The Substack Podcast

We spoke with Paula Forbes of Stained Page News, a newsletter about cookbooks. For her, it’s a place to geek out about cookbooks - where she can write about news, recipes, and upcoming releases.

Paula has a multifaceted view of the culinary world. She worked as a professional cookbook critic for over a decade, writing for publications like Eater, Epicurious, Lucky Peach, and Food 52. She also has a background in cooking for restaurants, and in 2008 she published her own cookbook, The Austin Cookbook.

We talked about the worlds of food blogging and cookbook writing, what makes a good cookbook, and what it was like for Paula to write her own cookbook after years of reviewing them.

Links

Stained Page News, Paula’s newsletter

Paula on Twitter

The Austin Cookbook, Paula’s cookbook 

Highlights

(2:23) Paula’s writing journey, from writing cookbook reviews to blogging to starting her newsletter 

(12:38) Why people buy cookbooks, even though so many recipes are online now

(18:42) How the 2008 recession coincided with the rise of food bloggers

(25:44) Paula’s favorite types of cookbooks, and the overall qualities that make good cookbooks 

(37:34) The process of writing a cookbook 

On similarities between cooking and writing:

The feeling you get from cooking in a restaurant and writing a solid blog post that goes up really quickly is very similar to me. A very speedy, quick strategy is involved. You have to be very efficient.

On having a community of newsletter readers:

I think that in the grand scheme of things, you're never going to make it rich with a cookbook website or TV show. But being able to focus on a self-selecting audience who has said, "Okay, I'm interested in this topic. I'm interested in cookbooks. I want to hear what you have to say about them.” It amplifies what you're saying so much more.

On the process of writing a cookbook:

It's a hell of a process. You have to be so organized and you have to be just on top of everything. It's so much more data than just writing the text of the thing. Cookbooks are so much work and I have so much respect for anyone who tries to write one.

Transcript

Nadia (00:22):

We see a lot of food writers on Substack, but your publication, Stained Page News, stood out to me because you're specifically focused on cookbooks - which just said to me that this person isn't just really into food as a broader topic, but you have this truly geeky obsession with cookbooks specifically that I really want to hear more about. How did you come to fall in love with this topic?

Paula (00:44):

Way back when I graduated from college, I originally thought that I wanted to go to grad school and go into academia. And what I wanted to do was ... This was not really a thing that existed then, but I wanted to look at food cultural history of the 20th century through the lens of books as a literature.

Paula (01:19):

I applied to grad school a bunch of times and didn't get in because people kept saying, "You're a great candidate, but we don't have anyone here who can help you study that." So, in the meantime, I started writing book reviews, freelance, for a Typepad blog because this was what, 2007, 2008? And then later for outlets and I've been covering cookbooks ever since.

Nadia (01:52):

Wow, this got me even more excited about this topic. So, you really are coming at it from a researcher mindset way back in the day of wanting to just understand cookbooks as a genre, it sounds like, before you got into writing. You mentioned writing on a blog in the early days and then writing professionally and now you have a newsletter on Substack - how does that experience of early blogging compare to writing today?

Paula (02:23):

That's why I started the newsletter, it’s because I missed blogging. So, I started writing cookbook reviews and later just about everything else for a blog called Eat Meat Daily that no longer exists. And they looked at the liberal arts of food. It was art, it was film, it was books. And just generally weird stuff with a good sense of humor.

Paula (02:52):

So, I started there and that was a very late odds style blog. And then from there, I moved on to writing for Eater, which is a different style of blog.

Nadia (03:13):

So, for folks who haven't read Eater, can you tell us a little bit about how it's different?

Paula (03:23):

I can't really speak to their current style of blogging, but when I worked there, it was very quick hit news, re-blogs, everything with a sense of humor - sense of humor and a point of view of restaurant insiders. But the two were different and that one was very much ... Eater was very much volume-driven when I worked there, so it was very much get in, get out of the story. Get it up, have the best headline, that kind of thing.

Paula (04:02):

And I missed that. I also have a background in cooking in restaurants and the feeling you got from cooking in a restaurant and writing a really solid blog post that goes up quickly is very similar to me. A very speedy, quick strategy is involved. You have to be very efficient - so figuring out how to do that in my head scratches the itch of like, "Okay, now I'm working." And that doesn't really exist anymore in media, near as I can tell, at least not in my circles.

Paula (04:48):

So, I missed it. I missed talking about cookbook news which I didn't really see anyone doing. And I just started tweeting stuff. And then, people started picking up stuff I was tweeting and I was like, "Well, this is not great because I'm a freelance writer, and I would like to be making some money off of the scoops I'm finding." There is one in particular that was after Anthony Bourdain passed away.

Paula (05:29):

They announced that they were going to be publishing a book that he had been working on when he passed away. And so, I tweeted about it and everyone linked to the tweet. People magazine linked to the tweet. It was wild, and I was just like, "Why am I just throwing the stuff up on Twitter when I'd be writing it?" So, that's a very long way of saying that the newsletter scratches both the quick hit, how much information can you relay in one sentence thing that I got from blogging, and also fills the hole of the cookbook news that I wasn't seeing other places.

Nadia (06:14):

That makes sense. It sounds so simple but I feel like the addition of an email list really just changes that relationship. Even if you have a popular blog post and it goes super viral and everyone is reading it, you never really know who's on there and they kind of go off into the ether and do something else. But when you have a place for people to subscribe and get more of it, then it's you're actually building this relationship within an ongoing audience.

Paula (06:41):

Yeah, and especially with a topic like my topic which is so focused. I think that in the grand scheme of things, cookbooks are not ... You're never going to make it rich with a cookbook website or TV show or whatever but being able to focus it at a self-selecting audience who has said, "Okay, I'm interested in this topic. I'm interested in cookbooks. I want to hear what you have to say about them.” It amplifies what you're saying so much more.

Nadia (07:13):

I'm curious whether you feel like you've created a different sense of community because you're this independent writer at the center of your work versus writing about cookbooks and reviewing them on say Eater or Food 52’s communities.

Paula (07:29):

Gosh, not really. I don't allow comments on my newsletter.

Nadia (07:35):

Oh, interesting.

Paula (07:37):

So, I actually did on today's newsletter but it's a rarity for me. The newsletter management for me is very much about the path of least resistance in many ways. And it came down to: did I want to spend a ton of time moderating comments? And I've decided that that was not for me.

Nadia (08:03):

I really like that. I respect that. Actually, I noticed that you started writing Stained Page News a few years ago and then you went on hiatus and then you brought it back. And I just thought it was great because a lot of writers struggle with getting into this rhythm and feel maybe over-obligated to do more or maybe respond to or moderate comments or write all the time and consistently. Do you have any advice or learnings from this experience of being able to step away and come back again?

Paula (08:36):

Yeah. Gosh, how did that happen? I mean, the money is the big part of that, not to get into the weeds about the money - but as a freelancer, you can only spend so much time on things that don't pay. So that was part of why I stepped away, just I couldn't excuse it anymore. I couldn't make the time and I wasn't about to give up weekends or anything. You know, freelancers deserve downtime too.

Paula (09:07):

So, having an outlet where I could make some money off of it was honestly a huge, huge deal for me. I priced it pretty low, I think. It's five bucks a month and I did that specifically because I know that things come up where you can't do it occasionally and I didn't want people to feel like we're paying her 20 bucks a month or whatever it is, and then she doesn't write. That's not to say ... I write pretty much every week.

Paula (09:45):

But things come up. You get sick. You want to take a vacation, whatever. It's not going to happen every week, but I do think that if you're consistent in your publishing week to week, you will see it in open rates and you will see it in click-throughs and you will see it in the number of people who respond to the newsletter and it snowballs for sure.

Nadia (10:09):

You mentioned one of the reasons for stepping away is that you couldn't justify it as a non-paid thing you're doing versus the other paid work you had to focus on. Had you considered doing paid subscriptions previously? I know you did end up adding them when you moved to Substack.

Paula (10:28):

I didn't. It hadn't really occurred to me as an option. I had tried to figure out how to do affiliate links. Amazon doesn't let you do affiliate links and emails as I'm sure you know and people listening might not know. But I was doing a thing where I would send the email and then I would put the text of the newsletter on my website, but I really have to completely reformat it just so I can put in the Amazon links and then no one was ever using that.

Paula (11:01):

So, it's this huge thing and I was just like, "There's just no way. There's no way I'm ever going to be able to make money off of this." You all made the paid subscription thing really easy honestly.

Nadia (11:16):

How has having paid subscriptions changed your relationship with your writing if at all - since I imagine it does allow you to focus a little bit more time on that?

Paula (11:25):

Yeah. I feel a responsibility to my readers even though I tried to price it affordably. I'm never, ever, ever going to take for granted the fact that someone would give me money to read an email from me. So, I definitely take that into consideration. For example, recently, I used to send my newsletters Wednesdays and Fridays because new cookbooks come out on Tuesdays so I wanted it to be when books would come out and also that there had been articles written about the books would run Tuesday or Wednesday when food sections publish also.

Paula (12:11):

So, the Wednesday articles are the free article and the Friday issue was the paid and I was noticing that the Friday paid issue was kind of skimpy. So, I moved it to Tuesdays so that there would be more time and more time for things to happen so that I could give my paid subscribers a meatier issue every week.

Nadia (12:38):

That makes sense. I'd love to just dive into cookbooks themselves since we've been talking about you and your publication a bit, but you also write about this really fascinating topic that you have a lot of insight into. I would love to just maybe kick things off by talking about why people buy cookbooks.

Nadia (12:57):

I think about the cookbooks I've received from my mother. She loves cooking. I do too, and so food has become this way for us to bond - especially when I was younger and making that transition from angsty teenager to a person that my mother can actually converse with.

Nadia (13:13):

And so, my experience of cookbooks has been that they bring us closer to other people or remind us of a sense of place. Does that align with what you've seen? Why do people buy cookbooks in a world where so much cooking now happens through online recipes?

Paula (13:29):

Sure. I mean, gosh, I think there are tons of reasons why people buy cookbooks. Where do I start? So, first of all, I think that there are two different ways that people react or interact with cookbooks, which is that some people are very recipe-driven. I'm going to follow this recipe. I'm going to panic if I have parsley and not basil. I'm going to frantically text my friend, Paula, to see if I can cut it down to serve four instead of eight, that kind of thing, because I do get these texts.

Nadia (14:07):

You must be that person for all your friends.

Paula (14:11):

And then the other people who just glance at it and, "Oh, kale, potato, sausage soup, great." And just do whatever they want. So, I think you start there. So there's just two schools of people. The people who are real sticklers for the recipes are the people who are buying very generalist cookbooks. I'm talking about The Joy of Cooking or New York Times Cookbook, those kinds of things, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

Paula (14:42):

But also a lot of the books that are like weeknight dinners, the healthy food that still tastes good, basic pastas, those kinds of things, things that are very action-oriented. So, those consumers of cookbooks, people who are like, "I'm buying this book because I literally want to make this thing for dinner."

Paula (15:04):

Then you have the other people who are buying them for inspiration for ideas, launch pads, and those are people who are maybe buying more restaurant books, international cookbooks, books that are very visual. There's also professionals buying cookbooks and there's also people who are buying them to read them as literature. And there are people who are buying them as status objects to have on their coffee table.

Paula (15:38):

And there are people who are buying them as souvenirs. I went to this restaurant on my vacation and then now I want their cookbook as a totem of that time that I spent at that restaurant. So, I think there's a lot of different reasons that people buy cookbooks.

Nadia (15:56):

Yeah, sounds like it. You had a little brainstorm right there. Do you find that cookbook publishers nudge authors into appealing to one of these certain kinds of markets the way that we might expect an editor for someone who's writing in journalism to maybe nudge them towards certain kinds of audiences? Does that happen with cookbooks?

Paula (16:21):

Absolutely. I would even take it a step further and say those certain publishers tend to publish different books for different audiences. I mean, that's not 100% true across the board, but if you look at Phaidon for example, they are known for doing these big artsy chef and restaurant books from renowned chefs around the world. But then also they do these “food bibles” where it will be the big book of Irish cooking - or those are the most recent ones. That's not the title but it's called The Irish Cookbook.

Paula (17:01):

Anyway, they've done them for Indian, Thailand and Mexico and all these different countries. So, they gear that way, these big books. You got Ten Speed which does a lot of books with chefs. Each publisher finds their niche and cultivates that audience. Of course, there are outliers to all of that, that people will tell me about the second they listen to those.

Nadia (17:29):

I guess there are a lot of different types of cookbook authors as well, right? I'm thinking about the domestic brand types like Martha Stewart or Chrissy Teigen or chefs or food critics. And so, there's just like different publishers that appeal to different types of authors?

Paula (17:49):

Mm-hmm. There are so many more cookbook authors than you would ever even think of. There are a lot of people who write small volumes that are a book about jam, or a book about Jewish baking or a book about ... I don't know. I don't even cover the diet books but there are a whole thing of cooking for diabetes and all of that. So, there are all these wings of cookbook authorship that it's pretty endless. There's a lot to write about.

Nadia (18:22):

How do cookbooks intersect with the rise of food blogging in the last 10 or 20 years? You've got like Spin Kitchen or pioneer women types who've written their own cookbooks. Do you see food blogging as this democratizing force for cookbooks - of allowing you entrance into the market? Or did it negatively impact the demand for cookbooks?

Paula (18:42):

How do I put this? I think that the demand for cookbooks is not linked to food blogging. And the reason that I will say that is because I think that the demand for cookbooks was more tied to the 2008 recession which coincided with the rise of food bloggers for maybe the same reason, which is a very complicated way to answer that question.

Paula (19:13):

What I will say is that, like you said, a lot of the big names of that first generation of food bloggers have written cookbooks to great success. And also that people are still doing that. And then these days, you tend to see also YouTubers and Instagram influencers who write cookbooks as well.

Nadia (19:41):

I had no idea that the 2008 recession coincided with the rise of food bloggers. And as I'm hearing that, I'm just thinking about right now experiencing the COVID pandemic that we're seeing right now and how that is correlated with a rise in people writing on Substack and I'm wondering if it's similar forces at work. Can you tell us just a little bit about what that was like in 2008?

Paula (20:03):

I mean, that was mostly just due to the fact that people couldn't afford to eat out anymore so they were eating at home. There was also, at the time, cultural discovery. I was a young person then, and so, it just seemed like everyone I knew was 25 and teaching themselves how to cook.

Paula (20:24):

I'm sure that's not what it looked from the outside, but what I do know is that book sales started going up and then there was this real big boom in cookbook publishing and it's been chugging along ever since. Near as I can tell in the current crisis, cookbook sales are doing okay, maybe even up.. But anecdotally I’ve noticed - and I've been covering this for 10 to 12 years -

Paula (20:55):

I've noticed significantly fewer book deal news coming across my desk, so that's a little troubling to me. But hopefully, people are just being cautious and it will pick up again in the fall.

Nadia (21:09):

That's really interesting to think about. What is the role of narrative in cookbooks, because I mean, as we're just thinking about the different types of people that buy cookbooks and why, there is this tendency for me to initially think of cookbooks as essentially how-to books. But then, you can look at it through this narrative lens as well where then I start thinking about them in relation to this broader genre of food memoirs.

Nadia (21:35):

I'm thinking about Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal which straddled both genres of cookbook and memoir. Where's the line between something being a memoir about food versus a how-to sort of cookbook?

Paula (21:50):

Yeah, I mean, I don't know that there needs to be a line there. I think that what you're doing with the memoir is you're trying to evoke the feeling of being in a place and time. And you're trying to represent something you remember as best as you can remember it. And I think that a recipe does the same thing in a much more obviously tactile and real world way but that that can be part of the experience of evoking this memory, I'm thinking specifically about restaurant cookbooks.

Paula (22:30):

Restaurants aren't supposed to last forever. They're a business that is born and has a heyday and then probably someday end - hopefully with everyone retiring very happy and well off. But in the meantime, it's a feeling that can go away. I mean as we're learning the hard way right now, the atmosphere and the buzz of a busy restaurant and the food it cooks, it's not a forever thing. Gosh, I didn't mean to get this depressing. But that narrative follows that, can evoke that and can be a record of what that energy was while in existence.

Nadia (23:22):

It's just like, I mean, that just also makes the case for books more broadly. It's a really beautiful take, and I appreciate it because it just makes me think about how when we are talking about online food blogging versus cookbooks and how those two things can coexist. And similarly, just writing in general, there's a place to write tweets. There's a place to write blog posts and there's always going to be this place to write books just because it is like this more permanent record or a marker in time as you were saying to capture a certain sentiment that maybe a short form can't always do.

Paula (23:59):

Yeah, absolutely, and that it can look at it from different angles. You can have a cookbook where you involve the pastry chef and you have some sample playlists from the music that plays in the restaurant. You have the photographs of the space. And maybe you have a few testimonials from customers and that kind of thing and then all of it builds and adds to become as close as you can get to the restaurant itself.

