Year 1 of Submission

I'm grateful, and we're entering the next stanza!

“GRACE - Man Praying Over Bread” by Eric Enstrom. Image courtesy of Fine Art America.

Today, this newsletter celebrates its first year!

I’m still young enough to see one year as a significant unit of time. And I’m learning enough as a writer to see even minor milestones as victories for which I ought to be grateful.

Thank y’all for the words-sized reach I have into your minds, the reach y’all have given me like a small but finely-wrought gift.

Some of y’all subscribed to A Stylist Submits before October 31, 2021. Some of y’all have subscribed in 2022. Some of y’all showed up in only the last few weeks. Whenever you’ve arrived, you’re a blessing to this work I get to do.

(And for those of you who hunt the internet in eagle-eyed ease, my first post technically went live on August 18, 2021. But that was a welcome-landing page, rather than the true start of my regular writing here.)

What was that writing, in this first year of submission?

It was hard-thought thoughts on my heart’s topics. It was work y’all blessed me by enjoying.

Recap Mode: our highlights from Year 1:

• Most popular: “Fearless Acceptance” — A Conversation with the Poet S.E. Reid (S.E. does great work, and y’all clearly agreed.)

• Most opened: Into the Mythic: the Portals of Allegory (59% of y’all opened this newsletter, the highest percentage since my first newsletter a year ago.)

• Most discussed: “Fearless Acceptance” — A Conversation with the Poet S.E. Reid (14 comments in that thread; see above comment to understand why.)

• Most “converting”: Ways of Waiting: Christ and Time (this reverie about Advent and The Magic Mountain brought 6 new subscribers by itself, which still amazes me nine months later.)

• Closest to my heart: The Dictated Worth of Intensive Texts (I try to avoid manifestoes, but this one sums up my mind as a stylist.)

• Most thrilling to write: Poetic and Musical Ascendance, in 4 Movements (impersonating a classical sonata with a written essay and audio inserts thrills me, for I’m an incorrigible nerd.)

Other encouragements: I’ve never been alone in the writing.

A year ago, I had 39 free subscribers (courtesy of friends and family who blasted me with digital love-cannons on October 28). Today, I have 95 free subscribers. In economic-statistical circles, that’s termed a “WOW” or, alternately, a “HOW.”

Y’all live in Texas, North Carolina, Michigan, Spain, France, and other locales. Y’all know me from childhood, college, church, work, and the internet. You are a widespread, eclectic, and lovely mosaic of readers.

And—despite my initial musings to the contrary—I’ve never been alone in writing about the meeting of faith and literature. God has also blessed me with introductions to fellow writers who also travel this backroad to Emmaeus.

So I’d like to name and thank a few of them:

• William Collen, the writer behind Ruins (and a friend)

• S.E. Reid, the poet behind The Wildroot Parables (and a friend)

• Joseph Knowles, the novelist behind The Tidewater Papers (and a friend)

• Adrian Conway, the writer behind Scriptourer, The Pelican Crossing, and other writing here on Substack

• Johanna Polus, the writer behind Private Prayers

• Paul Kingsnorth, the writer of some of my favorite novels and of The Abbey of Misrule (one of my aesthetic inspirations)

• Image Journal, whose poetry and essays have inspired my own

• Plough Magazine, whose boldness of Christian thought has inspired my mind and faith

• Mere Orthodoxy, whose blogs challenge me to greater erudition

• Fare Forward, whose essays I ponder and whose Wednesday newsletters I always anticipate

Christians are meant for communal vocation, and so are writers. God has blessed me with no small writerly community this last year.

The Next Stanza: More Words to Read (and Hear), and New Ways to Support Them

Since y’all have so encouraged me this past year, I’m grateful to announce the next phase of A Stylist Submits: I will record poem readings, write book reviews in addition to the usual essays, and open paid subscriptions for the newsletter.

Setting the table where Christian thought and world literature will break bread is my vocation here. And I’d bet that many of y’all share that same mission, or want to. Y’all have shown me, over and above my hopes, that you care about my writing. And so I want us to embark on this new path.

Now (*slaps digital newsletter like a used Ford Pinto*), let’s talk shop. Every month, I will send y’all:

• Two poetry readings uploaded under the Pianissimo audio section (both my favorite poems and my own poems)

• The third-Thursday essays that explore the meeting place of Christian thought and world literature

• Short-ish book reviews of the novels and nonfiction I read—including commentary on which books will inform my next novel and how

(Oh, right—I’m beginning another novel. I’ve been prewriting by hand its characters, plots, and themes like a conspiracist since November 2021. It tells a story from the western North Carolina mountains from the 1970s, of people there who have reached the ends of their belief systems. In a world of plans that always work, I want to serialize one of the novel’s sections in this newsletter.)

From now until April 31, 2023, all these poems, reviews and essays will remain free, and y’all are welcome to buy a paid subscription at any time. After April 31, I’ll limit those poems and book reviews to paying subscribers only. As ever, the third-Thursday essays will remain free to everyone.

This new phase will be more work, of course, but I feel encouraged to try by the support y’all have given me this past year.

What do you think?

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Thanks for being here, y’all. I keep saying that, because I keep meaning it.

I’ll be in touch again on November 17 with an exploration of the freedom that literature and faith need—freedom most of all from chafing, charring political restraints.

And because this is what we do now, I’ll also be in touch before and after that essay, with a reading of “The Stars Now Rearrange Themselves” by Dana Gioia and a review of Near to the Wild Heart, by Clarice Lispector.