A few weeks ago I went to a show and ran into someone I hadn’t seen in ages. She introduced me to someone else, who asked me what I did, and I said, “I’m an editor, and a writer.” And he perked up and said, “Oh! Me too! Where can I find your work?”
Now is the time of year when writers across the land itemize their accomplishments: books and essays published, prizes won, residencies awarded, best-of lists landed upon. Me? I published exactly three things this year: an essay about my complicated Gen X feelings about getting a full-time job and an interview with sister circus fiend Barbara Hague, both for Sari Botton’s wonderful magazine Oldster, and an appreciation of the late, luminous Cynthia Plaster Caster, for the Chicago Reader.
There are a bunch of reasons for this lack of output. There’s cancer, obviously. There’s also my full-time job which, in the context of the cancer, has been about all I’ve been able to stay on top of (and some of my authors may beg to differ on that point). Also, I got married and set up a new household and have chosen to spend what healthy free time I have in this novel and lovely arena. But beyond the job and the cancer and the marriage there’s the fact that freelance writing just … is terrible. I chipped away at it for years, but came to realize a while ago that my brain and my bank account were better served by editorial work.
If you are a good editor, the work often comes to you rather than vice versa. In addition to my job, for which I get to bring all sorts of book projects to life, I also worked this year as the editor for South Side Weekly’s Best of the South Side issue, helped an artist friend with grant writing, and proofread a few freelance things on the side.
If you’re a good writer, though, you often still have to pitch, and pitching is awful and I hate it, and because I hate it I am bad at it. Add in the ghosting editors and the months-delayed checks that, when they come, are exploitatively low and in the end it’s just not worth doing unless the subject is something I care about, something pleasurable, or meaningful; something to into which to sink my teeth.*
To judge by this year’s examples, what I care about are a) complicated GenX ethics, b) circus arts and aging, and c) icons of the vanishing indie rock subculture. I pitched the first two to Sari because I know and trust her, and she has published my work in the past; Philip, the music editor at the Reader, asked me to do the third because I knew Cynthia and have written about her before, twenty years ago, back when I was on staff at the paper.
I do care about many other things, however, and in my career have been able to take big satisfying bites out of subjects ranging from Chicago history to food security to Puerto Rican property rights. Most recently, obviously, I have made a whole meal out of the raw material of breast cancer.
In the end, that is how I answered the question posed by my friend’s friend. Where can you find my work? Uhhhhh, I fumbled. “Well, I have a Substack.”
Because clearly this is where it’s happening. I am proud of the work I’ve been doing with this newsletter, and gratified that it has resonated with so many people. Every single comment and “like” is a source of wonder. Thank you, all of you, for reading and for engaging.
Now is also the time of year when one sets intentions, and here are mine: I’m going to suck it up and try to get more of my own work out into the world beyond this platform, while at the same time growing this newsletter into something that’s biodiverse and sustainable over time. Right now I am in week three of radiation. I hate it – I have spent the holidays trapped in a Groundhog’s Day loop, every day going to the hospital and lying on a table with my boob out while a giant machine shoots rays at my chest – but it will be over in two more weeks. After that, it is my great hope that the mechanics of cancer treatment will recede in urgency and that I can turn my attention to healing, and to figuring out what happens next.
Lately I’ve been watching as a younger writer I know workshops her personal brand on social media. It’s fascinating, and so very alien it hurts my oldster brain. My personal brand is a mess – a little soup, a little journalism, a little circus, a little cancer – and I like it that way. So for 2023 I’d like to mix it up here and see how it goes. Here’s where you come in.
While I intend to carry on with the same semi-weekly chunks of personal writing, I miss writing outside myself. I miss, well, the world. So, since I work well on assignment, if there’s something you’d like to learn from me in 2023, drop it in the comments. Deep dives into Chicago neighborhoods? Gossip from the glory days of alt-weeklies? Notes on ducks? Soup recipes? I can deliver. Ask me anything! If there’s something that’s wildly out of my wheelhouse, that’s even better. Write what you know, they tell you. But writing what you don’t know can be the most fun of all. I’m not sure where this will take us, but that discovery is part of the pleasure, right?
I have some personal intentions as well, of course. This year, which has delivered both the highest highs and lowest lows of my life, has changed me in ways I’m still working to articulate. I don’t know that I’m ready to share the rough draft of those thoughts, but top of the list is, of course, doing whatever I can to stay healthy and cancer free, and opening up space to heal not just my beaten-down body but my fractured psyche as well.
This time last year 2022 was the unknown future, and from it bloomed surprises impossible to anticipate. It’s been a trip and a half, and it’s not over yet, but for now let’s just Marie Kondo this shit. Thank you for your service, cancer, but you do not spark joy, so out you go. Bring on the new unknown!
Now, I’m off to yoga. Tonight, we’re celebrating with the early-bird special at a supper club in Wisconsin, so to you I raise my brandy Old Fashioned and say, simply, Happy New Year!
*Or unless it’s super lucrative. Just manifesting, over here.
Happy New Year! First, just needed to say that I read this while sitting in front of the fire in a Wisconsin cabin debating whether to have dinner at the Rock Falls Super Club. I have so enjoyed and admired your writing since coming across your Substack, and just wanted to thank you for your role in helping me to better understand my own cancer journey and the value of sharing it with others.
I have a completely self-serving research/writing idea, but because I'm in marketing, I'll pitch it to you anyway: I am about to transition into a new role at my global holding company of almost 100K people - developing a "cancer coaching" practice that will help employees (and their teams) who are working with cancer, during treatment and in the year that follows. This kind of work-focused cancer coaching exists in places like Europe but (unless my Google just isn't working) basically does not exist in the US - a market where MANY cancer patients are essentially forced to keep working if they want to maintain their health insurance.
Beyond being a support that many patients need - reason enough to do it - I believe that not having a program is a missed opportunity to help an employee become a stronger, more purpose-driven leader, by leveraging the transformational experience patients go through when they are forced to focus energies and confront vulnerability.
I've been given about a year to build this program from scratch - my role will be public in about two weeks, and if all goes well, it will be a topic that people are talking about shortly thereafter. Ping me (is there a way to DM on this platform?) if you're interested in hearing more...
I want to hear how you met Paul, what attracted you to him, describe how you see and know him, how you decided to get married, how is marriage different than not being married.