Paula (24:29):

And I think that the recipes are a key part of that because you can say, "Okay, well, what about an episode of some TV show where they interview chefs and go to restaurants and things." But it's the food, the food is the thing. And so, when you have that recipe, you can understand how the food has been ... Even if you don't make them at home, even if you don't recreate it in your own kitchen, you can still read about it and say, "Okay, well, they made it with this brand of soy sauce instead of this brand of soy sauce because so and so was from here. But at this market, they only have this."

Paula (25:03):

And then, "Oh, they have this wild technique where they salt mushrooms two hours ahead," whatever. You read the thing and you learn all this stuff about what went into this restaurant in a way that you can't learn otherwise.

Nadia (25:23):

Yeah, that sounds like it’s like the recipe isn't just a process or a list of steps but it's a peek behind the curtain to see what really goes into, especially as you're saying, with a restaurant cookbook. What's the mark of a good cookbook for you?

Paula (25:36):

What's the mark of a good cookbook? I don't know.

Nadia (25:41):

I mean, just what are your favorite types?

Paula (25:44):

Yeah, I was going to say there's a difference between a good cookbook and a cookbook that I get excited about. I like really weird cookbooks. I mean if something surprises me, that's going to get me excited. Weird art, weird design makes me excited. Sort of over-the-top writing makes me excited.

Paula (26:12):

But what makes for a good cookbook - that most people who aren't the crazy cookbook lady are going to think is good - is I want to be able to open to three separate pages and want to make one of the recipes, I would say, is big. I think that information beyond the recipes that you can use in multiple settings is important for me.

Paula (26:42):

A really good cookbook, if I'm going to keep a cookbook in my kitchen, I need info in it beyond the recipes that are useful to me in more than one way. So, say you have a book on sourdough and sourdough starters. I want to be able to read about how the starter can be applied to bread versus pizza versus muffins or whatever. And that to me is a book that's not just a one-off disposable cookbook. That's a book that has earned its keep on its spot on my shelf.

Nadia (27:27):

What are some styles or trends that you've seen in cookbooks over the years? Especially just comparing like modern, let's say post internet style cookbooks - are they really different from the cookbooks of the '50s?

Paula (27:39):

Oh, gosh.

Nadia (27:39):

We're going all the way back, maybe the '90s.

Paula (27:44):

I mean cookbook, you would be shocked how much cookbooks have changed. I bought this cookbook recently from 1999 and the photographs, if you didn't know it was from 1999, you would think from the '80s. You would not be able to guess.

Paula (27:58):

So since I've started writing about cookbooks, the big things have been most books drop the jackets. So we don't do jackets anymore. There was this big trend towards unfinished paper. So it was this matte finish that in my opinion made the photos look blurry as opposed to a glossy finish paper, which people like because the unfinished paper is thicker and it makes your book look bigger. But I think it made the photography look terrible and we seemed to be moving away from that a little bit, so that's good.

Paula (28:40):

The big trend recently has been the white covers with the photos with the white border around the photo. Alison Roman's cookbooks have that. What else? As far as topics go, there was a big restaurant push that we seem to be coming out of where it’s just like, "Oh, if you're the big chef in your size town, you should have a cookbook." There's always been nerdy bread boy books. There are always men who write these like “my bread journey” cookbooks.

Paula (29:22):

Now, we're seeing more regional international cookbooks which I think is good. Like not just, I don't know, China but specific regions of China. That kind of thing I think is great.

Nadia (29:37):

I love it. I love the aesthetic ones, the changes that you mentioned. I'd love to just see your collection of cookbooks all lined up chronologically. I imagine you could just visually see how much they have changed over time.

Paula (29:50):

Probably, yeah.

Nadia (29:52):

Fun project. How does an author go about getting a cookbook published? Is it similar to getting books published in general? Is there anything special about the cookbook genre?

Paula (30:01):

How you get a book published, I mean it's about the same. It's similar to the nonfiction world where you write a book proposal and then you get the advance and then you write the cookbook with proposals. You need a whole list, all of the recipes listed ahead of time so you know what every single recipe in the book is going to be. And you also have to develop them.

Paula (30:32):

So, I'm working on a proposal right now and I think we have 12 full recipes and then five to eight sub-recipes that are real short. Here is the stock that goes into the soup kind of thing. And then of course, the cookbook publishers are often specialized publishers. They're not publishing novels and other things but they're part of those publishers.

Nadia (31:01):

How do they coordinate all that gorgeous photography? I mean, design falls under the publisher. Where do all the photography come from?

Paula (31:10):

Well, I can tell you how it worked on my book.

Nadia (31:12):

Yes, so I'd love to hear about your book.

Paula (31:15):

So, I wrote the Austin Cookbook. I wrote it in 2016. It came out in 2018. We shot the photography ... I worked with a photographer from Dallas-Fort Worth named Robert Strickland who's an excellent photographer, A+ to Robert. He came down for two long weekends when we shot all of the food where we worked with the food stylist for studio food shots. And then, I don't know how many weekends he came down to shoot the restaurants. And we shot some of the food in the restaurants also. So, the book is a collection of restaurant recipes from Austin restaurants.

Paula (32:06):

When all the photography was done, I sent that to the publisher. And I also sent them an email with a million links to Flickr and Instagram and all these things that I just thought looked Austin-y, murals and colors and just all kinds of random stuff I thought might be useful. And then they had their designer put it all together. They had a fun idea where some of the font for the headings of the recipes was inspired by old Tex-Mex menus and stuff like that. It's all very evocative of the thing, and I think that that's right that it should be like that.

Nadia (32:56):

It's kind of cool because as a writer, I imagine there aren't that many genres that are so photography heavy. Producing this cookbook is really an entire production process of not just writing the words but also having a vision for the visuals and knowing how you want to portray them.

Nadia (33:17):

And so, you're not just writing out words but you're also having to think in terms of imagery and layout, which just draws upon many more skills and maybe some of those other writers are comfortable with.

Paula (33:29):

You know though, it's not dissimilar from blogging.

Nadia (33:32):

In what way?

Paula (33:34):

If you're thinking about white space, you're thinking about how do I break this up with headers so that it's easily skimmable? You're thinking about how long are people's attention spans? It's not writing a novel. You're not going to have a wall of text. So how are you guiding the readers' eyes across ... I mean I didn't design the book, but how are you breaking up that information into these digestible little chunks.

Nadia (34:06):

That's a really good point. I guess I'd never really thought of that. I'm such a text-heavy person. I'm just like I can't do anything that involves images. The writing that I do doesn't really have any images in it and stuff. But you're right, I definitely think about the breaking up of paragraphs and texts. And there's sort of different styles too.

Nadia (34:22):

Some people really lean into the long rambling style and enormous paragraphs. And they make use or work for it. And then other people do that one line, one dramatic statement per paragraph. So, yeah, you're right. I mean even bloggers have to be thinking about how they visually lay things out to draw people in.

Paula (34:41):

Well, for my newsletter for example, certain sections I do bullet points. I always bold cookbook titles and cookbook author names. I'll bold a few keywords in a quote. And that's the same muscle. It's like, "Here's where I want you to look."

Nadia (35:00):

Right. You still need to draw people's eye in even if you're just writing text without photos. We talked a little bit about the fact that you wrote your own cookbook and you wrote that after being a cookbook critic for over a decade now. After years of reviewing other people's cookbooks, what prompted you to cross over and try to write your own?

Paula (35:24):

It was something I always wanted to do. And it was an opportunity that came up. It was not my idea to write the book. It was an opportunity that came up from my agent. And I was like, "Yes, absolutely." I wanted to experience the process of it because for example before that, I was reviewing cookbooks and I always ... Obviously, a lot more people than the author are going to the cookbook but I always use the author's name as sort of this authorial presence when I would talk about the book.

Paula (36:04):

But I think it was really useful in showing me how much of the process is actually totally out of the hands of the author. Things like a common complaint you'll hear about cookbooks if you go to an Amazon review is that the ingredients are on a different page than the instructions. You have to flip back and forth between the ingredients and the instruction. And often there's no getting around that but there's also just like 17 people who influenced that.

Paula (36:37):

So I think that going through the process of publishing a cookbook was really illustrative to me of just how many hands are in the thing. And this is not a shade on my publisher, Abrams - they were great. But just living the experience, I think, really informed my ability to review cookbooks. I'm probably going to do more. We'll see.

Nadia (37:05):

More cookbooks? They're addictive, book writing things. I just published my first book. It's a nonfiction book and it definitely had that same sort of takeaway as like wow, so many people go into writing this final thing. Unfortunately, your name appears as the author which means that if everything is amazing, then the credit goes to you and if there's anything wrong with it, then it also looks like something that you wrote which is this very weird experience.

Nadia (37:34):

I'm curious about your research process just to sort of trade notes. I love the book writing process now in retrospect - but during it, it was miserable in a lot of ways because you're just trapped in front of your laptop and you're typing all the time. And I have this very glamorous image of cookbook writing by contrast being this feast of the senses where you're cooking and you're hosting taste test parties. You're going out to eat for inspiration. Take me down a notch, what is the process of writing a cookbook really like?

Paula (38:06):

It's a little bit of that.

Nadia (38:08):

Damn it.

Paula (38:08):

It was a lot of sending emails. So, my book was recipes from restaurants. So it was a lot, a lot, a lot of emailing chefs and publicists. And chefs are not necessarily known for email etiquette or even having a computer in their office in their restaurants, so it was a lot of trying to track people down reminding them, "Oh, yeah. I'm Paula Forbes with the project where we're doing all the Austin restaurant cookbooks or recipes," and reminding them who you are and all the things. So that was probably the first four months of it.

Paula (38:54):

And then I did do a lot of recipe testing. I had a dinner party every Friday for about three months.

Nadia (39:02):

You're everyone's favorite friend.

Paula (39:05):

I don't know. A big thing with me was I didn't want to waste the food, but it got to be a lot of work and it got to some weird dinner parties when you started only having a few recipes left and you're like, "Well, these things don't really go together," but you'll eat it and you'll be happy.

Paula (39:27):

So, it was that and then very heavy on copy edits are huge in cookbooks - like you always want the ingredients in the order they appear in the recipe for example. What else? It's like that. We had to wait until my book was published in metric and then, what do you call it, imperial.

Nadia (39:52):

Imperial, yeah, I guess so.

Paula (39:56):

Cups and teaspoons.

Nadia (39:58):

Right, that one.

Paula (39:59):

So there was a lot of how do we translate this, figuring how much stuff weighed months after you had tested it, that kind of thing.

Nadia (40:12):

You had recipes in your book that were from restaurants but then you also had to test them out yourself. Are you adjusting their recipes at all or is it just to ensure that someone reading it could then replicate the same experience?

Paula (40:30):

I cut the size down. So, often, their chefs would send me just their actual recipe which made five gallons of enchilada sauce or whatever it was. And so, I would have to cut that down to the amount of enchilada sauce that would go on one lasagna pan of enchiladas and then also talk about how to make the enchiladas, because that would be different than how they would make it in the restaurant. But the recipes themselves I didn't change. So the amount of chili powder or garlic or the taste of the thing is the same but just at a home scale.

Nadia (41:10):

Got it. And so, it's like you're co-writing with the restaurants in a sense, because they're agreeing to give up their recipes for your book and you have to convince them of that, I assume. And then you're taking that and putting in this right narrative and context that people will enjoy them.

Paula (41:29):

And you know it's also a lot of interviews and telling their stories and that kind of thing, too.

Nadia (41:38):

Just to wrap up, you've had this privileged experience of seeing cookbooks on both sides, both as the author and as a person reviewing them. Did that writing experience give you more empathy for others writing cookbooks?

Paula (41:55):

Yes and no. A good friend of mine once told me that bad recipes are stealing. You are stealing money from people who spent that money on their food and they were expecting to be able to make X and if it doesn't work, and that's on you, that's stealing. So I still firmly, firmly believe that and I don't think anyone has any business publishing recipes that are not thoroughly tested and worked. So, that's what I'll say for starters.

Paula (42:36):

But yeah, I mean I think it's a scary thing to write a cookbook. I think I know every single weird thing in my cookbook that no one will ever, ever notice. And they don't keep me up at night but I know they're there. There's no mistakes in it or anything, just you know - you always know the weird thing like, “Oh, that condensation on that glass and that photo is slightly off," or that kind of stuff that no one cares about.

Paula (43:06):

Yeah, I have empathy for that. It's a hell of a process. You have to be so organized and you have to be just on top of everything. It's so much more data than just writing the text of the thing. It's so much work. Cookbooks are so much work and I have so much respect for anyone who tries to write one - unless they don't test the recipes.

Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Terry Nguyen of gen yeet, a newsletter about Gen Z culture, memes, and trends. Her honest and thoughtful writing covers youth culture on the Internet, technology and consumer trends, and generational commentary – all with the goal of demystifying and humanizing Gen Z.

While Terry’s day job is writing at Vox on cultural trends, she started her newsletter because she wanted to share “a Zoomer’s perspective,” pushing the narrative around how people consider her generation and what it’s like to be a young person today. 

We talked about differences in media coverage toward Millennials and Gen Z, the relationship between Terry’s writing for Vox and her newsletter, and why it’s important to reframe how people think about specific generations. 

Links

* gen yeet, Terry’s newsletter

* Terry on Twitter

* Gen Z Will Not Save Us, Charlie Warzel’s opinion piece in The New York Times

* Rebecca Jennings and Taylor Lorenz, cultural reporters who write about Internet culture

* normal beautiful people, Terry’s post where she writes about getting tired of TikTok

* Why millions of college students and young adults won’t get a stimulus check, Terry’s Vox piece about coronavirus’ impact on college students

Highlights

* (07:55) The contrast between media coverage of Gen Z and Millennials 

* (18:17) How Terry balances analyzing the world through her personal lens and synthesizing the bigger picture

* (21:05) Why Terry chose to focus on one topic, and what Gen Z thinks about Substack

* (32:45) How Terry balances writing for her full-time job at Vox and for her newsletter

* (39:48) Emerging Gen Z themes 

On writing about a topic instead of herself:

I felt like writing about myself would be really boring. I don't think anyone would be interested in what I'm doing. I don't have any fascinating hot takes. I did feel like centering around a topic, and especially a salient topic that wasn't too niche that could be expanded upon, like culture and technology and memes...I felt like that just gave me a lot of room to latch onto whatever interested me.

On the long-term relevance of writing about Gen Z:

I don't know when the conversation will shift. But I do think having a pulse on youth culture while I'm young is an interesting thing. I don't know how I’ll feel about it when I'm like 35, I haven't really thought deeply about the future of that yet. But I do think there is a period of time, very certain key social and political events that define every generation, and I hope to be around for the one that defines Gen Z.

Transcript

Nadia (00:29):

Something I really like about Gen Yeet, just from reading through it, and maybe this is the perspective of a millennial coming through, but it seems like a lot of people that write in public about Gen Z are trying to make it seem really cool and mysterious and hard to understand, because it's, I think, that illegibility that builds their brand and makes them this go-to expert on this topic. Even when it's this earnest take, it seems like it's sort of ... I get the sensation of a bemused tourist looking at a rare species at the zoo.

What I really like about Gen Yeet is that you don't do that. You write these really thoughtful essays about Gen Z that aren't really trying to be overly cool or hint that you know more than the reader. You're just a person who understands the stuff and is thinking and writing about it. Does that analysis resonate? Can you say a little more about your writing style?

Terry (01:23):

Yeah, so what was really interesting to me, in the past year, since I started to create this newsletter, was that Gen Z and youth culture on the internet at large got a lot of attention from a lot of major media publications. It's kind of shocking to see how much more people are now covering that space. For me, my goal has always been to sort of demystify and make it seem like, oh, Gen Z, as with all generations, are just humans. We're socialized during a specific period of time, but I would say that the way we see the world is also very similar to the people before us, because our parents and our teachers and our brothers and sisters are also Millennials, Gen Xers, or Boomers.

Terry (02:06):

My goal with this newsletter was to give it a little voice, because I felt like a lot of, as you mentioned, the reporting was just sort of earnest. Within the past couple of weeks, we've really seen this sort of explosion into the political mainstream as well, with them realizing, oh, TikTok has political power, and Zoomers know how to organize. My goal is just to really be approachable and be someone readers can relate with, as well.

Nadia (02:35):

Can you talk a little more about the move into the political sphere? I think there was the Trump rally, maybe, that happened recently. Is that sort of what you were thinking about?

