Writing is how I realize myself (and I enjoy flirting with the idea that sharing my work might also help others realize themselves). It is only after I’ve worked through an event on paper—the present version of myself in conversation with the past, an opportunity to experience numerous lives simultaneously—that I gain the fullest understanding of it. To me, such knowledge gained is a rebellion against what can sometimes feel like the innate monotony of life and I dedicate an inordinate amount of time to staving off that feeling.
Writing is a dual SIM phone - I write to call my deep down self, I write to call the up and above world. I write to tell myself what is worth gratitude, and what is worth a better attitude. Writing is the only source of power I trust. 💜
Writing has saved my life. Writing is everything to me, the way I know how to express myself, the place where I get to play, the place where I am the most alive. In letting my words fall out and showing up for myself and others, I am continuing to build bridges of connection with other wide open hearts.
Yes, would love that! It would be great to see if other Substackers based in Vegas want to do a meetup. I don't even know where to get started with that.
Writing has saved my life, too, Mesa and connection is one of its chief values for me. Love the name of your Substack. Thanks for letting me know about this opportunity to write about our love of writing, through your Note.
Magical Mesa! So grateful for your heart and your words. So here to celebrate you and this wonderful collaboration of writers. Let’s keep writing! ♥️♥️♥️♥️
You start reading my comment and get teleported to a cafe. I wave at you from a table by the window, gesturing at the empty seat I saved for you. "Writing is my escape," I tell you when you join me, "but it's no fun escaping alone, so I hope you'll join me." https://miaverse.substack.com
I love reading your newsletter when it comes to my inbox! The way I feel included into your not-vampire family gives me joy and makes me laugh. Thanks for your awesomness!
When your "You've been transported" emails land in my inbox ... I really am transported and it stops me in my "delete, delete, delete" tracks. SO much fun! So much voice. SO many jokes poked at your poor Not-a-Vampire husband. 🤣
Writing is how I make sense of a world that doesn’t quite make sense to me. It is the place where all of my parts gather and have a voice. For me, writing is where I can witness, hold (even for just a few seconds), and alchemize the ✨magic✨of the every day life.
My Substack is still finding its form but I love to write about creativity and the mundane every day life.
Writing is a bright, juicy orange on a hot, smokey day. It reminds me that I am alive, and that this living is worth the experience, even when my eyes water from the heat and long for clearer days. My hope, always, is that there are plenty of wedges to pass around- that the bright, citrus scent will bring weary neighbors to my porch, and we will sit on the steps with juice dripping down our chins and smile at one another.
I write Touching the Elephant, and I'd love to share it with you as well!
I love your descriptions - I can smell, taste and feel the stickiness at this moment, and it is sublime. I've never thought of writing as citrus and smoke, and now I'm obsessed. I also love the sense of community and neighborhood, to know and be within a close proximity to someone enough to care for and celebrate with them. I long for such writer "neighbors." Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this thoughtful response! Smoke & Citrus sounds like an amazing title or shop name, right? And you're spot on about community. Yes! ♥️✨️♥️
I love this vivid metaphor, the contrast of the juicy orange and the hot, smokey day. I can see this scene just as you've imagined it, the juice dripping down our chins. Thank you for this, Kendall.
I use "cutting an orange" as a way to teach writing from the senses, so having you use this to ignite our senses just made me smile, Kendall. Then I saw your Substack title and felt that you were, absolutely, my kind of writer!!
Writing is a deeply healing and joyous practice for me. It is my way of connecting with like-hearted people, as I creatively express my unique stories and curiosities. My Substack: Life Writing Alchemy, is designed to support others in their writing journeys also. Let's heal, play & connect through words. Much love, Phoebe, 💛
Writing has been here for me through ups and downs. It's how I wrote myself through grief, break-ups, burnout, and euphoric victories. In writing, I can be me, no pretending, sugarcoating, or holding back.
Marva J. Dawn said "words create worlds". My life continues to show me how the stories we tell become the lives we creative and end up living. So I listen for, and write, the stories that help my people (creole/brown/black South Africans) heal our ancestral wounds, so we can reclaim our ancestral wisdoms & gifts, and remember who and what we truly are. Writing is the tool I use for this remembering: of our intimate connection to the land; of our beauty; our power & our magic.
