Two years in

Anniversary time, plus my weekly shareables: Art but sports, Elmo but with therapy, and a lost country gem

Photo by Waldemar on Unsplash

One quick announcement for Charlotte-area readers: I’m moderating two live panel discussions on the future of Charlotte in my role as host of the podcast SOUTHBOUND. Each event will feature experts from across the city talking about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in education, the environment, the arts and more.

The events are Feb. 22 and March 28 at WFAE’s uptown building on Seventh Street—a beautiful place to gather and have a conversation. Tickets and more info available here; holler if you have any questions.

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This week marks two years since I started this newsletter on Substack. I thought you might like a status report.

We started with 1,194 subscribers who carried over from my old MailChimp newsletter. From the beginning the Writing Shed has been free to all, with the option to pay if you want to (and are able to) support the work.

At the end of year one, I had 2,899 subscribers overall, with 239 paid subscribers.

Now, at the end of year two, the Shedhead tribe is swelling: 4,282 subscribers overall, with 285 paid.

It warms my heart that more than four thousand of you let my words land in your inbox every week (because I know what a jungle the inbox can be)—but not only that, how many of you actually open the newsletter and read it. I’m consistently getting a nearly 60 percent open rate with every newsletter—which I’m told is a really high number. And every week I get lovely comments (both directly on the posts and emailed to me) that prove all over again how smart and insightful all of you are. I’m so glad we’ve come together.

It’s probably been clear to you that I’ve been burning the midnight oil over the past year finishing my book (DOGLAND! Out April 23! Preorder now!). That means I haven’t given this newsletter as much attention as I’d like, and as much as y’all deserve. I will strive to do better now that the writing part of the book is winding down a bit. (This week I’m making very small edits to the manuscript, and we just finished the last edits to the cover. Here’s something I learned this week: Avid Reader, my publisher, created a second cover for the book for European Union countries. The EU started a policy last year to reduce the number of books shipped from overseas, so Amazon has a print-on-demand edition in paperback for customers there. Being a paperback, that book doesn’t have the flaps that come with a dust jacket. So it has a slightly different cover.)

I know many of you have already preordered DOGLAND, and I’m deeply honored that you would part with your money to buy my book. I’m also honored that so many of you are paid subscribers to the Shed. My goal in doing this newsletter is to make it feel like a good value to you. Here are a few enticements if you’ve been on the fence about becoming a paid subscriber:

—As we get close to publication day for DOGLAND, I’ll have a couple of “deleted scenes” available to paid subscribers. They’re things I wrote for the book that I love but had to cut for space or flow. Think of it as like the extras on a DVD (for those of you who still remember the time before streaming).

—I’ll also be doing a Q&A for paid subscribers not long after the book comes out—maybe a few weeks after pub day, so people will have time to read the book and come up with questions.

—Finally, for the next couple of weeks, I’m going to offer a 20 percent discount on the first year of new subscriptions. This offer ends Feb. 15 so now’s the time to sign up.

Writing this newsletter every week brings me joy, and I hope you get some joy out of it on your end, too. I always want to hear your ideas on how to make the Shed better, things you want more of, things you want less of. I do have some projects planned for here that I hope to roll out shortly … I have learned not to promise too much while I’m still on Book Time, but I’ll do my best. In the meantime, I can’t say this enough: Thanks.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. This week’s SOUTHBOUND was a replay of my conversation from last summer with Tressie McMillan Cottom, who is worth listening to over and over. (Slight spoiler: Tressie also makes an appearance in DOGLAND!)

2. I was part of a panel on WFAE’s news show CHARLOTTE TALKS to discuss the renewed threats to journalism in 2024.

3. My weekly for WFAE was on misplaced priorities at our big (and often bottlenecked) airport.

4. RIP Jon Franklin, one of the masters of what we now think of as longform journalism. I’m one of the thousands of reporters who learned the craft from stories like “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster.” (Nieman Storyboard)

5. DOG NEWS: From now until DOGLAND comes out, I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: My colleague Nick de la Canal with a sweet story on a dog and owner reunited after six years. (WFAE)

6. The brilliant mind behind the social media feed Art But Make It Sports, which regularly produces gems like this:

   

   (NYT)
   

7. Sesame Street’s Elmo, briefly and accidentally, became America’s therapist. (NYT)

8. An Oklahoma inmate might soon be executed … or he might bring down the death penalty altogether. (The Free Press)

9. Two excellent writers and thinkers—Jesmyn Ward and Regina N. Bradley—have a conversation about the gothic South, especially through a Black lens. (Southern Cultures)

10. My YouTube algorithm kicked up a recent live version of Jamey Johnson’s “In Color.” That version had a little too much crowd noise for my taste, but it sent me back to the original—one of the best country records of the last 30 years. It wrecks me every time I hear it.

    Have a great week, everybody.