Terry (02:45):

Yeah. AOC, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted out when the Trump rally sort of ... There was this news that K-Pop stans and teens on TikTok kind of merged forces to reserve an overwhelming amount of tickets for a Trump rally, and it turned out to be the day of, that not a lot of people were showing up, and a lot of people from the resistance, people from the left, were really excited to see this sort of youth activism. I really think that was the first time that a lot of people came to think that, oh, these platforms and these sort of apps and communication styles can serve a political purpose. There's a lot of fascination and a lot to dissect from that. But right now, I think, this sort of mainstream narrative, although there have been writers who've come out and said to be wary of saying that one generation is politically inclined.

Terry (03:43):

I do feel like people have this impression that Gen Z are really liberal or even really radical because of the period of time that we grew up in, but I do feel like that's going to be a topic of discussion probably in 2020 and beyond. I feel like 2016 was the first election I was able to vote in, but 2020, there's definitely more younger people than me who are able to vote, so I do feel like this topic is going to gain a lot of relevancy in the coming months and years.

Nadia (04:19):

My first perception of people talking about the power of apps and software tools that we have to play a role in the political sphere started in 2016-ish. My sense of it early on was that a lot of it was almost sort of nefarious and talking about, just like outside interference, and how are these things being manipulated to control us unsuspecting people, or whatever. It's interesting to hear your take on the Gen Z lens of, it sounds like maybe it can be a positive thing of, oh, there are people who understand how to use this in interesting ways that maybe we don't understand, which is similarly still just like fetishizing, I guess, but maybe has a more positive spin on it.

Terry (05:05):

Right. I do feel like it is a double edged sword, because people are now thinking more critically about how tech platforms are being used. For Gen Z, a lot of us, kind of, are digital natives, depending on how young you are. You might have always been acquainted with the internet or have always had a smartphone, even when you were like, I don't know, 10, 11 or 12. I personally did not have a smartphone until I think I was 14, but still, that's, for a lot of older people, this technology is relatively new. I think we're all discovering the potential of it. That's where it's a little concerning and a little like, we don't know what the unknown is going to be like. I do feel like Gen Z is on the horizon of pushing the boundaries of what can be done with being online, through youth activism, organizing groups using tools like Google docs, or Google sheets to organize information and make it more accessible for other people.

Terry (06:07):

We definitely saw a lot of that around the Black Lives Matter protests with a lot of people sharing information. But I do feel like a lot of these tactics and skills were also adapted from the early users of t…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

We spoke with Terry Nguyen of gen yeet, a newsletter about Gen Z culture, memes, and trends. Her honest and thoughtful writing covers youth culture on the Internet, technology and consumer trends, and generational commentary – all with the goal of demystifying and humanizing Gen Z.

While Terry’s day job is writing at Vox on cultural trends, she started her newsletter because she wanted to share “a Zoomer’s perspective,” pushing the narrative around how people consider her generation and what it’s like to be a young person today. 

We talked about differences in media coverage toward Millennials and Gen Z, the relationship between Terry’s writing for Vox and her newsletter, and why it’s important to reframe how people think about specific generations. 

Links

gen yeet, Terry’s newsletter

Terry on Twitter

Gen Z Will Not Save Us, Charlie Warzel’s opinion piece in The New York Times

Rebecca Jennings and Taylor Lorenz, cultural reporters who write about Internet culture

normal beautiful people, Terry’s post where she writes about getting tired of TikTok

Why millions of college students and young adults won’t get a stimulus check, Terry’s Vox piece about coronavirus’ impact on college students

Highlights

(07:55) The contrast between media coverage of Gen Z and Millennials 

(18:17) How Terry balances analyzing the world through her personal lens and synthesizing the bigger picture

(21:05) Why Terry chose to focus on one topic, and what Gen Z thinks about Substack

(32:45) How Terry balances writing for her full-time job at Vox and for her newsletter

(39:48) Emerging Gen Z themes 

On writing about a topic instead of herself:

I felt like writing about myself would be really boring. I don't think anyone would be interested in what I'm doing. I don't have any fascinating hot takes. I did feel like centering around a topic, and especially a salient topic that wasn't too niche that could be expanded upon, like culture and technology and memes...I felt like that just gave me a lot of room to latch onto whatever interested me.

On the long-term relevance of writing about Gen Z:

I don't know when the conversation will shift. But I do think having a pulse on youth culture while I'm young is an interesting thing. I don't know how I’ll feel about it when I'm like 35, I haven't really thought deeply about the future of that yet. But I do think there is a period of time, very certain key social and political events that define every generation, and I hope to be around for the one that defines Gen Z.

Transcript

Nadia (00:29):

Something I really like about Gen Yeet, just from reading through it, and maybe this is the perspective of a millennial coming through, but it seems like a lot of people that write in public about Gen Z are trying to make it seem really cool and mysterious and hard to understand, because it's, I think, that illegibility that builds their brand and makes them this go-to expert on this topic. Even when it's this earnest take, it seems like it's sort of ... I get the sensation of a bemused tourist looking at a rare species at the zoo.

What I really like about Gen Yeet is that you don't do that. You write these really thoughtful essays about Gen Z that aren't really trying to be overly cool or hint that you know more than the reader. You're just a person who understands the stuff and is thinking and writing about it. Does that analysis resonate? Can you say a little more about your writing style?

Terry (01:23):

Yeah, so what was really interesting to me, in the past year, since I started to create this newsletter, was that Gen Z and youth culture on the internet at large got a lot of attention from a lot of major media publications. It's kind of shocking to see how much more people are now covering that space. For me, my goal has always been to sort of demystify and make it seem like, oh, Gen Z, as with all generations, are just humans. We're socialized during a specific period of time, but I would say that the way we see the world is also very similar to the people before us, because our parents and our teachers and our brothers and sisters are also Millennials, Gen Xers, or Boomers.

Terry (02:06):

My goal with this newsletter was to give it a little voice, because I felt like a lot of, as you mentioned, the reporting was just sort of earnest. Within the past couple of weeks, we've really seen this sort of explosion into the political mainstream as well, with them realizing, oh, TikTok has political power, and Zoomers know how to organize. My goal is just to really be approachable and be someone readers can relate with, as well.

Nadia (02:35):

Can you talk a little more about the move into the political sphere? I think there was the Trump rally, maybe, that happened recently. Is that sort of what you were thinking about?

Terry (02:45):

Yeah. AOC, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted out when the Trump rally sort of ... There was this news that K-Pop stans and teens on TikTok kind of merged forces to reserve an overwhelming amount of tickets for a Trump rally, and it turned out to be the day of, that not a lot of people were showing up, and a lot of people from the resistance, people from the left, were really excited to see this sort of youth activism. I really think that was the first time that a lot of people came to think that, oh, these platforms and these sort of apps and communication styles can serve a political purpose. There's a lot of fascination and a lot to dissect from that. But right now, I think, this sort of mainstream narrative, although there have been writers who've come out and said to be wary of saying that one generation is politically inclined.

Terry (03:43):

I do feel like people have this impression that Gen Z are really liberal or even really radical because of the period of time that we grew up in, but I do feel like that's going to be a topic of discussion probably in 2020 and beyond. I feel like 2016 was the first election I was able to vote in, but 2020, there's definitely more younger people than me who are able to vote, so I do feel like this topic is going to gain a lot of relevancy in the coming months and years.

Nadia (04:19):

My first perception of people talking about the power of apps and software tools that we have to play a role in the political sphere started in 2016-ish. My sense of it early on was that a lot of it was almost sort of nefarious and talking about, just like outside interference, and how are these things being manipulated to control us unsuspecting people, or whatever. It's interesting to hear your take on the Gen Z lens of, it sounds like maybe it can be a positive thing of, oh, there are people who understand how to use this in interesting ways that maybe we don't understand, which is similarly still just like fetishizing, I guess, but maybe has a more positive spin on it.

Terry (05:05):

Right. I do feel like it is a double edged sword, because people are now thinking more critically about how tech platforms are being used. For Gen Z, a lot of us, kind of, are digital natives, depending on how young you are. You might have always been acquainted with the internet or have always had a smartphone, even when you were like, I don't know, 10, 11 or 12. I personally did not have a smartphone until I think I was 14, but still, that's, for a lot of older people, this technology is relatively new. I think we're all discovering the potential of it. That's where it's a little concerning and a little like, we don't know what the unknown is going to be like. I do feel like Gen Z is on the horizon of pushing the boundaries of what can be done with being online, through youth activism, organizing groups using tools like Google docs, or Google sheets to organize information and make it more accessible for other people.

Terry (06:07):

We definitely saw a lot of that around the Black Lives Matter protests with a lot of people sharing information. But I do feel like a lot of these tactics and skills were also adapted from the early users of the internet, from Gen Xers and Millennials who've been on these possibly older platforms, and platforms that have moved forward before Gen Z. So, I do feel like it's important to think of that, not in a vacuum, but also around technology developing as a whole.

Nadia (06:36):

It's like the behavior is the same. It's just the tools themselves are changing over time.

Terry (06:42):

Right. Exactly. I feel like, every couple of years, platforms gain relevancy and then they disappear. I know around the early 2010s, Tumblr was a really big thing. It wasn't until 2016 when people started scrutinizing, I think, 4chan and Reddit really deeply, but those platforms have always existed. It's just how much we pay attention to them, I guess has shifted.

Nadia (07:07):

Related to that. You talk about how the news coverage of Gen Z seems pretty overall positive at the moment, borderline this fetishizing sort of thing. You shared some theories and a recent issue about how that relates to how Millennials were treated in the media. I have these strong memories of being a millennial when there are these endless, strange headlines about like, look at all these crazy things that Millennials do. From that, I had just assumed like, oh, it's because I'm the youngest generation at the time, and there's this tendency for everyone to make whatever the youngest participating generation is to look like this exotic creature. But it sounded like you were speculating that this might not be the case, and the tendency to look at Millennials the way we did and look at Gen Z the way we did is this newer thing. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Terry (07:55):

Yeah, so what's interesting was, I feel like Millennials were the first group that this generational theory was really adapted in the press. I really felt like Gen Xers had that treatment, but with Millennials being on social media, you could consume a lot more media coverage and see a lot of commentary about millennial culture than I think Gen Xers did. Gen Xers usually had a cover story and time or Newsweek. People didn't have to associate with that label, but on social media, you're confronted with millennial bashing a lot more frequently. I do feel like that has led Millennials, especially who are the younger culture writers, who are analyzing internet trends and reporting on the younger generations like teenagers and adolescents, I do feel like there's a sense there that they want to portray as accurately and to do it well and to not undergo the same experience that they did from older writers who might not really understand them or social media or their habits, necessarily.

Terry (08:59):

I do find it interesting that it's sort of like a balancing field, and no generation is a monolith. When you're writing about this, it's quite easy to assume that a group of people operate or feel a certain way. I think my theory in the latest newsletter was that we shouldn't always assume that these people hold these views just because that's the dominant narrative of it. We should think deeper about how people born during this period of time could be very different from one another.

Nadia (09:32):

I wonder whether it might, itself, turn into this genre of journalism or coverage. I don't know what you would call it, but just like generation-centric journalism. Or does that fit into some other broader category of covering culture or events or something? Is it going to develop into its own genre and carry some of these risks with it?

Terry (09:58):

I feel like it has always been sort of a trope or a genre for cultural writers. If you look back in the 2000s and 2010s, The Atlantic also did a lot of pieces like that, analyzing the Millennials. Now, sort of the same thing is happening at Gen Z, but there's just a lot more coverage around internet culture, and that's particularly where a lot of young people are and a lot of what they're doing. I feel like that coverage has already led to the mindset that when you think of Gen Z or a young person, you automatically think about certain things. For example, TikTok is a really big one that has happened over the past, I think, since 2018 and onward. I find that really fascinating. I do feel like, whenever we do a culture story, you do have to think about the types of people you're reporting on. Gen Z happens to be a default characterization in the same way that someone's race or someone's location or demographic. That becomes in of itself a categorization.

Nadia (11:01):

What are some of the nuances that you think are being missed about, if Gen Z is not this monolithic concept, what are some of the sub-categories that you would break it down into?

Terry (11:11):

Yeah, I do think Charlie Warzel in his New York Times opinion piece that I cited in my last newsletter, he had a really great piece called, Gen Z is Not Saving Us, and he kind of summarized a lot of what I was thinking, that there is, despite this very loud ... there's a lot of loud liberal voices happening among young activists, and that's really promising to see. But I do believe that there's sort of this undercurrent of people who might not share these views and they're still being socialized and politicized online. I also want to mention that there's been more specific ... I guess there's more inclusion in the coverage that I've seen about Gen Z. There's more coverage of queer teens, and there's a lot more coverage of black and brown teens from solely their perspective. I felt like Millennials didn't necessarily have a lot of that coverage and it was still very much new.

Terry (12:02):

In doing my research for that newsletter, I researched when was the first article about black Twitter, and there was one in 2010. Their approach to it was just so insular that it sort of shocked me at the rate at which writing has progressed and our reporting and how we think about these niche spaces that the reporter is only looking into, and they're not treating it as a foreign space, but they're trying to become more a part of it. I do think a lot of cultural reporters have done that really well. I would say my colleague at Vox, Rebecca Jennings, does great work, and Taylor Lorenz at the New York Times. She's very well known for her TikTok stories and her focus on teens specifically. I do feel like there are a lot of culture writers sort of pushing the boundaries and narratives of how we should think about this generation, which is honestly, a great thing.

Nadia (12:52):

I guess I hadn't really thought about that before, but yeah, when I think about classic millennial type coverage, it's like the avocado toast headline or something, which is a very homogenizing way to look at Millennials. It seems weird and old-fashioned now to even think about compared to the way that you see Gen Z being covered, which feels more like this collection of strange little communities and villages or something like that. Yeah, I'm wondering how much of the conversation about Gen Z is being driven by what's being written in traditional journalistic outlets versus independent content creators. Since you've kind of touched on the Gen X time or Newsweek coverage, all the way down to Gen Z coverage just being a lot more driven by what's happening on TikTok and millennial bashing and things like that. Where do you see the center of the conversation happening and where is that narrative being driven?

Terry (13:56):

I really do see it happening a lot on TikTok right now. If you want to know what young people were thinking, that's the first place that a lot of people think to go. I do think that's a good thing, but also a bad thing, because I know there's plenty of people, there's plenty of young people who don't have certain social media as who ... Everyone has their own habits and tendencies, and it's not entirely accurate just to have a lens into this generation through this one specific platform. This platform, by the way, you can't really search for things. It's sort of, if you've been on TikTok, the for you page is curated for you, and depending on what you liked and what you see, you can go into these subcultures on TikTok, but then again, it's also really difficult to control.

Terry (14:40):

I do think it's great that TikTok is being understood more widely, being analyzed more like a cultural artifact at this time, but I do think that if all our analyses are drawn from that one specific platform, that's not an accurate representation of what everyone is thinking. I think over the past decade, a lot of what people talk about in terms of campus culture wars, in terms of Millennials, and now with Gen Z, has really sort of been a reflection of larger society. Although, you do have to keep in mind that what's happening at Harvard and Yale isn't necessarily what's happening at state schools. Only a very specific percentage of young people go to those very elite schools that get more press coverage. I do try to figure out different ways to be in touch with the culture of my peers. But it's definitely challenging and it requires you to think in multiple places at once.

Nadia (15:35):

It makes me think about how the extreme focus on TikTok right now as sort of representative of Gen Z, just reminds me of being a millennial and feeling that way about early Facebook, where it’s like, this is some strange platform that none of us have seen before, and it's what all the young kids are using. Are there any parallels between how Facebook played a role for the rise of a millennial generation versus how TikTok is playing a role in Gen Z?

Terry (16:06):

Yeah, that's a good question. I've thought about it. I'm not entirely sure, because I do feel like it's fascinating now that we look back on it, and Facebook is now Boomers only, or that's what people jokingly say it is. I'm not entirely sure because I do feel like, for TikTok, they're elevating certain profiles and certain young people to fame in a way that Facebook has never done, unless you count Mark Zuckerberg or the Tech Bros that kind of came out of this wave of new technological apps and platforms. But I really do think that TikTok's role in this space in creating, I wouldn't necessarily say role models, but they are sort of representative figures when it comes to the public consciousness, because ... let's drop some names like Charli D'Amelio, so many people think of her now as the face of TikTok and the face of young people. She was even in a Super Bowl commercial.

Terry (17:02):

I don't think with Facebook, sure there is Mark Zuckerberg, but there was really no one that, that platform catapulted to fame in that way, and so I don't think they're necessarily comparable. But it's really interesting to see the parallels of Millennials had Facebook, and now Gen Z has this very new, very much unknown app, TikTok.

Nadia (17:24):

Yeah. It felt like we didn't really have that same sort of creator celebrity culture in whenever, 2005-ish when Facebook started becoming a thing. There were fewer faces of Millennials back then, than you can imagine now for Gen Z. You had this experience of writing about a topic that you're also personally experiencing, which is probably true for a lot of newsletter writers, but it feels especially salient here, just because you didn't exactly choose to be Gen Z. It's something that you are. I think this is something a lot of writers struggle with, which is like, how do you balance analyzing the world through your own personal perspective or things that your friends say versus observing and synthesizing what you're seeing in the broader world? When you're writing about this stuff, how much are you weighing your own personal experience versus what you're trying to sort of analyze?