Wow! This is such a beautiful mission you have with your writing. What better way to live a life! And yes, stories that can heal ancestral wounds. I believe that is the only way people can heal. Through the stories, shared across the generations. This is important work you are doing in the world.
Writing for me, is a door that I opened and let light into darkness not many want to talk about-namely childhood abuse. It is a ramble through pages of my soul, I spent so long being ashamed of. It is a giving of pieces of myself to words and letters that weep to be felt-if only so someone else doesn't feel alone.
Weep to be felt is so lovely. I was just sharing with someone yesterday how much time I spend drawn to the bittersweet. I love to find writers that can sit in the gray, the hurt, and make something beautiful of that pain and loss. I write more about loss and pain through the lens of childlessness not by choice and other life plans I am still making sense of, but my mission is similar to yours. To not feel alone and sit in the hurt together.
I write the newsletter Out The Window, about the life we planned and the one we got and making something of it nonetheless.
Writing is my therapy. It sets me free and allows my inner child to come out and play. With every word that I write, I find solace in the curves of each letter.
That’s a really good question, Ariane. My teenage years were filled with poetry and drawings of wildflowers. The poetry still lives with me and I became a real-life wildflower, growing wildly and freely despite the earth-trembling storms. 🧡🌻
You fit the profile of an adult who has followed the creative path laid down in your teen years. This bodes so well for how your Inner Teen, now, can be a conscious, thriving part of your creativity, as well as an active ally for other members of your Inner Family. I deeply appreciate what you've shared! And if I had any idea how to add an emoji from my desktop, I'd give you back hearts and flowers too!!!
Writing is less a thing I do and more a place I go. There I can see what I feel and what I care about so clearly. When I go there, I sense my belonging and trust myself more deeply.
And maybe it's a closed system loop: we write -> become more ourselves, so -> we write some more as we -> become more ourselves. I think you're onto something, Holly!
Isn't it magical to at least trust ourselves and build that trust? Trust is a rare commodity in the world, and I find writing does help me at least know and trust my own voice, but also find other people who can be honest. It's hard to be a good writer without honesty. The world needs more of that, doesn't it?
When I learned my son had a fatal illness, my writing carried me through the darkness and now is the luminosity that gives his life and all injustice more weight in a world that tries to give us stories that are too small. It gives me a way to make sense of the world when what lays before me makes no sense. Writing is my doorway to belonging, a path to Justice.
Hi! I'm Deb, from Night Shift Crafting, my Substack is of the same name. Thank you for this scholarship opportunity. For me, what writing is, is a chance at communication and connection, as well as a medium of exploration, along with the exchange of thoughts, ideas and ideals.
I tell myself writing is my way to make sense of the chaos that is, well, me, but honestly it might be the other way around. Was I always this mad?
Regardless, writing is some of the best fun one can have since the real world largely refuses to play along with my fantasies of magicians and flying horses and eating unlimited chocolate without consequence (rude). https://kelefox.substack.com/
Writing means everything to me because it's the way I've managed to connect to the world even when I felt alone. Writing is how I share my heart with others and how I experience joy, love, connection, humanity. And writing is the buoy that has saved me in the darkest ocean waters when the waves felt too tall and too unwieldy, and I feared drowning.
Writing is how I realize myself (and I enjoy flirting with the idea that sharing my work might also help others realize themselves). It is only after I’ve worked through an event on paper—the present version of myself in conversation with the past, an opportunity to experience numerous lives simultaneously—that I gain the fullest understanding of it. To me, such knowledge gained is a rebellion against what can sometimes feel like the innate monotony of life and I dedicate an inordinate amount of time to staving off that feeling.
My publication is: stillwatercreek.substack.com. Thank you for your consideration!
No one more deserving ♥️♥️
thank you thank you so much!! 😁😁
GET THAT SCHOLARSHIP YOURE AN ABSOLUTE ICON AND SO TALENTED ILY
THANK YOU BEA ILYYY 💗💗
I love reading you work. Hope you win this scholarship. You deserve it.
thank you so much!! 🫶🏽🫶🏽
Writing is a dual SIM phone - I write to call my deep down self, I write to call the up and above world. I write to tell myself what is worth gratitude, and what is worth a better attitude. Writing is the only source of power I trust. 💜
My substack is called Creative Resilience https://rajutai.substack.com/
Thank you Evelyn for supporting writers. 🫰🌻
Your writing stirs hope and cradles the messy, sometimes unseen, dark corners of ourselves with care. Shine on, Raju! ✨💛
Raju I’m heading over to you after this captivating write to call down, call up.
