I found my voice through advanced stage breast cancer diagnosed at 34. It changed my life. I committed to healing complex trauma, and five years later, I am beating my statistical odds for survival as of March 1, 2024 and I don’t believe I’m going anywhere anytime soon. There is absolutely beauty in my healing journey. So much love evolved from the pain. I wrote so much along the way. I know I have a story to tell and would love to work with someone who can help me bring it all together!
Wow, so glad to hear about your healing story. I would be very interested to read more of it, as we are only in the beginning to understand that cancer might be so more complex than we thought it is. So glad you are doing so well 🙏
💯 the healing ❤️🩹 story is so beautiful. I posted mostly on Facebook throughout. I truly believe the healing of complex is the key piece. I created a group for other stage iii survivors and have noticed this theme in so many ways over the last few years. I’m hoping to take some time to put together something decent to honor my five year survivorship. Thinking I’ll sit down and start that this weekend!
Hi Dan - I write https://twohouses.substack.com which shares stories/art/artifacts found while excavating my mother’s SoHo loft. My mother died during the pandemic, leaving the space where she’d lived and painted 40 yrs untouched for more than a year. I have a memoir to publish about my life in Park Slope and SoHo with my long divorced painter-parents. I share their art and my story as a child of a well-known father and unknown mother. Themes for my writing are divorce, feminism, art history, NYC, grief, and Time. Thanks for this opportunity to learn so much more about you and a little about me. I hope to succeed enough to make working with you a possibility.
I knew this sounded familiar! I think we met on Facebook when I gave you feedback on your about/pinned page? It looks great! And I took your advice and created one for myself. Well nice to find you on here. Following you!
Hi Dan! Thanks for this longer intro to you and your work. I joined substack 3 months ago and you were one of the first substacks to pop up as a suggested read and I'm glad it did, as I have learned much from you and your writing. I'm also in New Jersey (grew up in Bergen County, now live in Hunterdon Co.) never thought I'd move back to my home state - and the taxes that come with it - but here we are!
I have been writing about my work as a hospital chaplain and spiritual director in the hopes that others can be inspiried to notice the sacred in their everyday lives. I have been working on a manuscript on and off for 10 years?! I also have two boys, a bit younger than yours, so they have pulled my focus for some time! Substack has been a neat way to test the waters to see if these stories resonate with others.
@Christine, Substack seems to be a great place to do that. I recently stumbled on Larry Patten’s Substack (& book about hospice) via a Q&A about author bios. Now I’m pitching my dad on teaching Larry’s book in his Episcopalian Sunday School class. You never know who’ll connect with your work and why, but we can’t connect with it if we don’t stumble across it in the first place. 💛
Hi Dan! I literally created a substack account right now just to respond to this email! I've been a subscriber to you email since your course "Fearless Work." I find your emails enlightening and I have taken a few of your workshops, including the one on creating a substack account. I have been a writer for years, periodically sending out my poetry with the occasional piece being accepted. This year, my goal is to focus on creating and sharing more of my work -- essays and/or poetry -- in an intentional way, in a space I control, where (hopefully) people who resonate with my writing will be able to find me. I am awed by your consistency and hope to one day work with you. Until then, thank you for all you share and thank you for modeling how to show up for yourself and your craft!
Hi Lisa! So cool that you remember Fearless Work! Thanks for taking the time to create an account to reply here. Great to hear about your process for writing. Thank you!
Dan, I was one of those lucky employees at R that was introduced to your work at the beginning. Even though I’m not a writer or creative person (finance guy) I’ve always enjoyed your work and still read it. Congratulations on all you’ve accomplished, your passion is contagious.
Hi Dan, good to say hello. I make images of and inspired by water, and this has led me to extend my experimentation into mixed media, and to words. I brought my newsletter FLOW to Substack 6 months ago, primarily to try to establish a regular writing habit (https://michelagriffith.substack.com/). It was a little like uncorking the bottle, and I now consider words to be an essential part of my process. Many of my images are abstract, some downright ambiguous, and perhaps the writing helps by way of introduction to the moment shared. I’m finding writing, and being here, immensely enriching. Thank you for your part in that Dan.