Terry (18:17):

Yeah, so it's interesting, because top of mind, sometimes I realized in my first take on something might not be the representative take of everyone else. So, I always try to be very clear in my analysis, and I do feel like I'm not reporting out this newsletter, and it's more sort of conglomeration of thoughts and also reporting done from other spaces that I link to. But it is something I constantly think about because I do feel like generational politics cannot be an identity. It is just a lens through which I view the world and I think about how I was socialized and the major political events that I remember. I try to apply that to the way people younger than me, people in my generation think about the world. I guess a good example of thinking about this is like a lot of politics, prior to 2015, I pretty much have no knowledge of. I only can read that historically.

Terry (19:13):

It's funny if you would talk about 2008 or like the Bush era as historic. That's something I have to read and research about. Thinking forward on how I should view certain events and things, I do feel like there is a tendency for Gen Z to want more, to be more radical. A lot of people have said that like, you haven't really experienced what it was like before. I do think having that sort of amnesia could be beneficial, but also could be harmful, because I do think that whatever analysis of the world should always come from a historical standpoint, because more often than not, people are people, and tend to repeat and do the same things over and over again.

Terry (19:55):

I've thought about this period of time in relation to the 1960s and the '70s, really trying to read more about that period and how people interacted and what people wanted to do, specifically during that culture war period, because I do feel like we're approaching that right now as well.

Nadia (20:12):

Yeah. It's like you said like having ... I mean, the trade off is like you do have this much deeper knowledge of something that you can either really only remember one or the other, which is sort of an interesting thing about these temporarily based topics is, if you remember the '60s really, really well, then you aren't going to understand what's happening today as well. It feels like the contribution you can make is having this deeper knowledge of what is happening now and then just being thoughtful and doing your best to start drawing those parallels to other things that other people might understand and drawing the connections, but it's impossible to do all those things together. Let's talk a little bit about your newsletter itself. You're a journalist by trade and you write for Vox as your day job. Why did you start this newsletter in the first place and how did you settle upon the topic of covering Gen Z?

Terry (21:05):

Yeah, I started this newsletter, shockingly, it's been longer than a year now, but in around February and March, 2019. At the start of 2019, I knew I wanted to take on a writing project because the rest of that year, I had internships lined up, but I was writing for a higher ed trade publication at the time, and then my next internship lined up was at the Washington Post writing about culture. I felt like that really didn't give me space to grow on a certain beat or anything. I just, honestly, wanted to blog, and I came to the idea of writing about Gen Z because I've noticed a sort of like spike in generational discourse. This wasn't when people were writing about it specifically as much, but there was just sort of like, oh, Zoomers are doing this.

Terry (21:52):

There was a lot of Millennials/older confusion about how Gen Z communicated or what we found funny. My newsletter had a lot of iterations. It's sort of grown in voice, and I also think in terms of how I envision it to be. My last newsletter was an essay. One of my very first newsletters are just what I would say brief summaries of news stories. I really do think I'm expanding on that as I grow as a person and as the generation develops and cultural events happen around us. But yeah, short answer, I created this last year, just wanting to share more about what it's like being a young person, because it seems being young is really in, which is weird to me, but I guess it's always been the case.

Nadia (22:45):

You mentioned you just want to start blogging. Sounds like it is both a blog and a newsletter. Did you consider just setting up a typical blog and why did you end up going with an email newsletter?

Terry (22:58):

Yeah. I actually felt like Substack was just about to explode right when I heard about it. I was like, I'm not doing TinyLetter – or am I allowed to name other newsletters?

Nadia (23:12):

Yeah. You can say whatever you want.

Terry (23:13):

Okay. I was considering several other platforms, but I was like, I really like the clean look of Substack, and I also saw there were some writers that were starting things on Substack, so I definitely saw the .substack.com a lot, and I was like, hmm, might be a good place to put it on. I really did want to have a visual collection of what I was writing about so that people would go through the archives and everything. But I felt like starting a blog would be a little too much. You have to think about the design. When you link stuff, too, it gets complicated, and this interface was very easy to use. Now, I feel like I'm being sponsored to say things, but I'm really not. 

Nadia (23:56):

No, glad to hear it.

Terry (23:57):

Yeah, it just felt easy and it didn't have to be necessarily 2,000 words per post or anything. It could be 500 words or 1,000, depending on your mood.

Nadia (24:12):

There's something about your format too, that really blends the essay format, especially in the more recent issues with this personal thing where you are still sharing what you're reading and watching and consuming. It's this nice mix of both this media blog posts type thing that I get to read, and then also a little bit of just what's in your brain right now. Did you think about just writing a purely personal newsletter versus having this themed focused topic? I'm just asking, because there are a lot of ... I think something a lot of Substack writers wonder about is, especially when you're doing this as a side project and just started to have an outlet, in some sense, it is this outlet for you to just write about something else, but then on the other hand, you're building an audience around this topic. Did you think about that trade off at all?

Terry (24:58):

Yeah. I was thinking about it from the angle that I am virtually unknown. I have a very small writing brand compared to a lot of other people who have huge followings on Twitter. I only have around like 3000 or so, on Twitter. I felt like writing about myself would be really boring. I don't think anyone would be interested in what I'm doing, and also my life is not very interesting. I don't have any fascinating hot takes. I did feel like centering around a topic, and especially a sort of salient topic that wasn't too niche that could be expanded upon, like in culture and technology, and memes of course, because there's always a new meme on the internet. I felt like that just gave me a lot of room to latch onto whatever interested me.

Terry (25:42):

My worst fear was, “oh, what if I'm not interested in writing about this topic anymore?” But thankfully, that hasn't been the case. There's always been something related to Gen Z, or someone talks about the Zoomers. There's something that requires commentary or deeper thinking about.

Nadia (25:58):

I like that. It seems like that's how a lot of people end up building their brands. You start with some specific topic because no one knows you anyway. You don't have anything to really rally around until there is some specific topic, but then, as you become known for this one thing, then you start expanding into other stuff, and then people come to just really appreciate the mindset behind the person that's covering this thing. That's cool to hear. How did you find your first subscribers without a huge following, and how does your list continue to grow?

Terry (26:31):

I think I'm really lucky in the sense that I am sort of friends, or I'm mutual, with high profile people. When I tweeted out my first link, I actually got around 50 to 100 initial subscribers. Honestly, through the support and shares of writers with larger followings, I was able to cultivate more people who wanted to read it. And I did for a very short period of time. I was doing interviews with very well known or Gen Z'ers who were doing really cool things. That wasn't sustainable after a period of time because of my job and how much space I wanted the newsletter to take up in my life.

Terry (27:14):

But that was also something I thought about in expanding the scope of who would read, because it would be also great if I had more younger readers, because a lot of my readers now are people who work in the marketing sphere, people in the media world, and so it does feel like sometimes on Twitter, the discussions around these things are cyclical and I would like to break the cycle, but I'm not entirely sure how much young people are reading email newsletters, to be completely honest.

Nadia (27:42):

Okay. This is good. I was actually going to ask this. I'm being a total old person right now, but I was just selfishly curious about where you think Substack fits into that Gen Z mindset, just because, I think we've noticed anecdotally, probably that a lot of our readers do skew a bit older. My theory had always just been, well, long form writing is maybe just more appreciated by an older demographic. But you're here at Substack, so yeah, what is the Gen Z breakdown on where Substack does or doesn't fit in?

Terry (28:10):

Yeah. I do think that there are a lot of young people who are very tapped into the world and who really do enjoy newsletters. Throughout college, I subscribed to a lot of newspapers and newsletters, etc. I do think that, on a day-to-day consumption basis, I'm always shocked by how many people do read my stuff, which is, I guess, always a good mindset to have, but to also aim high. But I do think that a lot of what Gen Z consumes when it comes to news and stuff does happen on Instagram or on Twitter. Although I do think the original forms...I really do prize longform writing and reporting, and I really hope that that is salient forever. But yeah, I don't think that my audience is a lot of Gen Z'ers, and I'm not sure how many subscribe to Substack, although maybe I should do a poll, who knows.

Nadia (29:05):

Yeah, who knows. I'm curious, but it seems intuitively consistent with me, and I wonder is it just the youngest generation never really uses email a whole lot? I'm constantly getting flashbacks throughout this conversation of just my perception when I was graduating from college and people were like, "The email inbox is dead and Millennials don't use email anymore," but now I do. It happened, I don't know, later. Maybe it's also just Gen Z people reading about Gen Z is ... It's always going to be people that don't understand the topic that are really curious to understand it, more so than people that are experiencing it themselves.

Terry (29:51):

I think that Gen Z wants to read about itself if it's portrayed in a very interesting or nuanced way. I do think it's always fascinating to read whatever take it is about your generation, especially if it comes from someone from a similar background, maybe even the same age. I do think though, there's more of a larger fascination from older folks who need sort of the demystifying or 101 aspect boil down. For a while, that was what I was doing, and I realized that it was attracting a lot of marketers, a lot of people who wanted things explained. I'm rethinking the direction of whether I want to appeal specifically to those folks or not. At the end of the day, I do want it to be more about cultural analysis. Probably, I think my bigger professional goals would more align with this newsletter. It's bleeding into my full-time work as well, which I'm really grateful for.

Nadia (30:48):

How did you settle on having a biweekly writing schedule? A very common thing we hear from people is they want to be able to write consistently and they start out trying to write every day and then flame out and can't hold that schedule anymore. What do you recommend for people that are just trying to write consistently, even if it's not super often?

Terry (31:10):

Yeah. When I first started, it was actually weekly, and then it expanded to biweekly, and then, I really don't know, I think I do twice a month, or like last month, because of the world. The world has just been so much in 2020, so my schedule has been completely off, but I do think starting off weekly and requiring yourself to think deeply about the topic will give you a good sense of how much or how deep you want to go into it every time. Because over time, I realized that there's not enough Gen Z related topics to have a take on it every week, especially if the breakdown of my newsletter was two or three stories and then the memes and what I'm up to at the bottom. Over time, I think it's much better to soak it in like a sponge and hold onto it a little bit, think about how these topics are connected.

Terry (31:58):

Of course, they're not always connected. My last newsletter just happened to magically, everything came together so well, but that never usually happens. So, I do feel like just thinking about it and sitting on it is really helpful, as a writer and as a thinker. Although, I do follow a few great Substacks that are weekly, and a lot of these people are getting paid for it, but I'm always very impressed by how they're able to weave together their thoughts so well every week.

Nadia (32:30):

Yeah. Can you share a little more just about how it's overlapped to your day job, professional life at all? I'm thinking about Delia from Deez Links, if you're familiar. She's talked about how starting a newsletter early in her career became this really great portfolio for her work and the other stuff that she wanted to do.

Terry (32:45):

Yeah. I think it's really great because it demonstrates consistency and voice, because depending on whatever news outlet you're at, you might not be able to write in the way that you want to, and in a newsletter, it's entirely your own. You're able to do that. For me, professionally, what I mentioned was my coworkers knew, my editors knew that I had this newsletter and they knew that I had an interest, and they've read it before as well. Whenever I had a take that, maybe originally I would have written a Gen Yeet on it, I could write an actual story on it, which was really cool. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we were talking about the stimulus checks and how people were being sent home from college. Those became individual pieces that ran on Vox, which was great. I spent more time and was paid to spend time thinking about these things, but that's also related to my interest as well with Gen Yeet, so that complimented each other.

Nadia (33:42):

Yeah, I guess I always think of it as you have stuff to write about for work, and then this is the separate outlet, but it sounds almost like the side project outlet informed the professional work that you were doing.

Terry (33:57):

Yeah. Not all the time, although it would be really cool to write this full-time, but it does seem daunting, because I do think analysis and reporting fall into tangential worlds, but they're both different, and I've always worried about putting on the pundit hat too often. Because I do feel like, if you permanently put on the pundit hat, there are things you're bound to miss, and if you're still very curious about the space that you're reporting on, I think this applies to whatever beat that someone's interested in. I think it's important to always be exploring and reading other people in that space who might not necessarily be the number one writer on this topic. It's always important to be curious about something, even something as familiar as being a young person.

Nadia (34:47):

I wonder if that parallels to what you were saying about these differences in audiences too, where it's almost, I can imagine if you're always speaking to an audience that inherently doesn't understand Gen Z and is subscribed because they want to, it becomes a little bit more performative and punditry, where you're just sort of like ... it becomes your job, inform them. Versus if you're writing a little bit more for your own audience where it's like, we're just like working out these thoughts and feels together, and it's a thing that we all have a stake in.

Terry (35:13):

Yeah. I entirely agree. I feel like a lot of it is like, this is happening and I don't know whether it's good or bad. I feel like that also comes across in my newsletters. I don't really have takes, I don't really try to talk down on the person, but more of, we should look at this really fascinating or weird thing that's happening on the Internet, and wonder why it's getting so much attention. I do try to do that and I don't also try to punch down on things. I do feel like there was a lot of that happening with Millennials on their culture and such. The last thing I would want to do is do that to people who are younger than me, who are on platforms I'm not on. I was on TikTok at the start of the pandemic, and then I got off and I haven't been on again. It's always interesting to see the ebb and the flow of what I'm interested in versus what the "dominant culture" is interested in.

Nadia (36:07):

This is actually the issue that really caught my eye, because you said something that was just sort of, you were jaded by TikTok or over TikTok, and I was just like, damn, that's not usually a thing you hear. If I'm clicking and trying to see what are the Gen Z takes, you just assume that everyone's going to be very bullish on TikTok. I was like, oh, that's actually really refreshing that you're like, "You know what? I'm tired of this stuff." It just feels very real and honest, which I really appreciate.

Terry (36:33):

Yeah, I try to be honest, and I try not to be too cynical because I do think, sometimes I feel like there are so many optimistic takes that I feel pressured to be like, oh, maybe I should be more edgy about it, or more cynical about it, but it is a delicate balancing act, and I think the publishing schedule allows me to reflect more on whether this is an immediate response to a greater cultural reaction or if it's my true feelings. The TikTok one was one I was sitting on for quite a while, but it really took the pandemic for me to be like, oh, I'm consuming so much of this content. I don't think I enjoy it as much for me to publish that.

Nadia (37:17):

Yeah. I really loved and appreciated that. This is probably a question that you get a lot, but is writing about Gen Z this inherently ephemeral thing? You will always be Gen Z yourself, but is there a point where maybe the demand for reading about Gen Z changes? Would you classify this as writing about Gen Z or writing about youth culture? What does it feel like? Do you agree that it is an ephemeral thing or am I missing something else?

Terry (37:51):

I definitely think that it is an ephemeral thing, because every generation sort of times out of interest and there is a new generation, although I do feel like I caught it at the curve where it's heading upwards right now, and clearly, so many things are still happening because...youth culture. I don't, to be honest, I can't think off the top of my mind when Gen Z starts and ends. I don't know when the conversation will shift, but I do think having a pulse on youth culture while I'm young is an interesting thing. I don't know how I feel about it when I'm like 35. I haven't really thought deeply about the future of that yet, but I do think there is a period of time, very certain key social and political events that define every generation, and I hope to be around for the one that defines Gen Z.

Terry (38:44):

I think it's happening right now. There might be more, who knows? But I do think, for Millennials, that was the 2008 economic crash. That was a really big cultural parameter. I do think about that when I'm thinking about what are my goals with this in general.

Nadia (39:03):

Yeah. I think there's value in capturing a really historic moment in time or a period that is not super well understood when it's changing fast. I was just thinking as I asked the question, I was like, well, there are a lot of things that are ephemeral, like covering a war or covering any sort of current events, but they serve as, I think, especially capturing in these longform bodies of work like you are, it serves as this sort of capsule on this thing that we can return to, to understand a time, which is really important. Just to wrap up, can you tell us just a little bit about what do you think other people really misunderstand about Gen Z, and also what do you think people get right. What are some of the emerging Gen Z themes that you think are going to define our present and future culture?

Terry (39:48):

Yeah. Definitely. I want to start off with what they got right, because I do feel like coverage around the generation has been so much better, so much more diverse and inclusive than what we've seen before. I do think the tech savvy element is really important and that a lot of people my age are interested in organizing, are interested in the political process and really want to make their voice heard. A lot of us care about inclusion: using pronouns, being accepting to people from all backgrounds. I think that general, “the kids are good, the kids will be alright,” that sort of sentiment has existed for the past year or so, I've seen a lot of that happening. I do think though that it's always important to be skeptical of how these current events can socialize certain people.