I’m so glad to meet your writing today Prajna. Can’t wait to start from the piece on inhabiting our bodies to heal. ♥️
Mia, how fun! I am joining you with my notebook and pen but I suspect we have too much to say about writing to actually do any writing:-)
Wow, I love your writing Raju. So much fun along with deep insight. 💛
Phoebe! ♥️ Thank you. So good to discover you here.
Writing has saved my life. Writing is everything to me, the way I know how to express myself, the place where I get to play, the place where I am the most alive. In letting my words fall out and showing up for myself and others, I am continuing to build bridges of connection with other wide open hearts.
My stack is called Let the Words Fall Out
https://open.substack.com/pub/mesafama
Thank you, Evelyn, for this wonderful opportunity to keep growing and going ❤️❤️
You were the first writer I subscribed to on Substack Mesa. You still inspire me.
Thank you, Kathy! I’m so glad to know that!!
Me too Kathy! Mesa was my first subscription after Elizabeth Gilbert! Love you Mesa K. 🌹
I think we are both Vegas based writers! We should do a Substack meetup sometime.
Hi Autumn!! I am in Vegas!! That would be so fun to meet a fellow writer in real life!!
Good to know where you are, my friend. I get around a lot. Will hit you up for a possible Vegas meet-up next time I roll through Nevada. :)
Yes please!!! I’d love to meet up with you!!
Yes, would love that! It would be great to see if other Substackers based in Vegas want to do a meetup. I don't even know where to get started with that.
I agree with every word of this, Mesa. 🧡
Thanks so much, Phoebe ❤️❤️
Aw what a pleasure to see you here, Mesa!
Thanks, Holly!! Great to see you too!! 😍😍😍
Finger crossed, Mesa! 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
Thank you, Kristina!! Fingers, toes, arms, legs, and eyes crossed 😍🤣
Solidarity. 🔥
Thank you my friend!! Xoxo
Writing has saved my life, too, Mesa and connection is one of its chief values for me. Love the name of your Substack. Thanks for letting me know about this opportunity to write about our love of writing, through your Note.
You’re so very welcome, Amy!! So glad to connect with you here!! ❤️
Let the words fall out! I like that. Sounds like you are writing straight from your heart!
Thank you, Moon! That’s the only way I know how to write 💙💙
That's authentic!
Magical Mesa! So grateful for your heart and your words. So here to celebrate you and this wonderful collaboration of writers. Let’s keep writing! ♥️♥️♥️♥️
Thank you sister friend ❤️❤️ grateful for you!!
Of course! Super grateful for you too! ♥️♥️♥️
Here’s to you, Mesa!! Casting my vote, my heart, my solidarity to your falling words, always. ✨
Thank you sweet friend ❤️❤️❤️ I L Y ❤️❤️❤️
You start reading my comment and get teleported to a cafe. I wave at you from a table by the window, gesturing at the empty seat I saved for you. "Writing is my escape," I tell you when you join me, "but it's no fun escaping alone, so I hope you'll join me." https://miaverse.substack.com
I love reading your newsletter when it comes to my inbox! The way I feel included into your not-vampire family gives me joy and makes me laugh. Thanks for your awesomness!
Awww thank you that means a lot! ❤️
When your "You've been transported" emails land in my inbox ... I really am transported and it stops me in my "delete, delete, delete" tracks. SO much fun! So much voice. SO many jokes poked at your poor Not-a-Vampire husband. 🤣
Thanks Danika! ♥️♥️
I love that, beutiful!!!
Thank you! ♥️
Your newsletters are hilarious, I always make sure to read every one!
Awww thank you ❤️
This is awesome and the beginning of a great story :)
Thank you ♥️
Awesome
Writing is how I make sense of a world that doesn’t quite make sense to me. It is the place where all of my parts gather and have a voice. For me, writing is where I can witness, hold (even for just a few seconds), and alchemize the ✨magic✨of the every day life.