Wow, I love this Michela: "It was a little like uncorking the bottle, and I now consider words to be an essential part of my process." Thank you for being here and for sharing your story!
What a great story, thank you for sharing! My name is Alison Hammer and by day, I write ads. By nights and weekends, I write fiction that is about love in all its forms. I have two books under my own name that both (accidentally, believe it or not!) focus on the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. I'm also half of the writing duo Ali Brady (along with my BFF!) and we have three books out that cover both sisterly love and romance.
Why this work matters is something I think about often because I am firmly in the midlist space, hoping to do well enough that I can keep writing and someone will want to continue to publish what I write. I will say the most meaningful moments are when I hear from readers that my books made them feel something... One of the most meaningful moments for me was when someone reached out after reading my debut novel, You and Me and Us. It's a tear jerker about all the ways loss teaches us how to love—and this one reader said she lost her husband twenty years earlier, but hadn't cried about it until reading my book. I'm not sure I'll ever top that.
I'm brand new to Substack. I just joined a few days ago after hearing your great conversation with Jennie Nash and KJ Dell'Antonia on the #AmWriting Podcast. I'm still trying to figure things out, but for anyone who wants to give me a follow, I'm writing weekly platonic love letters to over at https://platonicloveletters.substack.com
Wow, what a powerful story of how your words moved that reader! Great to hear about all you are writing and publishing. So glad you liked the #amwriting episode! Thank you Alison.
Hi Dan, I'm a relatively new subscriber as well. I found your newsletter through some other publishing-flavored Substack newsletters that I subscribe to, and I'm so glad I did. I appreciate your candor and realistic approach to being both supportive and trying to find commercial success. I have published some non-fiction essays around cultural criticism and history, and have done a lot of writing around grief and the material culture of death in the United States. I'm working on a hybrid memoir about grief and loss, and gosh - so much to learn. I'm a corporate librarian in my day job and really love learning, but I will say there's so much about publishing I'm trying to wrap my head around that it can feel overwhelming. Your newsletter has certainly helped me better manage that process - grateful for your story and your work!
Hi Dan - Thank you for always sharing practical and hopeful advice. My name is Christopher Pepper, and I write a newsletter called Teen Health Today (https://www.teenhealthtoday.com). The audience is mostly parents and educators, and I try to cover all the big issues that tweens and teens grapple with today (mental health, substance use, friendship, dating, sexuality, nutrition, exercise, etc.)
I'm co-writing a book called TALK TO YOUR BOYS (https://www.talktoyourboys.com) with Joanna Schroeder, which is scheduled to be published by Workman in 2025. It's a guide for adults about how to talk to tween and teen boys about all the challenging topics they face today.
I am an award-winning educator with a unique background that includes work in teaching, journalism, rape prevention, and curriculum development. I've been a health teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District since 2002, and I help coordinate the district's Young Men’s Health Project, which brings middle and high school boys together in small groups to talk about relationships, emotions, and healthy masculinity.
Before teaching, I worked for several years as a full-time journalist, and was one of the producers who helped ThriveOnline win the “Health and Wellness” Webby Award in 2000. Now I often work with journalists to help them understand the issues teens face. My work has been featured in distinguished outlets like the San Francisco Chronicle, National Public Radio and Edutopia, and I helped create the New York Times guide to teaching about the #MeToo movement.
In the words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
I’ve been an artist and writer (mostly poetry) for as long as I can remember. I pursued freelance work for a few years when my children were young, selling watercolor paintings and doing some commissioned pencil portraits. I had never considered writing as a career, but then I started writing for the church youth group newsletter, and it was like a switch was flipped on! Suddenly I was bombarded with story ideas. So art moved to the background and I began writing. About 12 years later my first picture book was published. There have been four since. And in May my first novel—a middle grade verse novel which I also illustrated—will be published. It’s been an interesting ride, full of a lot of ups and downs, but I keep doing it because, like I tell kids at school visits, if I’m going to be doing all this writing anyway, I might as well see if people want to read it!
