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Swiftology on breakups, Yorkshire peat bogs, and the history of Ghana’s bag for life
This week’s digest is guest edited by the creators of In Haste, a literary magazine and podcast about how books get written, from authors Alice Vincent and Charlotte Runcie.
This week’s digest is guest edited by the creators of In Haste, a literary magazine and podcast about how books get written, from authors Alice Vincentand Charlotte Runcie. In Haste is a new kid on the block, but since launching, its most popular post is “Why don’t we have enough time? with Oliver Burkeman,” which changed everyone’s minds about productivity and writing.
Alice here. Charlotte and I send a lot of voice notes. In fact, In Haste, which completes its first full season on Tuesday, was born of a fortuitous WhatsApp chat and these tiny personalised podcasts sent to each other between South London and Wales. This week we’ve been sending a lot of voice notes about Substack. How to possibly choose from all of the publications here? We applied the same principles that help us choose authors to invite onto our podcast: Do we love their writing? Do they make us think differently? Is there something here that resonates, or illuminates, or that we’ll still be thinking about seasons down the line? I’m happy to report that everything below ticks at least one of those little-big boxes.
Perhaps you’re in the market for a loving refresher on Taylor Swift’s songwriting career ahead of the pop star’s release this weekend, or a poem about the sometimes-gruelling business of getting up and carrying on creating. We will never see those familiar hold-alls in the same light after this post from Avery Trufelman, and we found great relief in learning that Rihanna also has feels about her postpartum body. If you love reading about writing anywhere near as much as the In Haste community does, checking out Anna Wharton’s take on author salaries is a must.
We love it when we hear from our listeners that we’ve introduced them to a new author on the podcast, and we hope that happens for you here too.
“We’re both pretty familiar with the notion of getting dressed around small children—both literally and figuratively. I actively go searching for new issues of fashion writer Frankie Graddon’s newsletter because she manages to make me feel better about having peanut butter encrusted onto everything I own while inspiring me to do something about it. This week’s, which offers an honest examination of celebrity and the postpartum body, is brilliant”
I could write you an essay on how fine and flat my hair is. And that its flyaway texture is giving Jane Austen heroine yomping across a mizzly heath. And that I haven’t been able to grow it past my shoulders in years. And that so much fell out postpartum (both times), I cried in the shower (both times).
“In Haste was set up to expose how the sausage gets made in the book industry: how people write, and when. What happens when a novel dies on submission. What it really feels like ahead of becoming a best-selling debut. We like the stories behind stories, and this issue of Huddle Up brings that from the far more glamorous realm of Formula One. Joe Pompliano offers three posts a week that break down the murky, often-hidden interchange between sports and money; it’s the stuff you could lift a good novel from”
And if music and racing aren’t for you, there are hundreds of food vendors, live auctions, boats, pools, beach clubs, marketing activations, and more. The point is that there is an option for literally everyone, regardless of that person’s budget or interest.
“Trust us, this is a post that will transport you somewhere beautiful. Peat bogs are akin to the UK’s rainforests, and treated just as badly. But restoration is happening, as garden designer and nature writer Jack Wallington reports from a Yorkshire dale. With stunning photography, Jack introduces us to a potted history of one of the greatest ecological crimes the UK has seen—and how it’s now being turned around”
Entering one of the gullies to the call of a golden plover, we’re met by a heartbreaking scene as the scale of damage to this peat habitat is put into perspective. Walls of exposed dry peat two metres high or more enclose us. We’re standing where 4,000-6,000 years of peat and wildlife habitat should have been. It takes on average a year to form just 1 mm of peat.
“As jumbo podcast nerds who decided to host our podcast on Substack rather than the more traditional platforms, it’s always interesting to see how audio is unfolding here. Yrsa is a brilliant and multi-talented writer (her memoir, The Terrible, won the PEN Ackerley Prize in 2019), and it’s quietly thrilling to see the sheer playfulness she’s pouring into The Utter”
“We are absolutely here for other podcast-newsletter multi-platform babies, and Articles of Interest was doing it long before we were. As a podcast, it has amassed a loyal listenership, but it’s exciting to see how its creator, Avery Trufelman, works it out on the page. Intertextual, eclectic, and eye-opening, these posts will change how you think about clothes”
Oddly enough, this is the bag’s story in many countries, even outside of Nigeria. In Kenya they are known as Nigeria bags, and Zimbabweans call them Botswana bags. They seem to always be the bag of The Other: the carryall of the immigrant who is forced to pack up everything and leave.
“Sure, Char and I can chat a fair game about books, but we can also hold our own in a Taylor Swift pub quiz. We have strongly considered a subscriber-only bonus episode on The Tortured Poets Department. Swiftian Theory is our go-to source of Taylor intel, and this post serves as both a brilliant primer of her work and a good script for Swift skeptics”
Let’s hear that again: I’ve never had an album where I’ve needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets.” God knows what we’re in for, but I’m scared and excited by the emotional depths she’s going to take us to.
“It’s our royalty time of year: always something of a roller coaster, which can either define how you spend the next six months or send you hunting for ice cream and writerly resolve. Anna is a fantastically well-connected and experienced part of the publishing industry, having ghostwritten best-selling books, received Orwell Prize nominations, and sold books online. She knows her stuff”
But what I can never understand is how, in this whole chain of people involved in selling books, the creator of the material, the person who came up with the idea, who sat down and wrote it often through sweat and tears, is paid the least out of everyone.