My Substack is still finding its form but I love to write about creativity and the mundane every day life.
https://platalife.substack.com
I feel this so hard.
Love this
"Alchemize the magic"--100%!
I found myself enthusiastically nodding to everything you just wrote!
Love this description.
Writing is a bright, juicy orange on a hot, smokey day. It reminds me that I am alive, and that this living is worth the experience, even when my eyes water from the heat and long for clearer days. My hope, always, is that there are plenty of wedges to pass around- that the bright, citrus scent will bring weary neighbors to my porch, and we will sit on the steps with juice dripping down our chins and smile at one another.
I write Touching the Elephant, and I'd love to share it with you as well!
https://touchingtheelephant.substack.com
Fabulous stack title. I will hop on over and check it out. :)
I was thinking the same thing! Love the title.
Thanks, Holly!
I love your descriptions - I can smell, taste and feel the stickiness at this moment, and it is sublime. I've never thought of writing as citrus and smoke, and now I'm obsessed. I also love the sense of community and neighborhood, to know and be within a close proximity to someone enough to care for and celebrate with them. I long for such writer "neighbors." Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this thoughtful response! Smoke & Citrus sounds like an amazing title or shop name, right? And you're spot on about community. Yes! ♥️✨️♥️
Love how sensory your writing is Kendall!!
Thanks, Hannah! ❤️❤️❤️
Gorgeous!
Thanks, Kelly! ❤️
I love this vivid metaphor, the contrast of the juicy orange and the hot, smokey day. I can see this scene just as you've imagined it, the juice dripping down our chins. Thank you for this, Kendall.
Thank you, Amy! ❤️
I use "cutting an orange" as a way to teach writing from the senses, so having you use this to ignite our senses just made me smile, Kendall. Then I saw your Substack title and felt that you were, absolutely, my kind of writer!!
Wow, thank you Ariane! I'm so happy to have found each other here! (Passes an orange slice).
Oh... yum, so fragrant and juicy! A new turn on sharing a cup of tea... lovin' it!
Writing is a deeply healing and joyous practice for me. It is my way of connecting with like-hearted people, as I creatively express my unique stories and curiosities. My Substack: Life Writing Alchemy, is designed to support others in their writing journeys also. Let's heal, play & connect through words. Much love, Phoebe, 💛
https://lifewritingalchemy.substack.com/
And I agree with everything you wrote too!! Clearly we’re walking similar paths in our writing 😍😍😍
Just subscribed! It looks great and I'm looking forward to getting into it. :)
Writing is my healing practice too, love this Phoebe!!
Heal, play, connect. That's it, exactly!
Writing has been here for me through ups and downs. It's how I wrote myself through grief, break-ups, burnout, and euphoric victories. In writing, I can be me, no pretending, sugarcoating, or holding back.
https://coffeebreaknewsletter.substack.com/
Thank you, Evelyn 💕
That's it, exactly. And it's always there for us, isn't it?
Marva J. Dawn said "words create worlds". My life continues to show me how the stories we tell become the lives we creative and end up living. So I listen for, and write, the stories that help my people (creole/brown/black South Africans) heal our ancestral wounds, so we can reclaim our ancestral wisdoms & gifts, and remember who and what we truly are. Writing is the tool I use for this remembering: of our intimate connection to the land; of our beauty; our power & our magic.
My substack is slow sensual creativity: https://slowsensualcreativity.substack.com/
Thank you Evelyn Skye for supporting writers so generously.
Wow! This is such a beautiful mission you have with your writing. What better way to live a life! And yes, stories that can heal ancestral wounds. I believe that is the only way people can heal. Through the stories, shared across the generations. This is important work you are doing in the world.
Thank you for your kind and encouragement words, Amy. It means a lot to me, truly.
What a gorgeous title - Slow Sensual Creativity
oh thank you Lisa, that’s so kind of you! Your message has really made my day
Writing for me, is a door that I opened and let light into darkness not many want to talk about-namely childhood abuse. It is a ramble through pages of my soul, I spent so long being ashamed of. It is a giving of pieces of myself to words and letters that weep to be felt-if only so someone else doesn't feel alone.
My Substack is called The Rewind.