1. the story of you writing your first newsletter and anticipating the CEO's reaction was dramatic! I thought you were going to get fired!
2. the black and white photo of you sitting next to the bed putting together an issue is so cool! rich history.
3. your book Be The Gateway looks good. I've bookmarked it and will check it out.
I recently starting writing on Substack. I'm a physician that works at a busy hospital and writing about the human condition is what I frequently think about in and out of the hospital.
I'm a new subscriber here. I write https://econway.substack.com/ about the attentive and intentional life. After many years of wrestling with writing, I am very happy to be consistently creating in that form. I also garden, do a variety of handwork, and curate physical spaces (I own an Airbnb) as well as mental/emotional/spiritual ones (I am a trained Spiritual Companion) - all forms of creation. I have a background in literature and have always loved words, but a lot of healing had to happen before I could put them on a page for others to read. I'm incredibly grateful that I got the chance. As I continue my Substack and hopefully begin writing longer form essays, I have a growing interest in the publishing world. Your newsletter seemed like a great source of information. Thank you!
Hi Dan. Great post! I'm fairly new to Substack (I launched Colorful Chaos last month) and am loving every minute of it. I've attended several of your Webinars, which gave me the nudge I needed to start my publication.
Hi Dan! I came here after listening to your episode on the #amwriting podcast, which I found enormously helpful. I feel backwards into fiction writing after starting my career in broadcast journalism, then moving to PR, then live events, then print journalism and essay writing, to ultimately, working on my first book. One of the driving forces behind the effort to get my book published is the desire to answer the question, did you always want to be a writer? with a resounding, Coach Beard-like, noooooo!
Inspired by your episode, I'm hoping to push out my first Substack newsletter today. Called Many Hats, it'll explore how the many hats I wear—mother, writer, runner—interact and intersect.
Loved this re-introduction! I haven't been here for all 18 years of your newsletter, but I bet I have been for close to 10. Your work was recommended to me when I was a newbie fiction writer, trying to figure out social media. These Friday newsletters have remained a touchstone-- reminding me that it's all about making meaningful connections with the real people who read our work (and that slow growth is still growth!). In the last few years I've transitioned from fiction into more of a non-fiction space and am loving writing about creativity and well-being here on Substack. I'm also one of those lucky writers who also enjoys my non-writing job, the highlight of which is helping college students use design-thinking principles to think about their own lives!
I found my voice through advanced stage breast cancer diagnosed at 34. It changed my life. I committed to healing complex trauma, and five years later, I am beating my statistical odds for survival as of March 1, 2024 and I don’t believe I’m going anywhere anytime soon. There is absolutely beauty in my healing journey. So much love evolved from the pain. I wrote so much along the way. I know I have a story to tell and would love to work with someone who can help me bring it all together!
So inspiring to hear your story, thank you Stephanie!!!!
Wow, so glad to hear about your healing story. I would be very interested to read more of it, as we are only in the beginning to understand that cancer might be so more complex than we thought it is. So glad you are doing so well 🙏
💯 the healing ❤️🩹 story is so beautiful. I posted mostly on Facebook throughout. I truly believe the healing of complex is the key piece. I created a group for other stage iii survivors and have noticed this theme in so many ways over the last few years. I’m hoping to take some time to put together something decent to honor my five year survivorship. Thinking I’ll sit down and start that this weekend!
