Seven literary(ish) Substacks you should subscribe to, stat.
Have you heard the news? Critics and culture writers who miss The People’s Twitter (TM) have been flocking to Substack in search of communal pastures. Jami Attenberg’s popular #1000wordsofsummer project first appeared on the platform, as an offshoot of her newsletter, Craft Talk. And other literary heavy hitters like George Saunders and Mary Gaitskill have enlisted the form as, respectively, a writing class and a spicy musings laboratory. But is Substack, in fact, the future?
In some ways, the periodic missive is a tricky proposition. Because the ideal newsletter isn’t precisely an essay, which wants an editor. It’s also not precisely a list. The perfect offering is some pithy animal in between.
Here are a few subs that I think nail the brief. Subscribe, and rejoice.
Ann Kjellberg’s Book Post
The product of Ann Kjellberg, a former NYRB editor, Book Post is “a bite-sized newsletter-based book review delivery service, sending well-made book reviews, by distinguished and engaging writers, direct to your in box.”
Readers can expect the kind of thoughtful criticism that we’re always lamenting these days, in Lit World. And then there are memoir gems. Like this 2021 piece from the late Maryse Condé.
Brandon Taylor’s Sweater Weather
Taylor’s sporadic newsletter skews essayistic, but in this case that’s a plus. The author of (most recently) The Late Americans has carved out a non-fiction wheelhouse in sharp craft lectures and searching literary criticism. But this novelist’s close reads of Zola and Wharton are scarcely heady. In his letters, Taylor often makes surprising connections to contemporary obsessions. As when Lily Bart of The House of Mirth proves “analogous…to influencer merch culture.”
Taylor’s one of our shrewdest writers, and it’s mighty fun to tango with his confident, muscular analysis. Subscribe “to support a sweater-oriented lifestyle.”
Hamilton Nolan’s How Things Work
Nolan, formerly of Gawker 1.0, has honed his brisk, bracing, BS-less tone in these frequent letters on labor, politics, “power, and how it is wielded.” This sub gets into everything, from unions to the “questionable value of universities.” It’s one of my favorite political letters, not least because Nolan tends to leave readers with ideas on praxis in addition to the erudite analysis. You’ll find no despair in these hot takes.
Jessa Crispin’s The Culture We Deserve
This one is another capacious letter with, well—culture—on its mind. Subscribers can expect a mixture of features and reviews. Some of them are from contributors, but most are from Crispin herself. Stay for the thoughtful discourse on tradwives, “operawashing,” divorce season, and the “horror of gendered embodiment.”
Sarah Thankam Mathews’ thot pudding
This newsletter feels like the best of the old internet. Mathews, the author of All This Could Be Different, writes brief, warm, messages “about fiction, power, beauty, and how we live.” Her letters skew diaristic. The tone is frank and genuine. A recent series kicked off with a plausible “Hello, friend.”
Subscribers can expect heart-forward ruminating on where art and activism can meaningfully meet, and great reading lists.
Margaret Killjoy’s Birds Before the Storm
As a musician, history podcaster, fantasy author, and anarchist thinker, Margaret Killjoy keeps busy. Her weekly newsletter is always galvanizing. She writes of and about a radical political tradition, but the tone here is that of a patient guide.
This musing on our imprecise words for ideology is a great introduction.
Laurie Stone’s Everything is Personal
Stone’s missives fall under the umbrella of observational memoir. From what one infers is a lovingly tended bungalow, Stone shares reflections from all points of life. Generous and convivial, this Substack invites its healthy readership to approach the world with wonderment. Think Annie Dillard.
I’m especially taken with how Stone writes about a long love.
Elif Batuman’s The Elif Life
Here be dispatches from another novelist! In this regular letter, Batuman, author of The Idiot and Either/Or, applies her droll wit to chatty musings on the nature of subjectivity and Proust’s work/life balance.
Anjelica Jade Bastién’s Madwomen and Muses
This letter from one of New York mag’s best critics offers essay-lets and recommendations at irregular junctures. Bastién’s concerned with all things cinema, but writes from a highly personal place. Pieces tend to concern mental illness and desire.
Subscribe for periodic brilliance on a mix of high/low culture. From anime to the MCU to Marilyn Monroe.