Terry (40:40):

You always have to think, the Millennials, there were a lot of people of color who weren't represented in that discussion about millennial culture. When we think about political culture in terms of Gen Z, you also have to think, what sort of voices am I not hearing? Is it just because they don't exist or is it because I'm not seeking them out? I do think that's a good thing to reflect on as a reporter and someone just interested in culture at large, that there are a lot of blind spots and you have to search to make sure that those blind spots are revealed. As I mentioned in my newsletter, I do think that there are more conservative-leaning people. People can organize for the right-wing as much as they can organize for the left-wing.

Terry (41:19):

I do feel like there is an anti-tech sentiment. I do have a significant number ... I guess not significant, I have like five or six friends who are off certain social media platforms that really surprise me. I do think there is a desire to disconnect that hasn’t been talked about as much. Although it's more difficult, it's easier said than done.

Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Fiza Pirani of Foreign Bodies, a newsletter that destigmatizes mental illness, centered on immigrant and refugee experiences. Fiza’s created a community of people who resonate with her vulnerability and mission to give a voice to populations that aren’t typically featured in mainstream media.

Fiza was born in India and lived in Saudi Arabia before moving to America, and she personally struggled with depression and a lack of belonging. As a journalist, she felt compelled to write for an audience who might share similar feelings. Fiza curates essays and the latest news coverage on the immigrant experience and mental health. She also shares personal stories and photos, expert interviews and research, and community resources and shoutouts. 

We talked to Fiza about her personal experiences with mental health, why her writing appeals to a wider audience beyond immigrants and refugees, and how she builds trust with her readers by being vulnerable.

Links

* Foreign Bodies, Fiza’s newsletter

* Fiza on Twitter

* Issue #14 of Foreign Bodies, which features psychologist Sharon Lo’s advice for having conversations about mental illness

* How Telling My Immigrant Parents I Contemplated Suicide May Have Saved My Life, Fiza’s Teen Vogue article 

* The Carter Center’s Mental Health Journalism Fellowship, which helped Fiza launch Foreign Bodies 

* How not to be sad, Laura Deming’s article on sadness

Highlights

* (02:29) Why Fiza left her traditional newsroom job to start telling immigrant stories

* (14:39) The meaning behind the name of Fiza’s newsletter, Foreign Bodies 

* (19:57) Why mental health is particularly challenging for those who don’t feel like they belong

* (38:34) How Fiza launched Foreign Bodies through a reporting fellowship 

* (42:13) Common challenges that mental health journalists face 

On talking about stigmatized issues:

There are discussions that I feel like I haven't really been able to have growing up—maybe they've been stigmatized—about mental illness, about identity, so that connection is definitely very intimate for me. 

On publicly sharing her personal story: 

I felt like I had a story that needed to be told, and I think almost everyone has a story that they feel needs to be told. And it really was just about being okay with publicizing that and letting your vulnerabilities be on the screen or on paper or wherever you want to pitch your story.

On feeling a lack of belonging: 

The only word that I've really been able to associate my identity with is the fact that I've always felt foreign.

Transcript

Nadia (00:42):

We'll get into Foreign Bodies itself in a bit, but I'd love to start by just having you talk about: how did you arrive here from a personal standpoint, why is this topic important to you?

Fiza (00:53):

Oh, man. Let's see.

Fiza (00:58):

Well, I, myself, am an immigrant, so I definitely ... There are discussions that I feel like I haven't really been able to have growing up, maybe they've been stigmatized, about mental illness, about identity, so definitely that connection is definitely very intimate for me. I was a journalist, or I am a journalist, but I was with the newsroom for about four and a half years.

Fiza (01:30):

And I always knew that writing was in my blood. My mom is a storyteller, my daddy, my grandma is a big storyteller, will remember everything about everything. And I definitely feel like once I got into the industry, I noticed there was a huge focus on audience and catering to an audience, your audience are subscribers, the people that have been loyal to you.

Fiza (02:03):

And what I quickly noticed was there wasn't so much of an emphasis of that immigrant audience, which makes up such a huge portion of the American population. And the more I researched, the more I realized that there really are very few publications, at least in mainstream media, few focuses on the immigrant experience at all.

Fiza (02:29):

And I remember when I was in the newsroom, I left almost a year ago-ish. I left because I was getting burnt out, like completely. And one of the things that was burning me out was not being able to feel like the people from my background, my fellow immigrants, they weren't really being heard by mainstream media, which I was a part of, but I felt kind of helpless.

Fiza (03:03):

And all that after 2016 kind of started weighing pretty heavily on me. You had the travel ban, you had the women's march, you had so many social issues kind of like building up. And not really feeling like you have much of a voice when you're a part of the free press in America, kind of added to the burnout that I was already feeling as someone who lives with depression.

Fiza (03:34):

And for me, I felt like the only way to combat all of it was to have some kind of departure, and I don't know, figure out how to do something on my own, and that's how I ended up saying goodbye to that full-time journalism position and figuring out what to do next and how to incorporate the immigrant audiences across the country and helping them have their voices heard.

Nadia (04:09):

That's really beautiful, I love hearing that. It's interesting, I'm also a child of two immigrants and I feel like I often connect with people across a lot of different cultures from this immigrant experience of either having come here when they were young or being born to parents who came here.

Nadia (04:33):

And it is actually a very pervasive experience throughout the US, and I also think the immigrant experience in the US is particularly unique in that I just feel like there's nowhere else that gives you a shot at being American in the way that we extend to foreigners.

Nadia (04:54):

And so part of me is like, it's so cool that I feel totally 100% American and almost even more American, because I have immigrant parents, it's like it is the quintessential American story. And then in other ways it's almost like you get so assimilated that way that people sometimes forget that you're not just like them or you have this different background.

Fiza (05:18):

Yeah, and what's interesting is like what you were saying earlier, the experience is so pervasive that even if you're a first generation or a new immigrant, there are some things that somehow we're all kind of dealing with, or it's a foreshadowing of what we will deal with, like the future generations.

Fiza (05:37):

If you're a new immigrant, what you're experiencing, nearly full assimilation, is like what they can expect their great grandchildren or their grandchildren or their children experience. And so there hasn't been a significant amount of research on how we cope with the differences across generations, but as you said, it's so pervasive.

Fiza (06:02):

Like we know what to expect if you've been here for a long time, which I find really interesting. Each new immigrant generation still struggles with the same issues despite us kind of having a blueprint of how it's been.

Fiza (06:22):

And what you mentioned about how America is like so, I guess I won't say welcoming to immigrants, but we do encourage foreigners to assimilate in a way that makes everyone comfortable, but then nowadays you question: who is it really making comfortable?

Fiza (06:49):

And so, yeah, I mean, that's what I thought of when you mentioned how assimilated you feel right now. Because at least for me growing up, like I was born in India and I left for Saudi Arabia when I was not even a year old. And before coming to America, I spent like four or five years in Saudi Arabia, so that's where I learned English for the first time, and I attended an American school there. And when I came here, I just couldn't ...

Fiza (07:25):

Like just growing up, I struggled to find my footing here. I felt like I was so disconnected from Indian culture. I didn't even spend like a month there or more than a few months in India before I left. I definitely didn't feel connected to Saudi Arabian culture. We left because we didn't have religious freedom there.

Fiza (07:54):

And then when I was in America, we traveled all over the place to he…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

We spoke with Fiza Pirani of Foreign Bodies, a newsletter that destigmatizes mental illness, centered on immigrant and refugee experiences. Fiza’s created a community of people who resonate with her vulnerability and mission to give a voice to populations that aren’t typically featured in mainstream media.

Fiza was born in India and lived in Saudi Arabia before moving to America, and she personally struggled with depression and a lack of belonging. As a journalist, she felt compelled to write for an audience who might share similar feelings. Fiza curates essays and the latest news coverage on the immigrant experience and mental health. She also shares personal stories and photos, expert interviews and research, and community resources and shoutouts. 

We talked to Fiza about her personal experiences with mental health, why her writing appeals to a wider audience beyond immigrants and refugees, and how she builds trust with her readers by being vulnerable.

Links

Foreign Bodies, Fiza’s newsletter

Fiza on Twitter

Issue #14 of Foreign Bodies, which features psychologist Sharon Lo’s advice for having conversations about mental illness

How Telling My Immigrant Parents I Contemplated Suicide May Have Saved My Life, Fiza’s Teen Vogue article 

The Carter Center’s Mental Health Journalism Fellowship, which helped Fiza launch Foreign Bodies 

How not to be sad, Laura Deming’s article on sadness

Highlights

(02:29) Why Fiza left her traditional newsroom job to start telling immigrant stories

(14:39) The meaning behind the name of Fiza’s newsletter, Foreign Bodies 

(19:57) Why mental health is particularly challenging for those who don’t feel like they belong

(38:34) How Fiza launched Foreign Bodies through a reporting fellowship 

(42:13) Common challenges that mental health journalists face 

On talking about stigmatized issues:

There are discussions that I feel like I haven't really been able to have growing up—maybe they've been stigmatized—about mental illness, about identity, so that connection is definitely very intimate for me. 

On publicly sharing her personal story: 

I felt like I had a story that needed to be told, and I think almost everyone has a story that they feel needs to be told. And it really was just about being okay with publicizing that and letting your vulnerabilities be on the screen or on paper or wherever you want to pitch your story.

On feeling a lack of belonging: 

The only word that I've really been able to associate my identity with is the fact that I've always felt foreign.

Transcript

Nadia (00:42):

We'll get into Foreign Bodies itself in a bit, but I'd love to start by just having you talk about: how did you arrive here from a personal standpoint, why is this topic important to you?

Fiza (00:53):

Oh, man. Let's see.

Fiza (00:58):

Well, I, myself, am an immigrant, so I definitely ... There are discussions that I feel like I haven't really been able to have growing up, maybe they've been stigmatized, about mental illness, about identity, so definitely that connection is definitely very intimate for me. I was a journalist, or I am a journalist, but I was with the newsroom for about four and a half years.

Fiza (01:30):

And I always knew that writing was in my blood. My mom is a storyteller, my daddy, my grandma is a big storyteller, will remember everything about everything. And I definitely feel like once I got into the industry, I noticed there was a huge focus on audience and catering to an audience, your audience are subscribers, the people that have been loyal to you.

Fiza (02:03):

And what I quickly noticed was there wasn't so much of an emphasis of that immigrant audience, which makes up such a huge portion of the American population. And the more I researched, the more I realized that there really are very few publications, at least in mainstream media, few focuses on the immigrant experience at all.

Fiza (02:29):

And I remember when I was in the newsroom, I left almost a year ago-ish. I left because I was getting burnt out, like completely. And one of the things that was burning me out was not being able to feel like the people from my background, my fellow immigrants, they weren't really being heard by mainstream media, which I was a part of, but I felt kind of helpless.

Fiza (03:03):

And all that after 2016 kind of started weighing pretty heavily on me. You had the travel ban, you had the women's march, you had so many social issues kind of like building up. And not really feeling like you have much of a voice when you're a part of the free press in America, kind of added to the burnout that I was already feeling as someone who lives with depression.

Fiza (03:34):

And for me, I felt like the only way to combat all of it was to have some kind of departure, and I don't know, figure out how to do something on my own, and that's how I ended up saying goodbye to that full-time journalism position and figuring out what to do next and how to incorporate the immigrant audiences across the country and helping them have their voices heard.

Nadia (04:09):

That's really beautiful, I love hearing that. It's interesting, I'm also a child of two immigrants and I feel like I often connect with people across a lot of different cultures from this immigrant experience of either having come here when they were young or being born to parents who came here.

Nadia (04:33):

And it is actually a very pervasive experience throughout the US, and I also think the immigrant experience in the US is particularly unique in that I just feel like there's nowhere else that gives you a shot at being American in the way that we extend to foreigners.

Nadia (04:54):

And so part of me is like, it's so cool that I feel totally 100% American and almost even more American, because I have immigrant parents, it's like it is the quintessential American story. And then in other ways it's almost like you get so assimilated that way that people sometimes forget that you're not just like them or you have this different background.

Fiza (05:18):

Yeah, and what's interesting is like what you were saying earlier, the experience is so pervasive that even if you're a first generation or a new immigrant, there are some things that somehow we're all kind of dealing with, or it's a foreshadowing of what we will deal with, like the future generations.

Fiza (05:37):

If you're a new immigrant, what you're experiencing, nearly full assimilation, is like what they can expect their great grandchildren or their grandchildren or their children experience. And so there hasn't been a significant amount of research on how we cope with the differences across generations, but as you said, it's so pervasive.

Fiza (06:02):

Like we know what to expect if you've been here for a long time, which I find really interesting. Each new immigrant generation still struggles with the same issues despite us kind of having a blueprint of how it's been.

Fiza (06:22):

And what you mentioned about how America is like so, I guess I won't say welcoming to immigrants, but we do encourage foreigners to assimilate in a way that makes everyone comfortable, but then nowadays you question: who is it really making comfortable?

Fiza (06:49):

And so, yeah, I mean, that's what I thought of when you mentioned how assimilated you feel right now. Because at least for me growing up, like I was born in India and I left for Saudi Arabia when I was not even a year old. And before coming to America, I spent like four or five years in Saudi Arabia, so that's where I learned English for the first time, and I attended an American school there. And when I came here, I just couldn't ...

Fiza (07:25):

Like just growing up, I struggled to find my footing here. I felt like I was so disconnected from Indian culture. I didn't even spend like a month there or more than a few months in India before I left. I definitely didn't feel connected to Saudi Arabian culture. We left because we didn't have religious freedom there.

Fiza (07:54):

And then when I was in America, we traveled all over the place to help my parents figure out their career and become physicians again like they were back in India and in Saudi Arabia. And so I just feel like I never ... I think from the outside looking in, it definitely looks like I fully assimilated. My English is very, I guess, American or however you would want to call it, but I wouldn't ever say that I feel like I found a home here, which sounds so strange.

Fiza (08:32):

I mean, I've been here since I was like five, but I just, I don't know what it is. I don't think I was ever really comfortable saying that I fully assimilated maybe because I haven't really adhered to one culture over the other or haven't been able to figure that out, I'm still figuring it out.

Nadia (08:50):

Do you feel like there's a different place that is your home or you're just sort of living between lots of different realities?

Fiza (08:57):

I definitely feel like I'm living between lots of different realities. Atlanta has been our location, like our home base for quite a long time, and so I've grown to really love Atlanta as a city and the people here, but I talk about this with my therapist. Obviously I talk about mental illness a lot and so probably will mention to my therapist every now and then.

Fiza (09:25):

But I talk about something that has always kind of been the root of my issue with belonging and depression is not really feeling the borders made much sense to me. I never felt American...the soil of wherever I was standing didn't really connect to my identity. And so when I was going through depression, that was like a huge thing, I just felt like I didn't belong anywhere.

Fiza (09:54):

And one of the best things that I got out of my first stint in therapy, I think around 2017, was falling in love with nature, as cliche as it sounds. But I learned to feel more connected to the earth as a whole and not so much think about the boundaries that we've created or like civilizations created as long as we can remember, and that's really helped me find some grounding.

Nadia (10:28):

Hmm, I really love that. Because as you were talking, I was thinking about where are the ways in which I feel like I belong, and I think I've sort of clung to this American idea or America as an ideal that anyone can belong to for similar reasons maybe, to the way that you're describing your relationship to nature where ... I guess for me it feels like I can belong here because I really believe that anyone can belong here, in a different sort of way.

Nadia (10:58):

I mean, I was lucky to still be born and grow up in the same country, but I had and continue to have these fractured relationships with different cultures in that both my parents are also bicultural. My dad is Persian, but he grew up in Germany basically his whole life, and my mom is Indonesian, but she's ethnically Chinese Indonesian.

Nadia (11:21):

I've never really been able to belong to any one of their cultures, and then they themselves are like fractured versions of their own cultures, and then somehow we all ended up here. And so it is definitely this strange experience of, especially when you're growing up in ... I don't know what your neighborhood was like growing up, but for me I grew up in suburban Pennsylvania was just like you're like the one that's not, the only one that's not-

Fiza (11:49):

Oh yeah, that was-

Nadia (11:50):

... that's like everyone else with a suburban background.

Fiza (11:52):

That was pretty much my entire life. I think I went to like, I want to say 11 or 12 different schools before I graduated high school. And I mean, we moved based on rankings. So once we were in Georgia. I mean ... And even when I first came to America, we were in Houston and then we were in New York, and both times the schools I went to were predominantly white.

Fiza (12:16):

And then I came to Georgia, and I mean, it was really, really predominantly white, every school I went to. And I mean, my parents would literally pick us up and move districts if the school rankings changed. It's only recently that we've had discussions about redlining, and what it all means and how we were kind of complicit, but then it's like you're chasing whatever you think is best.

Fiza (12:47):

But yeah, I mean, I definitely know that feeling of like forever being the odd one out. And it's funny I went through my entire, I think like 18 years, it wasn't until college, I went to college in Atlanta here and it wasn't until college that I told people to call me Fiza, my real name.