I’m still new here, but I did start a post on this today. https://open.substack.com/pub/healingvoyage/p/breast-cancer-saved-my-life-part?r=2v1uc1&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thanks for the support!!🥰☺️
Hi Dan - I write https://twohouses.substack.com which shares stories/art/artifacts found while excavating my mother’s SoHo loft. My mother died during the pandemic, leaving the space where she’d lived and painted 40 yrs untouched for more than a year. I have a memoir to publish about my life in Park Slope and SoHo with my long divorced painter-parents. I share their art and my story as a child of a well-known father and unknown mother. Themes for my writing are divorce, feminism, art history, NYC, grief, and Time. Thanks for this opportunity to learn so much more about you and a little about me. I hope to succeed enough to make working with you a possibility.
Thank you Eliza! I am immediately enamored by the topic of your Substack -- thank you for sharing all of this!
Thank you for your enthusiasm!
I knew this sounded familiar! I think we met on Facebook when I gave you feedback on your about/pinned page? It looks great! And I took your advice and created one for myself. Well nice to find you on here. Following you!
Thanks! That was great advice! Lovely to see you here
This sounds fascinating Eliza!
Yes, very interesting! Just followed!
Hi Eliza, delighted to find your Substack - completely fascinating and I look forward to reading it.
Hi Dan! Thanks for this longer intro to you and your work. I joined substack 3 months ago and you were one of the first substacks to pop up as a suggested read and I'm glad it did, as I have learned much from you and your writing. I'm also in New Jersey (grew up in Bergen County, now live in Hunterdon Co.) never thought I'd move back to my home state - and the taxes that come with it - but here we are!
I have been writing about my work as a hospital chaplain and spiritual director in the hopes that others can be inspiried to notice the sacred in their everyday lives. I have been working on a manuscript on and off for 10 years?! I also have two boys, a bit younger than yours, so they have pulled my focus for some time! Substack has been a neat way to test the waters to see if these stories resonate with others.
@Christine, Substack seems to be a great place to do that. I recently stumbled on Larry Patten’s Substack (& book about hospice) via a Q&A about author bios. Now I’m pitching my dad on teaching Larry’s book in his Episcopalian Sunday School class. You never know who’ll connect with your work and why, but we can’t connect with it if we don’t stumble across it in the first place. 💛
Oh so cool! I will have to look up his substack!
Thank you Christine! Yay New Jersey!
Hi Dan! I literally created a substack account right now just to respond to this email! I've been a subscriber to you email since your course "Fearless Work." I find your emails enlightening and I have taken a few of your workshops, including the one on creating a substack account. I have been a writer for years, periodically sending out my poetry with the occasional piece being accepted. This year, my goal is to focus on creating and sharing more of my work -- essays and/or poetry -- in an intentional way, in a space I control, where (hopefully) people who resonate with my writing will be able to find me. I am awed by your consistency and hope to one day work with you. Until then, thank you for all you share and thank you for modeling how to show up for yourself and your craft!
Hi Lisa! So cool that you remember Fearless Work! Thanks for taking the time to create an account to reply here. Great to hear about your process for writing. Thank you!
Dan, I was one of those lucky employees at R that was introduced to your work at the beginning. Even though I’m not a writer or creative person (finance guy) I’ve always enjoyed your work and still read it. Congratulations on all you’ve accomplished, your passion is contagious.
DAVID!!!! So amazing that you still receive my newsletter. Thank you for your support all these years.
Hi Dan, good to say hello. I make images of and inspired by water, and this has led me to extend my experimentation into mixed media, and to words. I brought my newsletter FLOW to Substack 6 months ago, primarily to try to establish a regular writing habit (https://michelagriffith.substack.com/). It was a little like uncorking the bottle, and I now consider words to be an essential part of my process. Many of my images are abstract, some downright ambiguous, and perhaps the writing helps by way of introduction to the moment shared. I’m finding writing, and being here, immensely enriching. Thank you for your part in that Dan.
Wow, I love this Michela: "It was a little like uncorking the bottle, and I now consider words to be an essential part of my process." Thank you for being here and for sharing your story!
