people sharing information. But I do feel like a lot of these tactics and skills were also adapted from the early users of the internet, from Gen Xers and Millennials who've been on these possibly older platforms, and platforms that have moved forward before Gen Z. So, I do feel like it's important to think of that, not in a vacuum, but also around technology developing as a whole.Nadia (06:36):It's like the behavior is the same. It's just the tools themselves are changing over time.Terry (06:42):Right. Exactly. I feel like, every couple of years, platforms gain relevancy and then they disappear. I know around the early 2010s, Tumblr was a really big thing. It wasn't until 2016 when people started scrutinizing, I think, 4chan and Reddit really deeply, but those platforms have always existed. It's just how much we pay attention to them, I guess has shifted.Nadia (07:07):Related to that. You talk about how the news coverage of Gen Z seems pretty overall positive at the moment, borderline this fetishizing sort of thing. You shared some theories and a recent issue about how that relates to how Millennials were treated in the media. I have these strong memories of being a millennial when there are these endless, strange headlines about like, look at all these crazy things that Millennials do. From that, I had just assumed like, oh, it's because I'm the youngest generation at the time, and there's this tendency for everyone to make whatever the youngest participating generation is to look like this exotic creature. But it sounded like you were speculating that this might not be the case, and the tendency to look at Millennials the way we did and look at Gen Z the way we did is this newer thing. Can you talk a little bit more about that?Terry (07:55):Yeah, so what's interesting was, I feel like Millennials were the first group that this generational theory was really adapted in the press. I really felt like Gen Xers had that treatment, but with Millennials being on social media, you could consume a lot more media coverage and see a lot of commentary about millennial culture than I think Gen Xers did. Gen Xers usually had a cover story and time or Newsweek. People didn't have to associate with that label, but on social media, you're confronted with millennial bashing a lot more frequently. I do feel like that has led Millennials, especially who are the younger culture writers, who are analyzing internet trends and reporting on the younger generations like teenagers and adolescents, I do feel like there's a sense there that they want to portray as accurately and to do it well and to not undergo the same experience that they did from older writers who might not really understand them or social media or their habits, necessarily.Terry (08:59):I do find it interesting that it's sort of like a balancing field, and no generation is a monolith. When you're writing about this, it's quite easy to assume that a group of people operate or feel a certain way. I think my theory in the latest newsletter was that we shouldn't always assume that these people hold these views just because that's the dominant narrative of it. We should think deeper about how people born during this period of time could be very different from one another.Nadia (09:32):I wonder whether it might, itself, turn into this genre of journalism or coverage. I don't know what you would call it, but just like generation-centric journalism. Or does that fit into some other broader category of covering culture or events or something? Is it going to develop into its own genre and carry some of these risks with it?Terry (09:58):I feel like it has always been sort of a trope or a genre for cultural writers. If you look back in the 2000s and 2010s, The Atlantic also did a lot of pieces like that, analyzing the Millennials. Now, sort of the same thing is happening at Gen Z, but there's just a lot more coverage around internet culture, and that's particularly where a lot of young people are and a lot of what they're doing. I feel like that coverage has already led to the mindset that when you think of Gen Z or a young person, you automatically think about certain things. For example, TikTok is a really big one that has happened over the past, I think, since 2018 and onward. I find that really fascinating. I do feel like, whenever we do a culture story, you do have to think about the types of people you're reporting on. Gen Z happens to be a default characterization in the same way that someone's race or someone's location or demographic. That becomes in of itself a categorization.Nadia (11:01):What are some of the nuances that you think are being missed about, if Gen Z is not this monolithic concept, what are some of the sub-categories that you would break it down into?Terry (11:11):Yeah, I do think Charlie Warzel in his New York Times opinion piece that I cited in my last newsletter, he had a really great piece called, Gen Z is Not Saving Us, and he kind of summarized a lot of what I was thinking, that there is, despite this very loud ... there's a lot of loud liberal voices happening among young activists, and that's really promising to see. But I do believe that there's sort of this undercurrent of people who might not share these views and they're still being socialized and politicized online. I also want to mention that there's been more specific ... I guess there's more inclusion in the coverage that I've seen about Gen Z. There's more coverage of queer teens, and there's a lot more coverage of black and brown teens from solely their perspective. I felt like Millennials didn't necessarily have a lot of that coverage and it was still very much new.Terry (12:02):In doing my research for that newsletter, I researched when was the first article about black Twitter, and there was one in 2010. Their approach