Fiza (13:10):

I went by Fiza for like 18 years, and it's weird. I used to make my family call me Fiza, and I guess I thought that was cooler. I feel like I had a lot of learning and unlearning to do once I got older, and was able to recognize all the different ways that I kind of assimilated in a way that wasn't really healthy.

Nadia (13:41):

I'm really glad I asked how to pronounce your name last minute before I started. I remember there's another guest, Nikhil, who tweeted something similar, this is like, "It's so strange that everyone else pronounces my name Nickel, but there's no reason that everyone should assume it's like this long i, because it's actually Nikhil. My dad as he was growing up, his name's Reza and for some reason, R-E-Z-A, but people always think it's Riza, and then he was just like, "Why? There's a reason why it should be Reza, it's obviously Reza."

Fiza (14:11):

Yeah, I always thought it was Riza-

Nadia (14:12):

Riza.

Fiza (14:12):

Because I guess I have one friend named Riza.

Nadia (14:18):

Who might actually be named Reza if you ask.

Fiza (14:20):

Yeah, I should probably ask him.

Nadia (14:24):

Oh gosh. Yeah. Could you actually talk a little bit about the meaning behind the name Foreign Bodies? Because I found the explanation that you give on your site to just be so marvelous and touches on this aspect of leaning into our differences and just learning to embrace and be proud of them.

Fiza (14:39):

I can't tell you exactly like how, why I first came up with Foreign Bodies, but the more I kind of sat with it ... The term alien has always been kind of irritating. I mean, I didn't become a citizen until I was in my early twenties, even though we applied like for over a decade, it just took a really long time.

Fiza (15:10):

And so I remember the term alien always attached to my citizenship. And I mean, I went from a kind of alien to thinking about being called a foreigner and how offensive I always thought of it, but then when I spoke to my brother who was actually born in America, in Houston, he never thought of it as offensive, and so it just made me think about the words that we use and how.

Fiza (15:41):

I wanted something that made you question like, "Is it okay to just call yourself a foreign body?" Why would you call yourself, give yourself the word that people might use to instigate and might use against you? And I wanted to embrace that because the only word that I've really been able to associate with, like my identity with, is the fact that I've always felt foreign, no matter where, like no matter if I was like ...

Fiza (16:13):

I'm sure I haven't even been back to India since I was born, but I know that once I go back I am not going to feel very at home because of all the stories that I've heard with my friends who have been, so and so are so-called like Westernized or Americanized going back home and feeling a little bit out of place.

Fiza (16:35):

I know I've always felt foreign, in every classroom I've felt foreign, even at mosque because people called me ... They said I had a Valley girl voice so I was like the white, brown girl or like whatever, all these different words. And so I definitely just connected with that word.

Fiza (16:56):

And the more I talk to people about what they felt about it, I notice that some people thought it was a little bit more ...  they felt that it was a little bit more offensive, and I wanted to make sure in my FAQs or in my about section to address what exactly a foreign body is.

Fiza (17:26):

I mean, it's just something that is part of something that's been introduced from the outside, so it wasn't there from the origin. And it's like something that's new to a place and it's not normal to the place where it's found. And so I realized that that doesn't have to be an immigrant, that could be you moving to a new school district and being the only brown person there, it could be you being a black woman in a white dominant field.

Fiza (18:02):

It could be so many different things, and I think that's what's really cool about Foreign Bodies is like we might center immigrant experiences the way like mainstream media centers non-immigrant experiences in their main story, but at the root of it is like something that anyone who can identify with being somewhere that they're not expected to be or they haven't been born into can relate to.

Fiza (18:29):

So talking about pill shaming. In Asian American communities, if you're from the South and you're new to the field of psychology and your parents aren't really open to medication, that relates to you. It's not really about being an immigrant or not, and I think I wanted to emphasize that because there's a lot to offer in Foreign Bodies that's not specific to one type of experience.

Nadia (19:00):

Hmm. Yeah, I really appreciate that clarification. It's true. I mean, what I have found uniting about just the immigrant label is that it reaches a lot of people that just have an experience of being other or out of place or out of water, and then extending that as you're saying beyond even just being an immigrant in the national sense, but just sort of like you're feeling something that is not necessarily shared by your environment, which seems to really be at the heart of a lot of mental health issues and their origin, right, because you're sort of like, "Why do I not fit into this thing?"

Fiza (19:41):

Exactly.

Nadia (19:43):

Why do you think this topic of mental health is so tough for people with a sort of, "I don't fit in here," background in a way that does seem to transcend any specific culture or label or identity?

Fiza (19:57):

Hmm. I don't know that there's one big answer there. I think like you're a product of your surroundings or the education that you've been exposed to, the education you've had access to, and the culture that you were born into. And I mean, that has nothing to do with you being from one region of the country or the other, I mean it's really just because the stigma of mental health is so pervasive across different cultures and across different regions that I think it feels like such a universal fight, it doesn't feel like specific to one demographic.

Fiza (20:45):

And I think it just speaks to the way we've historically reported on mental health in media, how we've historically addressed mental health in research, in psychology, in the academics. And so I don't know that there is one specific problem, I think that's something that ... I mean, you see the numbers, like how many people are, if they were to be diagnosed with depression, like it's a huge majority of the population.

Fiza (21:18):

So it's clearly something that if we were more attuned to, if we had more access and education and awareness about, we would probably be like, "Oh yeah, that is me. Like, of course that's me," but usually we don't. Like, a lifetime kind of passes you by and you think you have other priorities, and so I don't know, it just, it never felt specific to a culture at all.

Nadia (21:44):

It feels like one place where I was just thinking it overlaps is, if you're sort of dealing with something personally you kind of hit this, you get a sort of survivor drive that kicks in where you're just sort of like, "Whatever, I'm going to power through. It's fine, I'm not even going to think about it," which of course leads to issues later down the line.

Nadia (22:07):

And I think maybe similarly with a lot of people that identify with Foreign Bodies, the label of like, I am somewhere where everyone is different. If you're an immigrant, refugee or any other sort of situation, and you're, again, just sort of like, "I'm just trying to figure it out, and I just want to make it work," and so it's easier to push aside some of these things that you're dealing with and just ignore what's going on.

Fiza (22:37):

Yeah, especially if you're that one person who's not like the others. It's almost like you have this additional pressure to overperform or outperform your neighbors and your classmates and your coworkers because you are different. And I'm not sure exactly like ... I don't know why that's universal, but it's definitely specific to some groups.

Fiza (23:04):

If you're an immigrant or a child of immigrants who tremendously suffered to get here just to make a house here, and you're privileged to be in a position where you get to do some amazing work, there's a survivor's guilt that comes in and you feel like you're not allowed to really complain if like you don't have it as bad on paper as your parents did.

Fiza (23:36):

And then it's something similar with the black experience, too. I'm sure that I've heard other black women talk about is they have that sense of survivor's guilt, too. They don't have it as worse as their descendants did, and so sometimes they feel a guilt to put all that pain aside and work through it.

Fiza (24:01):

And I don't know. I mean, you see it kind of everywhere, but we still live in a highly productive, focused society which seems to value that more, especially in corporate environments. And so if you're someone who is not like most of your surroundings, it's like an implicit pressure that you put on yourself and sometimes other people put on you too. I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure why that is, I just know that it exists.

Nadia (24:39):

The comment of just like highly productive, work-focused, output-focused society also strikes me as something that is particularly felt in the US, I think. And at the same time, it seems like we do place a comparatively higher value on therapy culture. It seems like therapists are just a more common thing to have in the US versus elsewhere. I'm actually not sure if that's true, so correct me if I'm wrong, but is that true?

Fiza (25:16):

I actually have no idea. I don't know if that's true, but you definitely feel like it is, like you feel like people are always talking about it.

Nadia (25:28):

Yeah.

Fiza (25:28):

Yeah. And like the self care and wellness industry definitely seems very American.

Nadia (25:36):

Yeah, it's weird. It feels like it almost goes hand in hand with the intensity of the circumstances that we're placing ourselves, and now we have this like other component or this byproduct of that sort of culture that is now all about the mental health.

Fiza (25:50):

Yeah. And it's funny, and so I think Americans are ... Okay. I don't want to blanket all of America or anything, but it feels like we're always looking for a bandaid and not really going back to why it is, why things are the way they are, and what we can do at the root to fix it. I mean, we use self care like face masks, not like the ones for like the pandemic, but like face mask for relaxation.

Nadia (26:20):

The nice ones.

Fiza (26:23):

The nice ones. And going to therapy, which is definitely very inaccessible to most of the population, and we use those as those fixes. And it's funny that you mentioned that because I feel like that's also similar in some immigrant households too. Like, my parents are both physicians, and when I first talked to them about ...

Fiza (26:51):

At one point I was having suicidal thoughts, this was like 2016, 2017, and when I came to them with that, their immediate reaction was to find a quick fix, "So go to mosque and pray more," or like, "Let's put you on medication." And that was big.

Fiza (27:19):

The medication thing is definitely not something every immigrant parent is open to, but I think because they're in medicine maybe they're a little bit more attuned to it, but still there was no thinking about, "Okay, why do you think ... Why are you at this point? Like, what kind of led here?" There's obviously brain chemistry that's involved in depression, but there's a lot of societal factors that also make things worse for everyone.

Fiza (27:48):

And so there was no real discussion about why am I feeling so burned out, why am I not able to get out of bed, like why am I not looking forward to a workday even though I've said I love my job, and all of that. And I think we're just really quick to find a solution that looks pretty and looks .... that seems socially acceptable without doing more of the dirty work and trying to figure out, "Okay, but why aren't we talking about this in the workplace this much?"

Fiza (28:25):

And that always bothered me. As much as I love, I appreciate the wonderful effects of my antidepressants, I definitely feel like there's so much more that I felt needed to be coupled with that, that had less to do with buying new face masks or going to mosque or participating in something that I didn't feel was creating some concrete change in a system bigger than me.

Fiza (29:00):

I remember shortly after I started beginning cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to my antidepressants, which my parents were kind of weird about, like they weren't totally embracing the whole talk therapy thing, but I just knew that it would probably work for me. I had read enough about why you should go to therapy stories online and just felt like it was the right move for me.

Fiza (29:31):

And I remember like pretty soon after starting therapy, I started talking about mental health at work really openly. And I mean, I used to be like, "Okay, I'm going to go hang out with my dog for a while." Like, in the middle of the workday I'll be like, "I just feel really exhausted and I just need a break." And I would say that out loud, and I know like a year before that I would never even dare to say that. Like, it would just be like, "Oh, wow, she's so lazy."

Nadia (30:00):

Makes me concerned about the value of ... I mean, like you said, there isn't a quick fix to these things. And a lot of the things that can be helpful are interrelated with your environment around you, like your workplace and your family and your friends, and so being able to integrate this inner self with your external environment and have that not have this enormous disconnect between the two I think is really valuable.

Fiza (30:30):

And I feel like it needed to be seen in action. Like, you don't just see. Like, if you see me taking ... I'm usually taking my antidepressants before I come to work, so you don't really see me actively taking care of myself really. And I feel like that was really important for me to be pretty vocal about every little thing that I'm doing to take care of myself.

Fiza (30:49):

And once I started doing that, I had coworkers come in and ask me about going to therapy for the first time, and it was like it started a whole discussion in the newsroom, and I mean that's like the kind of change that I feel like needs to be made. It's definitely dirty work and you're definitely airing your dirty laundry out, but I realized that telling your story was really the only way to change minds.

Nadia (31:17):

Yeah, it feels like even just knowing that ... Sometimes I think the things that we're all going through personally in our minds, it's all-consuming because it's happening to you of course, and sometimes it can feel very isolating for that reason, but even just knowing that it happens to other people that you personally know or admire or look up to or work with every day... I mean, learning those things through these narratives and storytelling can just be enormously beneficial.

Fiza (31:46):

Oh yeah, definitely.

Nadia (31:46):

And a lot of people I've talked to also seem to feel like this is centered around this parent-child experience, especially if your parents grew up elsewhere and the kids in the US, and sort of raised with this one lens that is more American and it can be hard to see eye to eye as to what is even the issue or how do these ... Yeah, what am I supposed to do about this. And I think you're alluding to that a little bit with your parents. How do we start seeding these conversations earlier? And do you find that Foreign Bodies appeals to readers that are in this younger demographic?

Fiza (32:21):

I think that's one of the biggest issues that I've noticed at least my readers and my audience have been questioning. Like, I get a lot of emails about, "How do I talk to my mom about this? Like, my mom's not really listening to me. My dad doesn't really like to talk about his emotions, and I don't know how to get through to that."

Fiza (32:43):

And yeah, I definitely feel like my experience is a little bit different. My brother and I have never really been afraid to challenge my parents, and I think that is a huge issue in a lot of immigrant communities, like there's like a fear of letting your parents down... That seems to be very, at least what I've received from just the people that I interact with, like very pervasive and like Asian American communities, like Eastern and South Asian.

Fiza (33:21):

And I guess like, I always say you have to have the really difficult conversations that end in tears, that end in screaming, that may end up in you not talking to your dad for a few days or even like a week. I think that that definitely happened to me growing up. I don't know that any of breaking through to people involves no screaming and no yelling.

Fiza (33:54):

Like, I've never had a conversation with my parents growing up where ... You obviously have that issue of challenging someone who's older than you. And in immigrant communities especially, respecting your elders thing feels like very ... Like, you can't raise your voice at your elders, you can't call them names, it's just not ... I'm not saying that it's common in other cultures, but I know that it's very taboo almost to raise your voice or talk back, like talk down to anyone.

Fiza (34:32):

So what happens is this generational rift between your parents and the children where you feel like you can't really open the floor for a conversation or for a debate because you're afraid of raising your voice, which will inevitably happen probably.

Fiza (34:51):

And so I don't know. I mean, my only advice is to just rip it off and let the tears flow, and let the yells happen, because I don't know how much my parents have changed their mindset about mental health or really about so many different things would have even happened if we hadn't challenged them a lot.

Nadia (35:21):

Well that also just points to the benefit of having communities like Foreign Bodies for people who for whatever reason are unable to do that with their own families, but still being able to find outlets for conversation elsewhere.

Fiza (35:36):

There was a really good story that Meghna Rao, she told in Issue 14 of Foreign Bodies, which her story was about, "I told my parents I was depressed and they didn't really believe me," and how their disbelief or their struggling off of her truth and her experience worsened her depression. And in that issue I talked to a psychologist, Sharon Lo, who is a first generation Taiwanese American, and she offered some tips on how to approach that first conversation if you feel like you're struggling with a mental illness.

Fiza (36:13):

And I mean, there was some really good points. She said one of the things is be mindful of their experience and just think about what they have been, what kind of access they've had, what kind of mental health education access that they've had growing up, and just keep that in mind. And also remember that like any, I really love what she said, any misguided reactions such as yelling or shutting down or crying, they come from a place of fear, and it's important to keep returning to the idea that everything is kind of rooted in love even if those reactions do feel misguided.

Fiza (36:56):

And another really big piece of advice is if you feel like things are getting heightened, it's okay to say, "Okay, let's come back to this another time. I feel like it's just getting a little bit out of hand," and that's okay. You don't have to like, unless you feel like it's an emergency and you need professional help right then and there, like this is a conversation that will take a lot of time and it will take you coming back and returning to the painful conversations, it doesn't have to be like you have one conversation and everything is over, that's not how growth works, it's a slow process.

Fiza (37:33):

And so I definitely feel like that issue in particular, I got a lot of feedback from people who use a lot of the tips that Sharon provided and that the Stanford Mental Health Innovation Network provided, I reached out to them for some tips too. And I really liked a lot of the advice that they gave, and so if anyone out there is wondering how exactly to have that talk with their parents, or if you are a mom or a dad, like a parent or a guardian who wants to talk to their children about mental health, but you don't know how to start, there's some tips in there about that too. And I mean, again, like the experience that was centered was about migrants, but it touches like everybody.

Nadia (38:14):

I love that you have the perfect resource for this topic, of course. That's great. I'd love to hear just a little bit more and maybe shifting gears into how you ended up launching Foreign Bodies in the first place. It sounded like you had this fellowship with the Carter Center's Mental Health Program, how did that relate to Foreign Bodies and how did that help bring you here?

Fiza (38:34):

So yeah, I was really lucky to become one of their fellows in, I think it was 2018, and this was when I was at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, my local paper. And initially the plan was to produce, like publish a few stories for the paper on immigrant mental health. And I think it's clear why I chose that topic, like it was definitely personal, but also with the state of the world at that time.

Fiza (39:03):

We were dealing with the political influences of anti-immigrant discourse and everything, and so that was a topic that definitely spoke to me and that I felt like I hadn't really read much about. And so the plan was, like I said, to just publish a few stories, but as soon as I started interviewing ... I think I interviewed like maybe 60 to 70 different people in or around like the Metro Atlanta area.