Thanks Dan
What a great story, thank you for sharing! My name is Alison Hammer and by day, I write ads. By nights and weekends, I write fiction that is about love in all its forms. I have two books under my own name that both (accidentally, believe it or not!) focus on the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. I'm also half of the writing duo Ali Brady (along with my BFF!) and we have three books out that cover both sisterly love and romance.
Why this work matters is something I think about often because I am firmly in the midlist space, hoping to do well enough that I can keep writing and someone will want to continue to publish what I write. I will say the most meaningful moments are when I hear from readers that my books made them feel something... One of the most meaningful moments for me was when someone reached out after reading my debut novel, You and Me and Us. It's a tear jerker about all the ways loss teaches us how to love—and this one reader said she lost her husband twenty years earlier, but hadn't cried about it until reading my book. I'm not sure I'll ever top that.
I'm brand new to Substack. I just joined a few days ago after hearing your great conversation with Jennie Nash and KJ Dell'Antonia on the #AmWriting Podcast. I'm still trying to figure things out, but for anyone who wants to give me a follow, I'm writing weekly platonic love letters to over at https://platonicloveletters.substack.com
Wow, what a powerful story of how your words moved that reader! Great to hear about all you are writing and publishing. So glad you liked the #amwriting episode! Thank you Alison.
Hi Dan, I'm a relatively new subscriber as well. I found your newsletter through some other publishing-flavored Substack newsletters that I subscribe to, and I'm so glad I did. I appreciate your candor and realistic approach to being both supportive and trying to find commercial success. I have published some non-fiction essays around cultural criticism and history, and have done a lot of writing around grief and the material culture of death in the United States. I'm working on a hybrid memoir about grief and loss, and gosh - so much to learn. I'm a corporate librarian in my day job and really love learning, but I will say there's so much about publishing I'm trying to wrap my head around that it can feel overwhelming. Your newsletter has certainly helped me better manage that process - grateful for your story and your work!
Thank you Kelly! I knew some wonderful corporate librarians years ago, it was such a cool place and job! Thanks for being here.
Hi Dan - Thank you for always sharing practical and hopeful advice. My name is Christopher Pepper, and I write a newsletter called Teen Health Today (https://www.teenhealthtoday.com). The audience is mostly parents and educators, and I try to cover all the big issues that tweens and teens grapple with today (mental health, substance use, friendship, dating, sexuality, nutrition, exercise, etc.)
I'm co-writing a book called TALK TO YOUR BOYS (https://www.talktoyourboys.com) with Joanna Schroeder, which is scheduled to be published by Workman in 2025. It's a guide for adults about how to talk to tween and teen boys about all the challenging topics they face today.
I am an award-winning educator with a unique background that includes work in teaching, journalism, rape prevention, and curriculum development. I've been a health teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District since 2002, and I help coordinate the district's Young Men’s Health Project, which brings middle and high school boys together in small groups to talk about relationships, emotions, and healthy masculinity.
Before teaching, I worked for several years as a full-time journalist, and was one of the producers who helped ThriveOnline win the “Health and Wellness” Webby Award in 2000. Now I often work with journalists to help them understand the issues teens face. My work has been featured in distinguished outlets like the San Francisco Chronicle, National Public Radio and Edutopia, and I helped create the New York Times guide to teaching about the #MeToo movement.
Wow! What an incredible body of work you are creating here. Congratulations on the upcoming book!!!
Thanks, Dan!
In the words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
I’ve been an artist and writer (mostly poetry) for as long as I can remember. I pursued freelance work for a few years when my children were young, selling watercolor paintings and doing some commissioned pencil portraits. I had never considered writing as a career, but then I started writing for the church youth group newsletter, and it was like a switch was flipped on! Suddenly I was bombarded with story ideas. So art moved to the background and I began writing. About 12 years later my first picture book was published. There have been four since. And in May my first novel—a middle grade verse novel which I also illustrated—will be published. It’s been an interesting ride, full of a lot of ups and downs, but I keep doing it because, like I tell kids at school visits, if I’m going to be doing all this writing anyway, I might as well see if people want to read it!
