What I want to write about in 2025 newsletters
and a picture of the four notebooks, two notepads, and three pens I've been traveling with
In morning pages lately, I’ve been taking stock of writing in public/online. For ANEMONE, I’m still having fun with the monthly-ish newsletter with an essay, studio process notes, and links and recommendations. But I also want to do more personal writing, short writing, experimental writing, on topics like:
Cooking and eating, and sharing recipes
Money and personal finance - thoughts on spending money on things I love, investing, how my mindset about money has changed over time, money reading recs
I want to write up a detailed studio process for an artist publishing project. Like writing up the project budget and planning notes like supplies, time, usage, machines used, and reflect on projects after.
Little tutorial / how-to write ups
Mini city-guides of the cities we walk/bike around this year
My artist manifesto
Reflect on the things I feel compelled to make, and the colors and materials I’m drawn to
Reflect on tending to the personal, my own garden: how do these ways I tend impact the collective, myself included, in positive ways?
List my artist/writer inspirations, and specific pieces of artwork
Favorites and obsessions, preferences and delights
Being sensitive and accommodating my needs and desires
Climate crisis and collapse as a context: building the futures we want to live, fighting authoritarianism/oligarchy/genocide/etc in the US
Personal essays / memoir in general. Maybe I’ll include excerpts from things that came up morning pages or my bullet journal. Sharing more photos.
Journal prompts or writing exercises I’ve been working with.
Writing that’s like how to make a winter happiness plan and artist publishing (vs. self-publishing), and some of the longer pieces on my personal blog, but also lists and sketches and photo montages.
I decided that this year I’m going to experiment with using the this newsletter’s paid subscribers feature to play with having writing space beyond the internet at large: a container for experimenting with form and format online. I also want use the paid format as permission for myself, to write/assemble some things that feel like paid work, but don’t fit as zines or booklets (ie, they need to be online). I’ve noticed that there’s a slight backlog of digital things I want to make, that I haven’t been doing because it doesn’t feel quite right to do it for free. (What feels incorrect to be free is interesting. We put a lot of work into making Spectrolite and offer it for free and that feels just right, but other things don’t.)
So I decided to send 25 paid newsletters in 2025.
I’m also going to send a printed pamphlet in the mail to annual subscribers in the fall/winter of 2025. Before we started traveling, I bought a box of envelopes (the business kind, with the security pattern inside) at a thrift store, and I want to risograph print something fun to send out in them once we’re back in the studio. It will be nice to do something the design constraint that it’s mail-able by postage stamp and fits in the envelope. Snail mail!
So that I have more people to write to, there is a special deal of annual subscriptions for $25:
A few notes:
I’m happy to do trades for writers who have their own paid newsletters. Just add me to your comp list for 12 months, then reply to this email or message me!
If we’re IRL friends and you want me to add you to the comp list, email/text!
If $25 is financially inaccessible to you & you want to read, email!
This wanting-to-write-more feeling is also part of the plans my collaborator Amy and I are making to bring back the all well newsletter after taking a break for while. Yay, sewing things! First new issue is out tomorrow.
It feels really cool to be in community / connected with such a creative group of people, however far flung through the internet and world. Thanks for being here!
Big cold from St. Louis,
Amelia
P.S. — Milwaukee people! Adam and I will be part of Ruth Foundation for the Arts (325 W Florida) “Happiest Hour” event with 10+ Risographers from the Midwest and beyond. Join us this Thursday, January 16th from 5–7 pm for a showcase of Risograph art books, prints, and ephemera! Meet the artists and enjoy cocktails by She Was a Public House and tacos and tamales provided by Las 7 Estrellas. Free, just show up. More details on Instagram or online.