Hi all! I had another post planned for this evening, but realized that this space has grown by 20% in the last month and wanted to pivot a bit. I’m approaching the one year anniversary of launching this newsletter, and that fact on its own seems absurd to consider. All in all, it has been a wonderful year with you and I can’t wait to hopefully celebrate many many more. In the meantime while we wait for the extra special anniversary issue I’m currently planning, I wanted to say hi to some of the new friends we have in the space!
If you’ve made it to this newsletter, chances are you’re here because of a recommendation, word of mouth from a friend, or my endless social media shilling in attempts to get more people to see these words. You have probably persevered through the dregs and trenches of immense information on the internet, and decided that mine was worth parsing through. Whichever path you took to make it here, I’m grateful for each step and your willingness to lean in and take continued interest in my thoughts and my work!
If we haven’t met, I’m Leah. I started this newsletter because I thought it would be a mature step into “developing myself as a writer” and “building an employable portfolio”. That’s a lot of words to say that the week before I left for my first year of college, I really wanted to talk and launched a shot in the dark hoping it would land with anyone who would want to fill that desire. I’m incredibly glad that the flexibility and grace of this medium allows me to expand and refine, practice and perform, and generally work on myself as a person and writer in a very “live” way.
I’m about a month away from starting my sophomore year of university, and a month and a half away from becoming a legal adult. I can’t drive, don’t desire to, and have sworn not to anytime soon out of spite and an inner inclination towards walkable environments. I’m from Chicago, and Nashville, and Ann Arbor and a little bit of everywhere else but mostly the South and Midwest. My favorite color is purple. I enjoy knitting, baking, pop music, public libraries and exploring unemployable academic interests. I won’t give you my resume and CV because that’s sensitive and boring, but I’ve been writing and reading for as long as I can remember.
The following are some of my favorite pieces I’ve written for this newsletter and why. I’ll expand further in the anniversary issue, but looking upon my own silly little words like Narcissus to his pool is what fuels this whole operation week to week:
This issue is my most read to date, and for good reason! It came from a paper I wrote for a truly wretched class, and I enjoy reading it back often because it’s the type of essay I would actually want to read as well as write.
My review of my favorite TV show ever stands for itself. I love the feeling of accomplishment when doing justice to something you deeply care about, and this was that for me!
The following personal essays/posts came out of pretty deep patches of sorrow and I’m proud of being able to communicate something that resonated with other people from those moments!
I think this issue was a huge turning point for my own self confidence in my writing. In regards to reviews, I find myself often dwarfed by the talent of others and enormity of the entities we try to tackle, but this piece reminded me that focusing on my own ability to create something novel and argumentative is the ultimate tool!!! Plus I just really loved covering the topic.
Those are my highlights, so feel free to take my word on them! Browse, read, save, or do none of those at all. I’m so happy you’re here, and I hope I’ll see you again next week!