Dear patrons, present and future —

A peer recently asked me what my newsletter was about and, characteristically, I blabbered for a minute about growth, womanhood, and reflections on selfhood drawn from various disciplines and hobbies like literature, bookbinding, wine, travel, nutrition, tiny home living — in other words, a lot of things, hence a ridiculously nebulous description that misses every aspect of an elevator pitch.

Committing to a niche makes me uneasy, which is why I’ve deliberately designed my container to be amorphous, elusive, infinite. Woman, myself, is indeed a fickle and changeable thing. I like it this way — it’s my nature — though I worry about being accidentally exclusive or frustratingly vague. Has that been the case, you think?

Regardless, allow me to attempt an illumination, especially now that I’m expanding my creative projects —

Semper femina

When I began my newsletter in 2023, I initially called it Eat Well, Take Care. At the time, I wrote mostly about food & wine, nutrition, and slow living. Its creation coincided with my first few years in the United States, during which my sense of self had been destabilized from the migration, so after six months I baptized my newsletter with its current name, semper femina. This name, a phrase borrowed from Laura Marling who in turn borrowed it from Virgil, better suited my shapeshifting disposition as I made a new life that shattered old worldviews, introduced me to new ideas and experiences, and bridged concepts I had once seen as separate. All these changes found their way into my essays, which had begun to cover many new territories: social media algorithms, butterfly migration, grief & awe, love stories old & new, the Olympics. In each essay I trace how I’ve been changed — for the better, I should hope — so if there is anything to take away from my essays, it’s that the random, chance events of a life are transformed into meaning through narrative; the stories we tell ourselves. I’m always in the process of becoming, and the essays in semper femina nurture this blooming.

All my essays will, for the indefinite future, remain free to all subscribers. Paid subscribers receive access to digitized copies of my epistolary zine, EPISTOLARIA (details below). I do hope you’d consider upgrading your subscription, if you are able. Your patronage allows me to center my creative life, finally.

EPISTOLARIA, a zine project

My love for paper and the written word came together in EPISTOLARIA, a zine project I launched in the fall of last year. I wrote extensively about its origins here, but the heart of the project is a desire to connect outside the digital, and disrupt the purely transactional communications stuffed into our mailboxes. It turns out that many folks have been doing something like this for a while under the concept of a mailing club! If the idea of receiving small pieces of art and poetry in your mailbox sounds intriguing, please consider joining the list for $7/month.

I am sending out the last free issue to my current mailing list tomorrow. The next one, scheduled for the end of October, will be the first issue of the new, monthly iteration. Only paid EPISTOLARIA subscribers will receive a copy. Sign up before the 15th of every month to be included in the next shipment!

Coming soon: hand-bound books & journals

My love affair with analog continues into a new craft I’ve been learning this past year: bookbinding. It began with simply wanting to design my own journal, so like any digital native, I learned the essentials of the craft on YouTube with a basic tool kit I ordered on Etsy. I did want to transcend being simply a novice, so I enrolled in a bookbinding workshop earlier this year (which I wrote about here), and participated in an experimental summer residency where I completed a book project under the guidance of a master book and print artist. I’ve come a long way since, but I’m still eagerly learning.

I’m planning to accept commissions for custom journals these next few weeks, so do keep an eye out for more details! Please reach out if you’d like to know more, and maybe an idea of what you’d like made, so I can gauge interest and plan accordingly.

If you’ve been here a while…

Thank you for staying. It can feel frivolous to devote so much energy into art and literature given the current economic and political climate — the flood control corruption scandal back home, the government shutdown in the US, the ongoing genocide of Palestinians — but I believe in the importance of this work. I have to. My grandest hope is to participate in conversations and movements, grand and small, that stir real change. This ambition demands clarity of mind, strength of will, and lightness of spirit, and all this work is great practice. A sharpening of tools. Whatever your tools may be, I hope for your mastery, too.