Fiza (39:34):

And we're home to Clarkston, which is like a significant refugee population base here in Georgia. And the more I was talking, the more I realized that what I wanted to do or what I felt like I needed to do was create a space where they felt comfortable talking. I knew that if I publish a big story or two in the paper, that would be great, but I don't know that it would reach the immigrant audiences that I'm trying to reach here. And so what happened was I had way too many folders of interviews and research and nowhere to really address them all, and so I knew I needed something that was kind of recurring.

Fiza (40:25):

And I had been into newsletters at the time, it was just like something that felt really intimate, something that you open up like your email and it's like someone's talking to you, and you only ... And it just felt really, it felt like the right kind of format. I knew a lot of older immigrants especially will check their emails pretty often if not WhatsApp or like whatever different apps there are.

Fiza (40:51):

They seem to be more drawn to things like that over reading a newspaper article, and I knew that newsletters made a lot more sense. And so I mean, when I first started off, it was kind of my way of just seeing how it would work and experimenting. I mean, that's like anyone who's in media will tell you, like once they start something it's just kind of like a game to see who's reacting to what.

Fiza (41:21):

And I noticed that the more I continued writing for Foreign Bodies, there was just way more to address. And as soon as people ... Word of mouth kind of spread. I was noticing a lot of young immigrants, a lot of parents were drawn to the subject too, because where else do you really turn for that? So yeah, I don't know if I really answered that very well.

Nadia (41:48):

Yeah, that was great. Why do you think it's important to have kickoff support, like the fellowship that you had, to offer extra support to journalists that are focused on mental health? What are the challenges that mental health journalists face in their careers?

Fiza (42:13):

Journalists across the board are incredibly, or newsrooms across the board, are incredibly short staffed. There's no way that ... It's very rare to have a journalist be able to focus on mental health journalism alone, and so I definitely feel like it's kind of a project that you might work on like once a year, or you might do a few stories on like every other month or something, but it's not ... Newsrooms are just too short staffed. Like, there's just no way.

Fiza (42:48):

I can imagine, even when I had the fellowship when I was at the AJC, I did most of my work for the fellowship outside of the newsroom. And so it was like basically working two jobs, it just wasn't really feasible to do any of that inside the newsroom, at least in my experience.

Fiza (43:08):

I know there are people who do have that privilege and they're really lucky, but I did not have that. And I knew that the only way that I could really justify doing all this research, doing all those interviews, writing and all of that, was to have that fellowship. I mean, I wouldn't really be able to sustain really anything without that kind of, honestly, like financial support and the mentorship that came with the program. And yeah, I mean, it's tough to be a journalist when you're specifically passionate about one thing because you're pulled in tons of different directions when you're working in a newsroom nowadays.

Nadia (43:52):

Right. I guess it's hard to imagine having ... I'm sure it's extraordinarily rare to have a regular beat that is just focused on mental health, it seems a little bit more investigative or research-oriented in nature.

Fiza (44:03):

Definitely. Yeah. And I mean, the truth of the matter is, yeah, it's like the investigative work that you see concrete results for, but how ... It's hard to justify from an editorial management standpoint, it comes down to how many people are clicking on it, how many people are reading it.

Fiza (44:23):

And so it's when you have an audience that's not primarily about immigrants or not primarily immigrants, they're not primarily mental health professionals or people interested in mental health, they're not going to be automatically drawn to stories about mental health. And that doesn't mean that stories like that shouldn't exist in the paper of course, they should because this conversation needs to be ignited, but it's hard to find a home for it.

Nadia (44:55):

You did have this piece with Teen Vogue that came out last year. For a lot of writers, I'm sure they would just dream about getting that kind of an op-ed placement. How does one go about getting an op-ed in something like Teen Vogue, and what was the response like? Did that help kick off some of your work with Foreign Bodies?

Fiza (45:14):

So pretty interesting. Like, the day that that came out I think was the day after I quit my job. It was the last day of my job or something. And I remember I almost felt like it was too early, like I felt like, "Oh God, like now that I quit and I had this published, are people going to expect me to do more?" and I was like, "No, this is just like months in the making."

Fiza (45:45):

Honestly, I felt like I had a story that needed to be told, and I think almost everyone has a story that they feel needs to be told. And it really was just about being okay with publicizing that and letting your vulnerabilities be on the screen or on paper or wherever you want to pitch your story.

Fiza (46:11):

And by that point, I will say that I was ready for that. By that point, I had made that decision to leave my job because I didn't feel like it was helping my health. By that point, I had made the decision to go to therapy, start medication and everything, and I did feel comfortable enough. And I'm not saying that you have to be a certain comfort level to expose yourself like that, but I think it's important that once you do publish something that's so personal that you're ready for maybe like a little bit of backlash.

Fiza (46:53):

And I kept reminding myself like, "Okay, not everyone's going to respond well to a story like this," and that's not really what happened. Like, after that I definitely feel like it helped Foreign Bodies because it helped people who are in my circle or my network see that like maybe, okay, I actually have experienced some of the stuff that maybe they've experienced, and maybe hopefully felt like they could trust me a little bit more.

Fiza (47:29):

I think building trust was like a huge thing. I mean, I didn't want to preach to anybody. Like, I'm not a professional mental health clinician or anything, but I definitely felt like I wanted to kind of showcase the fact that I'm putting my vulnerabilities out there and I find power in that, and I think that should be something or I hope that that's something that when you read my story that you feel something in you that makes you want to grab a pen and start writing.

Fiza (48:01):

And I mean, any advice about like how to get published, honestly, just email the editors. There's not too much to it. I think there's going to be a lot of rejection of course, when you email editors and you have something that you want to write about, but that's part of the learning process. I mean, if you have a story to tell, just make sure it's told no matter where ...

Fiza (48:34):

I don't get too caught up in exactly where everything is published. I think Teen Vogue is a really great outlet for young people, and I know Foreign Bodies reaches a lot of really young people, like people in middle and high school and in college. And it felt like the audience for the story that I needed to tell because my story had so much to do with the way that I grew up and my relationship with my parents, and so it felt like the right outlet.

Fiza (49:07):

But I don't recommend anyone chase any specific names in media or anything, I think if you have a story find a way to have it told. Like if it's writing on a blog or writing for Foreign Bodies or writing for Teen Vogue, it doesn't really matter, I think the most important thing is to like when you read a story like that, that it sparks something within you to want to tell your own.

Nadia (49:34):

Does Foreign Bodies benefit from word of mouth spreading in the way that other types of writing might because it is such a private activity? Like, is this something that people are excited to share and talk about in public or does it feel more like, "Oh, I'm reading this privately because I'm having some sort of issue"?

Fiza (49:53):

Hmm, that's a good question. I will say the people who are probably really vocal about reading or being a subscriber to Foreign Bodies are the people who do feel a little bit more, maybe they've already felt like they've experienced the worst event, and a lot of them are storytellers too. And I definitely feel like a lot of the young immigrant parents who read the letter, and maybe they're a little more shy in expressing how they feel about it.

Fiza (50:33):

I don't know, but that's a really good question. I wonder about that a lot. I feel like there are people who are really willing to talk, but I know in my reporting experience when I was first reporting with the Carter Center, the hardest thing to do was to get immigrants to talk. And so I always wonder what percentage of them are really still afraid of talking even though you're seeing so many people expose their own stories? But maybe I'm just being optimistic, but maybe each issue kind of inches them towards being more open to it.

Nadia (51:14):

Yeah, and I was thinking just like having, again, I mean you keep coming back to this theme of storytelling, but having a post from someone else or a story from someone else can also help depersonalize it a little bit and make it easier for you to talk about yourself in a more public setting or talking to someone else.

Nadia (51:35):

I was just thinking about this the other day because I shared on my own Twitter this blog post from Laura Deming talking about just her experiences of feeling sad. And I really like the piece especially because it just came from someone that I knew who does not normally seem to talk about any of these topics in public, and I imagine just faces a lot of pressure in being a young successful person.

Nadia (52:03):

And it made me want to share it out, and then I sort of just inserted a little bit of myself in that when I shared it, but that was a new experience for me. But I don't think I would normally have shared anything about myself personally, but it was easier to be like, "Oh, this person wrote about it and I totally resonate with this."

Fiza (52:21):

Yeah. I mean, it's the active kind of retweeting something, right? Like, if it's not necessarily something that you would feel comfortable expressing, but in a way you kind of ... Unless you have it in your Twitter byline you feel like your retweets don't include endorsements or anything, but usually the act of retweeting a quote, tweeting or resharing a story on any medium kind of implies that you have some kind of connection to it, which is already brave in and of itself.

Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Francine McKenna of The Dig, a newsletter about accounting, audit and corporate governance issues at public and pre-IPO companies. Through her newsletter, Francine analyzes the most widely-held and widely-shorted companies in the world.

After two decades of working for companies like KPMG and PwC, Francine’s original goal was to write a book. She started an anonymous blog, just to help her get material on paper. Over time, she amassed such a loyal following that she quit consulting, fully dedicating herself to her newsletter as an independent journalist.

We talked to Francine about her career journey from accounting to journalism, her rigorous approach to writing and research, and how she grew a loyal following of readers across her blog and newsletter.

Links

* The Dig, Francine’s newsletter

* Francine on Twitter

* Matt Levine, a business journalist that Francine admires

Highlights

* (06:20) Why Francine became an early Twitter adopter, even though others in her industry avoided it

* (09:27) How Francine grew her audience, despite starting under a pseudonym, by analyzing metrics and reaching out to readers

* (17:34) How Francine keeps up-to-date by developing meaningful relationships within the world of academia

* (29:26) Francine’s transition from blogging to writing a newsletter 

* (41:43) How Francine differentiates paid vs. free content 

On writing for herself:

Frankly, I wanted to just write what I want to write, the way I want to write it. I like writing long, I like writing detailed. I like writing for an audience that already knows that they want to read what I want to read. I'm not interested in converting the unconverted, but I'd be glad to teach those who are willing to learn. 

On the loyalty of her audience:

I have students who were just seniors in college or just about to embark on their career when they first started reading me. Now they're partners at the firms or they're professors in the universities. I've been at it long enough that I've seen people grow and they've seen me grow.

Transcript

Nadia (00:34):

You write The Dig, which you describe as digging into accounting, audit, and corporate governance issues at public and pre-IPO companies.

Francine (00:43):

Yes, it's very similar to what I've been doing for the last 15 years in terms of writing and journalism. But I put a new brand spin on it for my Substack launch.

Nadia (00:56):

Awesome. I'd love to dig into, I'm going to be saying that a lot probably, dig into your background a bit since you had an entire career it seems. Several decades working in public accounting at KPMG and PwC, and all these big firms. Then you later went on to become an investigative journalist. You've had multiple careers it seems like. How and why did you make that transition from working directly in accounting to becoming a journalist?

Francine (01:27):

Sure. I like to say that journalism is my second profession. Because accounting, being a CPA, is my first profession or at least my original one. If you're an accountant, you're always an accountant. Now I'm using that subject matter expertise and writing about it instead of doing it. But I had been working in industry, in banks, and then in KPMG, KPMG consulting, its spinoff, BearingPoint. I worked in Latin America for a while. Then for PwC was my last job with a firm. I left PwC at the end of 2006 thinking I was going to write a book about the accounting firms in the global financial system.

Of course, that went over like a lead balloon with agents and publishes. They wanted more sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I thought, well, I should start a blog in order to start getting some of that material on paper. Sort of see what people were going to respond to. I started a blog first on Blogger, which is the pre-Google Blogger version, anonymously. I was doing it sort of still thinking I was going to go back and work at a firm or at a company in the kinds of roles that I had been working before. A little worried, like all accountants are, about your reputation and getting on the blacklist of people who are not on the right side of the firms.

I started it anonymously at the end of 2006, beginning of 2007. People started emailing me like, "Who are you?" Including from outside the U.S., because I was talking about the firms from a very critical perspective. The big four public accounting firms and their consulting arms: PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG. Very few people have the freedom to talk about sort of the inside, the business end of those firms. Because you're usually either working for them or you're working for a company and you're dependent on them. Or you're somehow in the ecosystem of lawyers and the consultants, who are also dependent on their good favor.

Very few people actually know what goes on inside the firms and are free to talk about it. People were really curious and then I realized, why am I writing anonymously? How am I going to get a book deal from writing a blog if people don't know who I am? I'm going to have to stand by my opinions. I put my name on the blog and it's called re: The Auditors. R-E, The Auditors. Like in re: a litigation, or in reference to the auditors. I started writing and lo and behold, that was the beginning of 2007, 2008. We started having issues with the subprime and then the financial crisis.

The expertise that I had became very much in demand. Very few people could explain all the complex accounting and the role of the auditors in all of the different banks and companies that were under stress. At a certain point, I was at the point of no return because I had been so critical and had been talking so frankly about what was going on that nobody was ever going to hire me back in the firms or anywhere else. I had to just go forward and try to become a journalist and I approached that from the same sort of professional perspective that I did my previous career. And tried to learn from the best people and work for the best editors, and eventually ended up in a full-time role at MarketWatch in 2015 here in Washington, D.C. 

Nadia (05:41):

Wow, it's funny hearing you talk about it. I didn't realize I guess that your blog was anonymous at first. It seems like there was this pattern of behavior. We have a couple of other Substack writers as well who write anonymously. And people who write in saying, "Can I start my newsletter anonymously?" I've seen it with sort of these industry insider kind of publications and writing. Have you seen this happening with other I guess anonymous Twitter accounts or blogs? It's just sort of I guess interesting to think about. Maybe in the past you had a whistleblower source that would go to media.

Francine (06:17):

Sure.

Nadia (06:17):

Whereas now people are just kind of doing it themselves and staying anonymous.

Francine (06:20):

Sure, sure. Well, I was a very early Twitter adopter. I've been on Twitter since April of 2008. Again, because as an independent journalist, I needed a way to promote my work, to let people know I was writing and what I was writing about. Some of my old technology consulting friends who were on Friendster said, "Oh, Twitter is a cool place to go. You need to go there and you can connect with people." No one was there. I mean, no journalists, no accountants and auditors for sure. No lawyers, all of the people that were afraid of social media stayed away for a while.

But for me, it was a really good place to promote my work. I would run into people all the time, the accountants and the lawyers and the auditors and other... and then eventually the traders who started taking advantage. It was an early site that's still around, Stocktwits, which allows for... was using Twitter tags in order to sort of pull in information that people were posting on Twitter about individual stocks. That's much more sophisticated now. But the idea was people wanted to be anonymous because they had regular jobs.

They were either worried about saying something negative and getting fired or saying something that was c…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

We spoke with Francine McKenna of The Dig, a newsletter about accounting, audit and corporate governance issues at public and pre-IPO companies. Through her newsletter, Francine analyzes the most widely-held and widely-shorted companies in the world.

After two decades of working for companies like KPMG and PwC, Francine’s original goal was to write a book. She started an anonymous blog, just to help her get material on paper. Over time, she amassed such a loyal following that she quit consulting, fully dedicating herself to her newsletter as an independent journalist.

We talked to Francine about her career journey from accounting to journalism, her rigorous approach to writing and research, and how she grew a loyal following of readers across her blog and newsletter.

Links

The Dig, Francine’s newsletter

Francine on Twitter

Matt Levine, a business journalist that Francine admires

Highlights

(06:20) Why Francine became an early Twitter adopter, even though others in her industry avoided it

(09:27) How Francine grew her audience, despite starting under a pseudonym, by analyzing metrics and reaching out to readers

(17:34) How Francine keeps up-to-date by developing meaningful relationships within the world of academia

(29:26) Francine’s transition from blogging to writing a newsletter 

(41:43) How Francine differentiates paid vs. free content 

On writing for herself:

Frankly, I wanted to just write what I want to write, the way I want to write it. I like writing long, I like writing detailed. I like writing for an audience that already knows that they want to read what I want to read. I'm not interested in converting the unconverted, but I'd be glad to teach those who are willing to learn. 

On the loyalty of her audience:

I have students who were just seniors in college or just about to embark on their career when they first started reading me. Now they're partners at the firms or they're professors in the universities. I've been at it long enough that I've seen people grow and they've seen me grow.

Transcript

Nadia (00:34):

You write The Dig, which you describe as digging into accounting, audit, and corporate governance issues at public and pre-IPO companies.

Francine (00:43):

Yes, it's very similar to what I've been doing for the last 15 years in terms of writing and journalism. But I put a new brand spin on it for my Substack launch.

Nadia (00:56):

Awesome. I'd love to dig into, I'm going to be saying that a lot probably, dig into your background a bit since you had an entire career it seems. Several decades working in public accounting at KPMG and PwC, and all these big firms. Then you later went on to become an investigative journalist. You've had multiple careers it seems like. How and why did you make that transition from working directly in accounting to becoming a journalist?