Yes! Thank you so much Rebecca.
Few comments Dan.
1. the story of you writing your first newsletter and anticipating the CEO's reaction was dramatic! I thought you were going to get fired!
2. the black and white photo of you sitting next to the bed putting together an issue is so cool! rich history.
3. your book Be The Gateway looks good. I've bookmarked it and will check it out.
I recently starting writing on Substack. I'm a physician that works at a busy hospital and writing about the human condition is what I frequently think about in and out of the hospital.
Thank you Istiaq!!!! I appreciate how specific your feedback is. Yay for your Substack!
Hi Dan,
I'm a new subscriber here. I write https://econway.substack.com/ about the attentive and intentional life. After many years of wrestling with writing, I am very happy to be consistently creating in that form. I also garden, do a variety of handwork, and curate physical spaces (I own an Airbnb) as well as mental/emotional/spiritual ones (I am a trained Spiritual Companion) - all forms of creation. I have a background in literature and have always loved words, but a lot of healing had to happen before I could put them on a page for others to read. I'm incredibly grateful that I got the chance. As I continue my Substack and hopefully begin writing longer form essays, I have a growing interest in the publishing world. Your newsletter seemed like a great source of information. Thank you!
Thank you Emily! So cool to hear about your background and the work you do!
Thanks Dan!
Hi Dan. Great post! I'm fairly new to Substack (I launched Colorful Chaos last month) and am loving every minute of it. I've attended several of your Webinars, which gave me the nudge I needed to start my publication.
Thank you Lynn!
Hi Dan! I came here after listening to your episode on the #amwriting podcast, which I found enormously helpful. I feel backwards into fiction writing after starting my career in broadcast journalism, then moving to PR, then live events, then print journalism and essay writing, to ultimately, working on my first book. One of the driving forces behind the effort to get my book published is the desire to answer the question, did you always want to be a writer? with a resounding, Coach Beard-like, noooooo!
Inspired by your episode, I'm hoping to push out my first Substack newsletter today. Called Many Hats, it'll explore how the many hats I wear—mother, writer, runner—interact and intersect.
Thank you for the work you do!
Go, Shana!
me too! (and I love the idea of many hats!)
Thank you Shana for the kind words! So glad you liked the #amwriting episode. Yay for your first Substack newsletter today!
Loved this re-introduction! I haven't been here for all 18 years of your newsletter, but I bet I have been for close to 10. Your work was recommended to me when I was a newbie fiction writer, trying to figure out social media. These Friday newsletters have remained a touchstone-- reminding me that it's all about making meaningful connections with the real people who read our work (and that slow growth is still growth!). In the last few years I've transitioned from fiction into more of a non-fiction space and am loving writing about creativity and well-being here on Substack. I'm also one of those lucky writers who also enjoys my non-writing job, the highlight of which is helping college students use design-thinking principles to think about their own lives!
Thank you for all of your support all these years! Love hearing about your own journey and how your writing has evolved to new places.
As I approached my 50th birthday earlier this year, I asked myself how I was going to mark the occasion and the answer that came surprised me!
I decided I wanted to meet my higher self.
I’d been feeling flashes of brilliance for years but was still confused about what the point of me was!
I spent 48 hours in a private session with a spiritual therapist in London.
Tanja put me into hypnosis and invited me into the control centre of my mind.
Inside my mind I found the Audacity dial and turned it up full.
Later that evening I had my first meeting with my higher self.
And I’m happy to say, She Rocks!!!!
After this experience I’ve never been the same again.
Once I was in alignment with my higher self everything else slotted into place.
I had finally figured out what I wanted to talk about, and I’m now bringing more Audacity, Hope and high energy vibes to all my clients and projects….
It’s really good to be here. 💛
Thank you for sharing this Emma!
Thank you for the snazzy prompt!!! 😊