Thank you for this opportunity!
https://myrewind.substack.com
Weep to be felt is so lovely. I was just sharing with someone yesterday how much time I spend drawn to the bittersweet. I love to find writers that can sit in the gray, the hurt, and make something beautiful of that pain and loss. I write more about loss and pain through the lens of childlessness not by choice and other life plans I am still making sense of, but my mission is similar to yours. To not feel alone and sit in the hurt together.
I write the newsletter Out The Window, about the life we planned and the one we got and making something of it nonetheless.
https://hayleyjensen.substack.com/
"Words and letters that weep to be felt..." Ah, that clutches at my heart. This is brave and beautiful work. In healing ourselves, we heal the world.
Writing is my therapy. It sets me free and allows my inner child to come out and play. With every word that I write, I find solace in the curves of each letter.
My name is Melissa and I write The Art and Life of a Wildflower. https://thesleepywildflower.substack.com
🧡
Yay Melissa! I always love your writing (and your art!)
Aww, thank you, Monique! 🥹🧡
This is so beautifully expressed, "solace in the curves of each letter." And I love wildflowers. I will stop by and visit.
Thank you so much, Amy. 🧡
And what other creative wonders might join you and your inner child if your Inner Teen joined the party?
That’s a really good question, Ariane. My teenage years were filled with poetry and drawings of wildflowers. The poetry still lives with me and I became a real-life wildflower, growing wildly and freely despite the earth-trembling storms. 🧡🌻
You fit the profile of an adult who has followed the creative path laid down in your teen years. This bodes so well for how your Inner Teen, now, can be a conscious, thriving part of your creativity, as well as an active ally for other members of your Inner Family. I deeply appreciate what you've shared! And if I had any idea how to add an emoji from my desktop, I'd give you back hearts and flowers too!!!
"Solace in the curves of each letter" - lovely!
Thank you, Lisa! 🥰
Writing is less a thing I do and more a place I go. There I can see what I feel and what I care about so clearly. When I go there, I sense my belonging and trust myself more deeply.
https://substack.com/@dialoguing
Isn't it fabulous how writing can enable us to become more ourselves?!
It’s wild. Feels like a coming home 💕
And maybe it's a closed system loop: we write -> become more ourselves, so -> we write some more as we -> become more ourselves. I think you're onto something, Holly!
Nice! ;)
I often also go back in time when I write.
Totally!
What a beautiful description!
Thank you Lisa!!
Isn't it magical to at least trust ourselves and build that trust? Trust is a rare commodity in the world, and I find writing does help me at least know and trust my own voice, but also find other people who can be honest. It's hard to be a good writer without honesty. The world needs more of that, doesn't it?
When I learned my son had a fatal illness, my writing carried me through the darkness and now is the luminosity that gives his life and all injustice more weight in a world that tries to give us stories that are too small. It gives me a way to make sense of the world when what lays before me makes no sense. Writing is my doorway to belonging, a path to Justice.
My Substack is 'Joy Is My Justice' at https://tanmeetsethimd.substack.com
Gratitude Evelyn for this generosity and buoying of the work of being human 💕
What a perfect name for your stack, Tanmeet. :)
Thanks Holly! So good to see you in so many beautiful communities. ❤️
Hi! I'm Deb, from Night Shift Crafting, my Substack is of the same name. Thank you for this scholarship opportunity. For me, what writing is, is a chance at communication and connection, as well as a medium of exploration, along with the exchange of thoughts, ideas and ideals.
I tell myself writing is my way to make sense of the chaos that is, well, me, but honestly it might be the other way around. Was I always this mad?
Regardless, writing is some of the best fun one can have since the real world largely refuses to play along with my fantasies of magicians and flying horses and eating unlimited chocolate without consequence (rude). https://kelefox.substack.com/
Was I always this mad? A question I ask myself daily 🤣
Right?! 🤣
As a certified Vortex wizard, I say... let those horses fly their lil' ole' hearts out!
Love this
Thank you! ♥
Writing means everything to me because it's the way I've managed to connect to the world even when I felt alone. Writing is how I share my heart with others and how I experience joy, love, connection, humanity. And writing is the buoy that has saved me in the darkest ocean waters when the waves felt too tall and too unwieldy, and I feared drowning.
My substack is From the Mind of Karis
https://karisrogerson.substack.com/