“India Knight is a prolific author (five novels! seven nonfiction books!), but I grew up reading her no-nonsense beauty tips in the weekend colour supplement. HOME offers just as much practical wisdom. This week’s post is particularly pertinent for In Haste: Char and I frequently correspond during baby dinner time and stay up late working. Essentially, we’re knackered, and all of these sound delicious, please”
Toasted sourdough topped with ricotta, freshly podded young broad beans and your best olive oil. Although ‘your best olive oil’ is a piece in itself—sometimes very expensive olive oil just makes me want to cough.
Hi, all. As I write this, it’s been a month since we launched Authors Equity. After a year of working to assemble the puzzle pieces of a new company, it’s exhilarating (and daunting) to finally step into the public eye. Thanks for reading Fair Share by Authors Equity! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work…
I’ve struggled with how to begin this newsletter. What I’m about to ask makes me feel deeply uncomfortable! But sometimes you just have to push yourself outside your comfort zone and do the hard thing. And that’s what I’m doing today. I’m sending this email…
I’m a planner at heart. I like to reflect on the months, and sometimes, the years to come and what might be in store for them. I’ve always been like this; even as a child. Sometimes things go to plan, sometimes things don’t. Sometimes I can remember myself in the moment I’d envisaged and realise how wrong or right I got it, and it feels like occupying different selves all at once…
Dear Friends, My book How to Baby: a No-Advice-Given guide to Motherhood comes out next week. I️ will be in conversation with the incredible Jessica Grose at Books Are Magic, 122 Montague Street in Brooklyn, at 7 on Friday night April 26th I’d love to see you there if you’re around and up for a book event…
My psychological horror novella comes out Tuesday 16th April with Dark Matter Ink. It’s called The House at the End of Lacelean Street, and here’s the link: https://darkmattermagazine.shop/products/the-house-at-the-end-of-lacelean-street?variant=44797570908416 Thank you!
Honor the Dead is out April 16th - A smalltown murder mystery about a cranky coroner cracking a murder and solving a centuries-old mystery to boot https://bookshop.org/p/books/honor-the-dead-amy-tector/19457040?ean=9781684428908
Notes from our guest editors
Alice Vincent2mo
Boiling the kettle, putting on the cosy over-everything cardigan: very much the vibe before we fit some evening recording in for @In Haste after all the bedtimes and deadlines and emails
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1
Alice Vincent2mo
I can’t help but think of @Oliver Burkeman every time I do something to the dishwasher when I’m meant to be working now. It also reminded me of this: just casually stacking the dishwasher on my wedding day while my mother screamed “GET AWAY FROM THERE”
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2
Alice Vincent9d
@Charlotte Runcie being brilliant on the strange synchronicity between writing and gardening over on @In Haste today.
Writers often feel drawn to gardening, and I’m far from the first person to point out that planting a garden is not unlike writing a book. For both, you need a plot, and a plan for…” — Charlotte Runcie
3
Alice Vincent2mo
It’s a week of substack change around The Hut, with meetings and draftings and scribblings going on BTS for both @In Haste and savour. I’m curious: what is it that tips you into a paying subscriber? I’ll start us off: as a paying subscriber to several it’s a heady mixture of unconditional support for a writer I appreciate and a desire to read behind the paywall.
3
Alice Vincent1mo
this chimed. After mentioning savour sessions the other week I’ve been thinking a lot about doing things OFFLINE and IN PERSON because, well, it’s just less depressing really isn’t it
I hate to bounce after opining on problems without suggesting solutions, so here’s my POV: You can still write online, you can even go crazy on Notes, but if you really want to…” — Cydney Hayes
6
In Haste3mo
just wanted to take a moment for our gorgeous illustrations, we can not get enough of them
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Noteworthy
N.S. Lyons5d
Statue in Budapest honoring anon writers is pretty badass.
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Viv Chen6d
honestly if I were a dog I would probably be a chihuahua no shame in that
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1
Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell11d
R u embarrassed
18
Bill Bishop4d
Tashi almost as excited about video on notes as he is about this bone. Almost…
21
1
Starry Gordon2y
The rules of Realpolitik more or less require personality features in great leaders which would be considered psychopathy or sociopathy in ordinary mortals. So, one can confidently diagnose Putin and a number of other people (not just Russians or even Americans) as psychopaths. It just doesn't tell us much about what they're going to do.
1
Laura Kennedy4d
Me: ‘Okay please just be normal and don’t unsettle our guests.’ Mabel:
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Carlos Greaves5d
Pro tip: You can instantly improve your writing by using synonyms. Take, for example, a boring sentence like: “The oaks burst with pollen, covering the cars with yellow dust and heralding the arrival of spring.” Instead, you could write: “The oaks jizzed everywhere, covering the cars with yellow oak jizz and heralding the arrival of tree jizz season.” I call this lesson “Spring has come.”
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Maya C. Popa4d
Let me know if you like having poems read to you! If not, I promise never to do it again! 🤣 I LOVE reading poems aloud. ✨
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2
camden noir4d
Some days be like…
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Inspired by the writers featured in Substack Reads? Writing on your own Substack is just a few clicks away:
Substack Reads is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, and audio from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and this week’s digest was guest edited by the hosts of In Hasteon Substack, Alice Vincent, and Charlotte Runcie. You can follow Alice and Charlotte and In Haste on Notes, and also find Alice on Instagram and Twitter, and Charlotte on Instagram and Twitter. Substack Reads is edited from our U.K. outpost by Hannah Ray.
Got a Substack post to recommend? Tell us about it in the comments.
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