28 x 20: Daily Prompts for Writing Super-Short Personal Essays in 20 Minutes open.substack.com/pub/howilear...

Forget what you think you should write. Forget what you’ve been trying to write. Not a writer? Forget it. Bestselling writer? Who cares! No stakes. No attachment to outcomes. Set your Passion Planner on fire because we're going somewhere else now. www.howilearnedseries.com/p/little-rit...

Get the FAQs. Late to the party is no problem.

Finally, it’s the 1200th day of January. One more endless day to go! And just 11 hours left to steal 25% off a one-year subscription to HOW I LEARNED, which, in addition to resisting fascism, is probably the best thing for you right now. www.howilearnedseries.com/subscribe

New from Emma Logan at How I Learned. 🖤

ICE is using Medicaid data to find out where immigrants live via Anna Claire Vollers of @stateline.org wisconsinexaminer.com/2026/01/20/r...

The latest at How I Learned magazine: a personal essay by my dear old friend Erica Youngren. I've loved her since the third grade! www.howilearnedseries.com/p/after-this...

ICYMI ♥️

SUNDAY 12/14: Silent Write-In. No prompts. No fees. No kings. Everyone on mute. Bring some hot choc with whip. 1-3pm EST (drop in anytime). It’s whatever. www.blaiseallysenkearsley.com/silent-virtual-write-in

ATTN: GEN X!!!! QUICKSAND ALERT!!!!!!

MY NEXT GHOST from How I Learned mag: a few succinct scattered questions for people we like—less “what’s your creative process?” and more, “have you ever seen a businessman slip on a banana peel?” Our first next ghost is the brilliant, inimitable @janetsteen.bsky.social substack.com/@blaiseallys...

2 SPOTS LEFT. Still time to join us. Give me two hours tomorrow, 6:30pm-8:30pm EST, and I’ll solve all your probs.

The latest essay greatness at HOW I LEARNED, "Smarter Than Blood" by Heather Hawk.

Last summer, Mamdani was at a Citi Bike station wearing a suit and a smile. A crowd gathered around him. One woman shouted, “Communist!” He didn’t bother looking in her direction. He just put his boots on the pedals and said, “I think you mean cyclist.” Y’all, I think about that all the time.

Question. When are they going to make trees that money grows on?

Can you change your life in 10 days? Maybe not, but for the next 10 days, you can at least submit your life-altering flash fiction to Vestal Review, where we always appreciate good work. Our fall submissions window closes at midnight on November 30th. www.vestalreview.net/guidelines

Find a penny pick it up, nothing means anything anymore, you dumbass fuck.

If a newsletter hopes to be beneficial to people with fewer resources, but every post is paywalled—who is it actually for?

Mamdani. First order of business. Make it light out again.

“I noticed something else: a woman with no friends. She liked to sit in the front row with a chair between her and the next woman. During the intermission, while I was chowing down on cookies, she sat alone, eating cantaloupe out of a plastic container.”

What the fuck do you mean it’s November?

Yes, but can someone just bring me the candy and some pumpkin seeds?

Is it normal to be weepy the day after a flu shot or have I hit a wall in the abnormal shape of everything?

#Jamaica needs our support more than ever right now and, never ones to shy away from self-reliance, they’ve set up an officially sanctioned website for recovery donations. The footage of Hurricane Melissa’s destruction in St. Elizabeth coming in from my family is HARROWING. supportjamaica.gov.jm

Micro essay by @marciayudkin.bsky.social

The latest at How I Learned mag: a writer and professor sees hearing loss as no big deal until it starts to seem bigger. www.howilearnedseries.com

Has anyone met Joseph?

For like the last six months I’ve had a crush on this guy though we’ve never actually met but I just learned the crush is mutual so I’m breaking up with him.

Writer, producer, comedian @zackstovall calculates the cost of vanity and vintage comb overs. The latest buzz (sorry) at How I Learned.

Sudden Truths: Writing Flash Memoir and Super-Short Personal Essays

⚡ www.howilearnedseries.com/p/submissions

Can someone please explain Role Model?

Robert De Niro: “Now we have a would-be king — King Donald the First. Fuck that. I’m Robert De Niro and I’m asking you to stand up and be counted in the nationwide No Kings protest on October 18th” 👉👉 nokings.org

This super personal essay had been in the works by its author for a long, long time. Now it's out in the universe:

Speaking of voices under attack…can we be just as loud about Black journalists and comedians who are silenced, even by our so-called liberal outlets. • Joy Reid • Don Lemon • Melissa Harris-Perry • Tiffany Cross • Jemele Hill • Marc Lamont Hill • Karen Attiah • Amber Ruffin

"And I like very much that the ladybugs are f****** in the lupines."

Increasingly I’ve been canceling subscriptions and loading up on prescriptions. If that’s helpful to anyone.

“What’s the government gonna do? Attack us?? Citizens???” Black folks: Latinx folks: Trans folks:

I wrote something. "These white, lanky B-boys stood still in their Adidas Superstars and tried not to laugh. The backdrop for the breakdancing battle was a mauve and beige living room with portraits of naked ladies painted by my grandmother."

Art, illness, Nina Ricci, “miracle” cleaners, and a grandmother’s love. New story by @ebonyalia.bsky.social at How I Learned magazine.

MAGA: "COVID vaccines killed millions!" MAGA(also): "Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for the COVID vaccines!"

Mo’Bradie only exists at family reunions. Not on Google. Not on paper. Never captured on film, pressed on the glue-covered page of a broken-spine photo album. Mo’Bradie is a word-of-mouth kind of woman. A “did you hear” or “I heard that she” kind of woman. — @avitusbcarle.bsky.social

New essay by Hannah Van Sickle on How I Learned mag. open.substack.com/pub/howilear...

Everything is brutal and unrelenting (plus: Monday mood) but just now a Gen X guy on a bike passed by, snaking down the middle of the street, blasting “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult. So that was nice.

Over on How I Learned, a new featured essay by @avitusbcarle.bsky.social.

You can get in on a “Fight The Trump Takeover Rally” near you. www.mobilize.us/fightthetrum...