to it was just so insular that it sort of shocked me at the rate at which writing has progressed and our reporting and how we think about these niche spaces that the reporter is only looking into, and they're not treating it as a foreign space, but they're trying to become more a part of it. I do think a lot of cultural reporters have done that really well. I would say my colleague at Vox, Rebecca Jennings, does great work, and Taylor Lorenz at the New York Times. She's very well known for her TikTok stories and her focus on teens specifically. I do feel like there are a lot of culture writers sort of pushing the boundaries and narratives of how we should think about this generation, which is honestly, a great thing.Nadia (12:52):I guess I hadn't really thought about that before, but yeah, when I think about classic millennial type coverage, it's like the avocado toast headline or something, which is a very homogenizing way to look at Millennials. It seems weird and old-fashioned now to even think about compared to the way that you see Gen Z being covered, which feels more like this collection of strange little communities and villages or something like that. Yeah, I'm wondering how much of the conversation about Gen Z is being driven by what's being written in traditional journalistic outlets versus independent content creators. Since you've kind of touched on the Gen X time or Newsweek coverage, all the way down to Gen Z coverage just being a lot more driven by what's happening on TikTok and millennial bashing and things like that. Where do you see the center of the conversation happening and where is that narrative being driven?Terry (13:56):I really do see it happening a lot on TikTok right now. If you want to know what young people were thinking, that's the first place that a lot of people think to go. I do think that's a good t…

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Substack Podcast #019: Mental Health with Fiza Pirani Jul 16, 2020

Show notes

We spoke with Fiza Pirani of Foreign Bodies, a newsletter that destigmatizes mental illness, centered on immigrant and refugee experiences. Fiza’s created a community of people who resonate with her vulnerability and mission to give a voice to populations that aren’t typically featured in mainstream media.Fiza was born in India and lived in Saudi Arabia before moving to America, and she personally struggled with depression and a lack of belonging. As a journalist, she felt compelled to write for an audience who might share similar feelings. Fiza curates essays and the latest news coverage on the immigrant experience and mental health. She also shares personal stories and photos, expert interviews and research, and community resources and shoutouts. We talked to Fiza about her personal experiences with mental health, why her writing appeals to a wider audience beyond immigrants and refugees, and how she builds trust with her readers by being vulnerable.Links* Foreign Bodies, Fiza’s newsletter* Fiza on Twitter* Issue #14 of Foreign Bodies, which features psychologist Sharon Lo’s advice for having conversations about mental illness* How Telling My Immigrant Parents I Contemplated Suicide May Have Saved My Life, Fiza’s Teen Vogue article * The Carter Center’s Mental Health Journalism Fellowship, which helped Fiza launch Foreign Bodies * How not to be sad, Laura Deming’s article on sadnessHighlights* (02:29) Why Fiza left her traditional newsroom job to start telling immigrant stories* (14:39) The meaning behind the name of Fiza’s newsletter, Foreign Bodies * (19:57) Why mental health is particularly challenging for those who don’t feel like they belong* (38:34) How Fiza launched Foreign Bodies through a reporting fellowship * (42:13) Common challenges that mental health journalists face On talking about stigmatized issues:There are discussions that I feel like I haven't really been able to have growing up—maybe they've been stigmatized—about mental illness, about identity, so that connection is definitely very intimate for me. On publicly sharing her personal story: I felt like I had a story that needed to be told, and I think almost everyone has a story that they feel needs to be told. And it really was just about being okay with publicizing that and letting your vulnerabilities be on the screen or on paper or wherever you want to pitch your story.On feeling a lack of belonging: The only word that I've really been able to associate my identity with is the fact that I've always felt foreign.TranscriptNadia (00:42):We'll get into Foreign Bodies itself in a bit, but I'd love to start by just having you talk about: how did you arrive here from a personal standpoint, why is this topic important to you?Fiza (00:53):Oh, man. Let's see.Fiza (00:58):Well, I, myself, am an immigrant, so I definitely ... There are discussions that I feel like I haven't really been able to have growing up, maybe they've been stigmatized, about mental illness, about identity, so definitely that connection is definitely very intimate for me. I was a journalist, or I am a journalist, but I was with the newsroom for about four and a half years.Fiza (01:30):And I always knew that writing was in my blood. My mom is a storyteller, my daddy, my grandma is a big storyteller, will remember everything about everything. And I definitely feel like once I got into the industry, I noticed there was a huge focus on audience and catering to an audience, your audience are subscribers, the people that have been loyal to you.Fiza (02:03):And what I quickly noticed was there wasn't so much of an emphasis of that immigrant audience, which makes up such a huge portion of the American population. And the more I researched, the more I realized that there really are very few publications, at least in mainstream media, few focuses on the