I have gone through my archive and unlocked everything. I think when I started this newsletter I wanted to try and build a paying supporter base by hiding posts after a vague amount of time and also releasing private content to placate those sponsors. Recently I’ve realised that wanting to do this project on my own terms – publishing what, as and when I like – is diametrically opposed to providing the sort of consistent service that many other newsletters provide.
I started off strongly with a regular output during my first few months in Derbyshire, a particularly significant time in my life, using your inboxes as portals for my own chaotic sense-making. Now it’s less like a promise and more like a surprise, meeting you for a coffee on a drab Thursday or indulgent Sunday.
I have toyed again and again with the idea of a multi-tier patreon but know I wouldn’t be able to keep up with creating content or merch, and would very quickly question the validity extra extraction of materials and labour within my practice when I am trying to get a handle on it and resist the expectations as an artist to always be making more.
Ultimately I want this to be a free, for my entire archive to be accessible to all at any time. People seeking out my work – whether it’s the occasional journal, a timely poem or a hotly anticipated essay – is so incredibly valuable. Having a vague, global audience fulfils my reasons for starting in the first place. If people are reading my work and also want to become a supporter, without the common transaction of bonus material, that makes me smile.
Below are three entries that were behind a paywall. They’re not so amazing they deserved to be unseen, I never quite worked out which bits should be hidden anyway.
I am starting to think about turning some of this writing into a physical book. It seems unnecessarily luxurious to look backwards at this abundance when I am supposed to be always looking forwards in scarcity.
Please check out the full archive! https://fermentalhealth.substack.com/archive
Lots of love to all of you!
