Big Changes

Hi friends.

A few weeks ago, I surveyed the readers of my three blogs to determine what would be the best way to keep communicating while also reducing the amount of upkeep three blogs requires. A drawback to integrating all three is that they have very different subjects and audiences, and if I sent all the content to everyone, they’d get annoyed quickly. To make matters worse, I have even more ideas and projects I am exploring and creating more outlets seems crazy and duplicative.

I’ve finally found a solution. I’m moving all three blogs to a website I’m calling The Bureau of Ideas. I can send three different newsletters to three different audiences, but all the content will be hosted in one place, in case anyone is curious about all the stuff I write about. The Bureau of Ideas newsletter will be similar to this one: my thoughts, ideas, recommendations - critical thought with a side of absurdity. The Champions of Conflict will still be about labor law and arbitration and The Pushback will still aggregate political news about the people and organizations pushing back against Trump. You can subscribe to one, two, or all three of them.

Some topics might go out to two audiences. For example, I’ve just expanded my idea The Next Ten Amendments. This sprung from a post in The Pushback but I’m also printing physical copies as a zine to distribute by mail, bookstores, and hand. A lot of politicians ask me for money; I’d like to have a physical object to put in their hand when they do. It feels corny and outside my comfort zone, but political zines are just a tiny way to make my voice heard over the din of the Internets. I’m telling you, my OG O&A readers, about this because you know me well and I want your thoughts about this project.

My hope for The Bureau of Ideas is that in lives in a lot of places and a lot of ways. I might use it as the umbrella for other real world publishing endeavors or for some art projects I have in mind. I might use it as a vehicle for creating trainings. Or I might just keep spewing out random lists and recommendations to you guys. We’ll see.

The new website and newsletters will be hosted on Ghost, a different platform that Substack. I think Substack has done something cool, and they did it better than Medium (where I also once had a blog) but there are a few problems with Substack that Ghost doesn’t have. First, Substack platforms Nazi sympathizers and anti-trans activists and I don’t want my writing to fund that. Second, they take a 10% cut of my subscriptions and Ghost doesn’t take any money from the subs. I’m not trying to make money from this but I’d like more control over that part as well.

In the next few days, I will be moving your email over to my new list. There’s a possibility it will automatically subscribe you to my other newsletters, although I am working to prevent that. If it happens, let me know and I will make sure to fix it for you. If you want to subscribe to more than one, let me know that too! After I make the move, I am going to ask you to please share my work with other people who might like it. I appreciate you in advance!