immigrant experience at all.Fiza (02:29):And I remember when I was in the newsroom, I left almost a year ago-ish. I left because I was getting burnt out, like completely. And one of the things that was burning me out was not being able to feel like the people from my background, my fellow immigrants, they weren't really being heard by mainstream media, which I was a part of, but I felt kind of helpless.Fiza (03:03):And all that after 2016 kind of started weighing pretty heavily on me. You had the travel ban, you had the women's march, you had so many social issues kind of like building up. And not really feeling like you have much of a voice when you're a part of the free press in America, kind of added to the burnout that I was already feeling as someone who lives with depression.Fiza (03:34):And for me, I felt like the only way to combat all of it was to have some kind of departure, and I don't know, figure out how to do something on my own, and that's how I ended up saying goodbye to that full-time journalism position and figuring out what to do next and how to incorporate the immigrant audiences across the country and helping them have their voices heard.Nadia (04:09):That's really beautiful, I love hearing that. It's interesting, I'm also a child of two immigrants and I feel like I often connect with people across a lot of different cultures from this immigrant experience of either having come here when they were young or being born to parents who came here.Nadia (04:33):And it is actually a very pervasive experience throughout the US, and I also think the immigrant experience in the US is particularly unique in that I just feel like there's nowhere else that gives you a shot at being American in the way that we extend to foreigners.Nadia (04:54):And so part of me is like, it's so cool that I feel totally 100% American and almost even more American, because I have immigrant parents, it's like it is the quintessential American story. And then in other ways it's almost like you get so assimilated that way that people sometimes forget that you're not just like them or you have this different background.Fiza (05:18):Yeah, and what's interesting is like what you were saying earlier, the experience is so pervasive that even if you're a first generation or a new immigrant, there are some things that somehow we're all kind of dealing with, or it's a foreshadowing of what we will deal with, like the future generations.Fiza (05:37):If you're a new immigrant, what you're experiencing, nearly full assimilation, is like what they can expect their great grandchildren or their grandchildren or their children experience. And so there hasn't been a significant amount of research on how we cope with the differences across generations, but as you said, it's so pervasive.Fiza (06:02):Like we know what to expect if you've been here for a long time, which I find really interesting. Each new immigrant generation still struggles with the same issues despite us kind of having a blueprint of how it's been.Fiza (06:22):And what you mentioned about how America is like so, I guess I won't say welcoming to immigrants, but we do encourage foreigners to assimilate in a way that makes everyone comfortable, but then nowadays you question: who is it really making comfortable?Fiza (06:49):And so, yeah, I mean, that's what I thought of when you mentioned how assimilated you feel right now. Because at least for me growing up, like I was born in India and I left for Saudi Arabia when I was not even a year old. And before coming to America, I spent like four or five years in Saudi Arabia, so that's where I learned English for the first time, and I attended an American school there. And when I came here, I just couldn't ...Fiza (07:25):Like just growing up, I struggled to find my footing here. I felt like I was so disconnected from Indian culture. I didn't even spend like a month there or more than a few months in India before I left. I definitely didn't feel connected to Saudi Arabian culture. We left because we didn't have religious freedom there.Fiza (07:54):And then when I was in America, we traveled all over the place to help my parents figure out their career and become physicians again like they were back in India and in Saudi Arabia. And so I just feel like I never ... I think from the outside looking in, it definitely looks like I fully assimilated. My English is very, I guess, American or however you would want to call it, but I wouldn't ever say that I feel like I found a home here, which sounds so strange.Fiza (08:32):I mean, I've been here since I was like five, but I just, I don't know what it is. I don't think I was ever really comfortable saying that I fully assimilated maybe because I haven't really adhered to one culture over the other or haven't been able to figure that out, I'm still figuring it out.Nadia (08:50):Do you feel like there's a different place that is your home or you're just sort of living between lots of different realities?Fiza (08:57):I definitely feel like I'm living between lots of different realities. Atlanta has been our location, like our home base for quite a long time, and so I've grown to really love Atlanta as a city and the people here, but I talk about this with my therapist. Obviously I talk about mental illness a lot and so probably will mention to my therapist every now and then.Fiza (09:25):But I talk about something that has always kind of been the root of my issue with belonging and depression is not really feeling the borders made much sense to me. I never felt American...the soil of wherever I was standing didn't really connect to my identity. And so when I was going through depression, that was like a huge thing, I just felt like I didn't belong anywhere.Fiza (09:54):And one of the best things that I got out of my first stint in therapy, I think around 2017, was falling in love with nature, as cliche as it sounds. But I learned to feel more connected to the earth as a whole and not so much think about the boundaries that we've created or like civilizations created as long as we can remember, and that's really helped me find some grounding.Nadia (10:28):Hmm, I really love that. Because as you were talking, I was thinking about where are the ways in which I feel like I belong, and I think I've sort of clung to this American idea or America as an ideal that anyone can belong to for similar reasons maybe, to the way that you're describing your relationship to nature where ... I guess for me it feels like I can belong here because I really believe that anyone can belong here, in a different sort of way.Nadia (10:58):I mean, I was lucky to still be born and grow up in the same country, but I had and continue to have these fractured relationships with different cultures in that both my parents are also bicultural. My dad is Persian, but he grew up in Germany basically his whole life, and my mom is Indonesian, but she's ethnically Chinese Indonesian.Nadia (11:21):I've never really been able to belong to any one of their cultures, and then they themselves are like fractured versions of their own cultures, and then somehow we all ended up here. And so it is definitely this strange experience of, especially when you're growing up in ... I don't know what your neighborhood was like growing up, but for me I grew up in suburban Pennsylvania was just like you're like the one that's not, the only one that's not-Fiza (11:49):Oh yeah, that was-Nadia (11:50):... that's like everyone else with a suburban background.Fiza (11:52):That was pretty much my entire life. I think I went to like, I want to say 11 or 12 different schools before I graduated high school. And I mean, we moved based on rankings. So once we were in Georgia. I mean ... And even when I first came to America, we were in Houston and then we were in New York, and both times the schools I went to were predominantly white.Fiza (12:16):And then I came to Georgia, and I mean, it was really, really predominantly white, every school I went to. And I mean, my parents would literally pick us up and move districts if the school rankings changed. It's only recently that we've had discussions about redlining, and what it all means and how we were kind of complicit, but then it's like you're chasing whatever you think is best.Fiza (12:47):But yeah, I mean, I definitely know that feeling of like forever being the odd one out. And it's funny I went through my entire, I think like 18 years, it wasn't until college, I went to college in Atlanta here and it wasn't until college that I told people to call me Fiza, my real name.Fiza (13:10):I went by Fiza for like 18 years, and it's weird. I used to make my family call me Fiza, and I guess I thought that was cooler. I feel like I had a lot of learning and unlearning to do once I got older, and was able to recognize all the different ways that I kind of assimilated in a way that wasn't really healthy.Nadia (13:41):I'm really glad I asked how to pronounce your name last minute before I started. I remember there's another guest, Nikhil, who tweeted something similar, this is like, "It's so strange that everyone else pronounces my name Nickel, but there's no reason that everyone should assume it's like this long i, because it's actually Nikhil. My dad as he was growing up, his name's Reza and for some reason, R-E-Z-A, but people always think it's Riza, and then he was just like, "Why? There's a reason why it should be Reza, it's obviously Reza."Fiza (14:11):Yeah, I always thought it was Riza-Nadia (14:12):Riza.Fiza (14:12):Because I guess I have one friend named Riza.Nadia (14:18):Who might actually be named Reza if you ask.Fiza (14:20):Yeah, I should probably ask him.Nadia (14:24):Oh gosh. Yeah. Could you actually talk a little bit about the meaning behind the name Foreign Bodies? Because I found the explanation that you give on your site to just be so marvelous and touches on this aspect of leaning into our differences and just learning to embrace and be proud of them.Fiza (14:39):I can't tell you exactly like how, why I first came up with Foreign Bodies, but the more I kind of sat with it ... The term alien has always been kind of irritating. I mean, I didn't become a citizen until I was in my early twenties, even though we applied like for over a decade, it just took a really long time.Fiza (15:10):And so I remember the term alien always attached to my citizenship. And I mean, I went from a kind of alien to thinking about being called a foreigner and how offensive I always thought of it, but then when I spoke to my brother who was actually born in America, in Houston, he never thought of it as offensive, and so it just made me think about the words that we use and how.Fiza (15:41):I wanted something that made you question like, "Is it okay to just call yourself a foreign body?" Why would you call yourself, give yourself the word that people might use to instigate and might use against you? And I wanted to embrace that because the only word that I've really been able to associate with, like my identity with, is the fact that I've always felt foreign, no matter where, like no matter if I was like ...Fiza (16:13):I'm sure I haven't even been back to India since I was born, but I know that once I go back I am not going to feel very at home because of all the stories that I've heard with my friends who have been, so and so are so-called like Westernized or Americanized going back home and feeling a little bit out of place.Fiza (16:35):I know I've always felt foreign, in every classroom I've felt foreign, even at mosque because people called me .…

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