Francine (01:27):

Sure. I like to say that journalism is my second profession. Because accounting, being a CPA, is my first profession or at least my original one. If you're an accountant, you're always an accountant. Now I'm using that subject matter expertise and writing about it instead of doing it. But I had been working in industry, in banks, and then in KPMG, KPMG consulting, its spinoff, BearingPoint. I worked in Latin America for a while. Then for PwC was my last job with a firm. I left PwC at the end of 2006 thinking I was going to write a book about the accounting firms in the global financial system.

Of course, that went over like a lead balloon with agents and publishes. They wanted more sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I thought, well, I should start a blog in order to start getting some of that material on paper. Sort of see what people were going to respond to. I started a blog first on Blogger, which is the pre-Google Blogger version, anonymously. I was doing it sort of still thinking I was going to go back and work at a firm or at a company in the kinds of roles that I had been working before. A little worried, like all accountants are, about your reputation and getting on the blacklist of people who are not on the right side of the firms.

I started it anonymously at the end of 2006, beginning of 2007. People started emailing me like, "Who are you?" Including from outside the U.S., because I was talking about the firms from a very critical perspective. The big four public accounting firms and their consulting arms: PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG. Very few people have the freedom to talk about sort of the inside, the business end of those firms. Because you're usually either working for them or you're working for a company and you're dependent on them. Or you're somehow in the ecosystem of lawyers and the consultants, who are also dependent on their good favor.

Very few people actually know what goes on inside the firms and are free to talk about it. People were really curious and then I realized, why am I writing anonymously? How am I going to get a book deal from writing a blog if people don't know who I am? I'm going to have to stand by my opinions. I put my name on the blog and it's called re: The Auditors. R-E, The Auditors. Like in re: a litigation, or in reference to the auditors. I started writing and lo and behold, that was the beginning of 2007, 2008. We started having issues with the subprime and then the financial crisis.

The expertise that I had became very much in demand. Very few people could explain all the complex accounting and the role of the auditors in all of the different banks and companies that were under stress. At a certain point, I was at the point of no return because I had been so critical and had been talking so frankly about what was going on that nobody was ever going to hire me back in the firms or anywhere else. I had to just go forward and try to become a journalist and I approached that from the same sort of professional perspective that I did my previous career. And tried to learn from the best people and work for the best editors, and eventually ended up in a full-time role at MarketWatch in 2015 here in Washington, D.C. 

Nadia (05:41):

Wow, it's funny hearing you talk about it. I didn't realize I guess that your blog was anonymous at first. It seems like there was this pattern of behavior. We have a couple of other Substack writers as well who write anonymously. And people who write in saying, "Can I start my newsletter anonymously?" I've seen it with sort of these industry insider kind of publications and writing. Have you seen this happening with other I guess anonymous Twitter accounts or blogs? It's just sort of I guess interesting to think about. Maybe in the past you had a whistleblower source that would go to media.

Francine (06:17):

Sure.

Nadia (06:17):

Whereas now people are just kind of doing it themselves and staying anonymous.

Francine (06:20):

Sure, sure. Well, I was a very early Twitter adopter. I've been on Twitter since April of 2008. Again, because as an independent journalist, I needed a way to promote my work, to let people know I was writing and what I was writing about. Some of my old technology consulting friends who were on Friendster said, "Oh, Twitter is a cool place to go. You need to go there and you can connect with people." No one was there. I mean, no journalists, no accountants and auditors for sure. No lawyers, all of the people that were afraid of social media stayed away for a while.

But for me, it was a really good place to promote my work. I would run into people all the time, the accountants and the lawyers and the auditors and other... and then eventually the traders who started taking advantage. It was an early site that's still around, Stocktwits, which allows for... was using Twitter tags in order to sort of pull in information that people were posting on Twitter about individual stocks. That's much more sophisticated now. But the idea was people wanted to be anonymous because they had regular jobs.

They were either worried about saying something negative and getting fired or saying something that was confidential and getting fired. Or ticking off somebody that was going to hire them later and not having a career. I mean, the risk-averse professions or anybody who wants to hold a job where they're employed by somebody else is going to be worried about if something I say or something I do is going to be... is going to break the rules or is going to somehow alienate me from my employer. In my case, I was an independent journalist. I didn't have anybody that I had to alienate. 

I had made a decision that I was never going back to the firms. It was sort of, hey, gonzo. 150% take it or leave it. I had to take the consequences of my actions. But a lot of people can't do that. People have obligations and responsibilities. They need to keep their day job and it's sort of a difficult balance. We run into that now. As a journalist, I run into that now with people who have great information. They want to be whistleblowers, but they need to be anonymous. They want to be sources. 

They want people to know about their expertise, but they don't want to have it come across as critical. I write critically and maybe they don't even want to be quoted in my newsletter, or in the past, even in my news stories. Because I have a reputation of being critical of the people that they are beholden to. It's a dilemma. You can't have it both ways. You either are willing to stand by your opinions and take the consequences, or you're not going to get fame and fortune, the whole thing. 

Nadia (09:27):

How did you solve the cold start problem of you're writing this anonymous blog, but you want it to be read by people who you might interact with normally. But you don't want to tell them that it's you. How did you initially get your readership out there?

Francine (09:43):

As an accountant, I'm really into metrics. I looked for the tools that could help me see who was reading, how they were reading, what they were looking for. In the early days, you had tools. Even before Google Analytics, I've been subscribing to a tool out of the U.K. called Statcounter for now, gosh, it's going to be 14 years. They've got a lot of my money. 

The idea was that I could look. Even if it was five people clicking on it, I could see where they were coming from. I could see what keywords they used to search. That's not as easy anymore. Of course, there's much more sophisticated analytical tools that have developed over time. Every major media organization now uses all kinds of analytical tools to look at their traffic. Especially from social media, Facebook, etcetera, etcetera. But I was an early adopter of analyzing that data.

If somebody came to my blog from another blog or from media, I called them. I reached out, I emailed them. I said, "Hey, I saw, I heard you went to my blog. How can I help you? What do you want to know? Why are you interested?" Some people were put off by that, but I met so many amazing people. People that I still work with and talk to today.

Nadia (11:13):

As an investigative journalist, and you were writing this blog from the beginning, and then also writing columns elsewhere and working at other media firms. How did you decide what went on your blog versus what you wanted to write in a column? How did you mentally separate personal writing and I guess professional writing is...

Francine (11:34):

I didn't initially. Not being from a journalist background, I didn't initially pitch anybody. I just wrote, the blog was my outlet. It was my place to put everything down and I write long and I write detailed. I was very linky and I would just... it was my diary of everything that was going on and my way to explain. It developed a following because in particular, people that were working in the public accounting firms at that time during the crisis, in the midst of the crisis. They were craving information about what was going on, in particular about what was going to happen if all of these banks went out of business.

Those were their clients, and so when layoffs and other sort of more HR personnel issues came up, I mean, they just flocked to the blog. Because I would say, "Hey, this is going to happen." Or, "Hey, I heard they're going to have layoffs." Or, "Hey, the partners are going to get their pay cut." A lot of what's going on now in many industries. People crave that information because they want to know, am I going to have a job? Or how do I maneuver through this difficult situation? 

I was writing on the blog. People started asking me, media organizations, and I was promoting that work on Twitter mostly. People started asking me to be quoted in articles. The very first major media quote I have was from the FT, from Stacey-Marie Ishmael, who is now the executive editor at The Texas Tribune and has been at the FT and Buzzfeed and lots of other places. She asked me to comment on this live conference call at the SEC. She quoted me and said, "Blogger," which was extraordinary at that time. A blogger was not a legitimate quote source for major media.

They were always asking me, "Well, don't you have a consulting firm?" Or, "Don't you work for a firm or a university?" They wanted some other kind of legitimate thing to identify me by. FT was kind of bold in that regard. FT Alphaville was bold in that regard. They were very big on the bloggers at that time. There was a whole group of a cabal of financial bloggers. The FinTwits early, early, early in the financial crisis. People who now are in some major media organizations like John Carney, who is at Breitbart and who was at The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. Joe Weisenthal at Bloomberg. Felix Salmon, who has been everywhere.

These were people who were blogging in the beginning of the financial crisis. First, they started quoting me. Then some outlets actually asked me to start writing. Then one thing I did have to do after only a couple of years, barely two years, is I could not do any other kind of consulting. I was doing some consulting, internal audit kind of consulting. The dilemma was, how can you write about stuff you're working at? How can you work at stuff that you want to write about?

My normal conflict of interest hat came on. I had to make a rule, I'm not going to work if I want to write about it. I'm not going to write about it if I'm working on it. Well, I started wanting to write about things more than I wanted to work with them. I stopped doing consulting and lived on freelance and the kindness of strangers for a long time. It was a very gradual thing, people asking me to write about it instead of being quoted. That was a transition in and of itself because if you've been quoted in a major media outlet, they won't let you come back and write about it from a plain news perspective. You have to be an opinion person, opinion writer. 

Well, I didn't have the stature to be doing op eds, so I had to be careful too, if I wanted to write about something, not to be quoted by that journalist. And start gravitating towards writing about things. People came to me, I never pitched. People came to me. American Banker eventually came to me and asked me to do a column. Forbes came to me and asked me to do a column. I never pitched.

It wasn't until later, after the crisis when things sort of calmed down, that I had to start pitching. By that time, there were a lot of people who were very aware of where my expertise was and what kinds of things I would be interested in writing about. I wasn't blindly pitching anybody and trying to convince them to let me write about the stuff that I could write about the best.

Nadia (16:50):

I'd love to touch on this point you mentioned about either writing or working on a thing, and kind of having the separation out between the two. Which I think is really interesting. I found at least for myself and in talking to other writers that sometimes you also need that mental separation. Just to be able to fully focus and kind of wrap your brain around one kind of problem versus the other. Then of course in your case, there's maybe ethical or just conflicts of interest as well. 

Do you find it hard to, as you kind of go deeper into the writing part and you have more time now between when you were working versus when you were writing. The cycles are pretty long. Do you find it harder to stay in touch with what's happening on the ground?

Francine (17:34):

That is a big challenge, in particular when you're writing about technical issues. If I'm writing about the business of the firms and how they're working with their clients, which is sort of the meat of a lot of what I write about, I have to stay in touch. What I started pretty early on, probably for the last seven, eight years, is I started having universities, professors, ask me if I would come out and talk to the students.

I have a pretty heavy schedule and I do any talks or speeches to students. That's just free, that's a public service. That's me giving back to the profession. I go out and talk to students about what's going on in our profession. I bring stories from the headlines about accounting, audit, capital markets, corporate governance, etcetera. I give them real life examples because they don't really hear about these things in school. Certainly the recruiters from the firms don't tell them about any of the negative stuff.

By going out to the schools and developing that connection, I have lots and lots and lots of people who want to help me get it right. In addition, you have all the academics. Then of course you have litigation, so you have all the lawyers. My sources are very broad in terms of people who want to help me get it right. I'm smart enough to know not to write without that support if you're writing about something that you don't know about, something new or technical. And to double check and make sure that my information about something is current.

I have students who were just seniors in college or just about to embark on their career when they first started reading me. Now they're partners at the firms or they're professors in the universities. I've been at it long enough that I've seen people grow and they've seen me grow. Very loyal, loyal following.

Nadia (19:47):

It's interesting you bring up academia. I saw that you are an adjunct professor of business at American University. It sounds like you've just had a lot of exposure to the academic model. Something I've thought about is just how... where the line is drawn between academic research and journalism. Since in a lot of ways, especially in investigative journalism, since in both cases you're digging deeply into this topic. You're writing about your insights and sort of publishing it out to an audience, right? Did you ever think about maybe doubling down on academia instead of journalism? If so, why did you decide to focus on the latter?

Francine (20:27):

Well, I've been a teacher all my life from a kid. My mom thought I was going to be a teacher. I'm the oldest of six. We used to play school. We had enough in our family to play school in our basement. Teaching is sort of natural to me, even when I was working in the firms and consulting as a managing director, as a practice leader. My role is to develop other professionals and to guide and to teach and to... and then to teach clients how to use new software or how to do something correctly. 

It's natural for me, and I always wanted to find a way to also someday teach in a university. When I first started the blog though, the academics were not too crazy about me. Some of them were kind of snippy. I'm talking about in the early crisis periods: 2007, 2008, 2009. They did not like someone writing about these issues and not writing about it from an academic research perspective, from a very quantitative, statistical approach, heavy data. My writing was... they considered to be anecdotal. My opinion was that my anecdotal experience was pretty broad and deep.

My sources were impeccable. I wrote like I audited. I gathered evidence and I supported my opinions with enough facts and documents and evidence that I thought made my case. They were not really crazy about me. I used to get a lot of criticism. "She's just this sort of carpet bagger academic." I was encroaching on some people's territory. 

However, eventually what it usually takes to win people over is you need those people who suddenly decide that they're going to be supportive instead of critical. There were some key academics who came out in support and started inviting me to speak at academic conferences. Suddenly, there was this whole group of academics who were hungry, again, for this outside point of view. One that was not allowed in some cases to be incorporated in their discussions, in their discussions of what to teach the students. In their discussions of how to interact with the firms from a recruiting perspective. They were just really sort of squelched. 

Some of them who had the power and the position to entertain an alternative perspective or a critical perspective started inviting me. That sort of won some of the academics over. Academic research was always something that I wanted to use to bolster my writing. I wasn't getting their cooperation. They were dismissing my work, they did not want to cooperate. Then the tide turned sort of at the end of the crisis period: 2009, 2010. Suddenly, I started having academics coming to me and wanting me to write about their papers. Some of them wanting me to look at their papers. Eventually to, how can I participate or contribute to their papers?

I've got a lot, a lot, a lot of credits or citations of my work, and some thank yous in some papers at this point. Because I had ideas that many of the academics who had never worked in the profession would never have thought of. They were pursuing something that maybe I could contribute some kind of additional information or additional source that was outside of academic. It's been a really fruitful relationship. I'm one of the few business journalists who pretty consistently writes about academic research, and will get it early in the game and write a whole article about it, not just cite it. 

You can look on my MarketWatch, on MarketWatch, where there's a lot, a lot of articles that are just about an academic paper and applying it to what is going on in life. But I've also encouraged a lot of academics in accounting, in economics at the schools that I've been associated with, to write more... that has a more immediate policy impact. A lot of academic research, especially in accounting, is very esoteric. It's just spinning angels on the head of a pin. 

I was always encouraging, when I would go out to the schools, I would sit also with the PhD students and with the professors and say, "Tell me what you're working on." They would ask me questions and we would develop that collaboration. So that if they were interested in doing something more timely and focused on policy impact, I was always there to help people.

Nadia (25:54):

As you're describing this, I'm almost getting flashbacks to what's happening now with the current crisis and pandemic. In that there is some tension now around I guess incumbents or institutions and recommendations around both from a health perspective and economic perspective, and just on every level right now, of people trying to figure out, how do we take all the sort of established knowledge? How does that reconcile with a lot of the new and confusing situations that we're all in right now? Do you feel like there's any sort of parallel happening with that in your world of writing from the 2008 crisis that you describe and today?

Francine (26:37):

Sure. There are a lot of journalistic topics that lend themselves really, really well to leaning on research, using research, highlighting research. Obviously science or anything science-related is one of them, one of the most important ones. The problem is that no academic discipline is unchallenged by the influence of money. Every academic discipline has the lure of money from private sources, that encourages research in certain areas. Sometimes custom orders research in certain areas, whether it's science, economics, data security. I mean, you name it. Every academic discipline is hungry for funding. Some academics are willing to sell their platform for the opportunity to have it funded. And also for sometimes the fame or promotion that comes with getting funding from certain think tanks or certain professional organizations, or chambers of commerce, or whoever it is that are in a private funding situation. 

Just like journalism, just like media, you have to be very discerning. In using research in journalism, in looking at what research do you talk about, how do you report on it. Whether or not you should, how can you vet it? The most important thing is to look at who is behind it and who is funding it. That should be transparent. Sometimes it isn't, but journalists have been fooled over and over and over again by research that is coming to them, that is being pitched to them. The schools have professional media outlook, outreach to pitch research, new research to journalists. You have to, have to vet and check, where is it coming from? Why is it coming to me? Who is behind it? Why now? Why this research now? Make sure that you're not getting spun.

Nadia (29:06):

I'd love to move from, you talked about a lot your blog and now you've more recently picked up a new newsletter. I'd love to just sort of talk about that transition a little bit too. What inspired you to want to go from writing a blog for many years to now also having a newsletter?

Francine (29:26):

The blog had to go on hiatus while I was at MarketWatch. I started at MarketWatch in May of 2015. Even when I was writing freelance for Forbes or American Banker on a regular basis, you don't want to undercut work that someone is paying for by repeating it or scooping it on your own blog. Certainly that's not the best way to win friends and influence people. It's not necessarily the best way to get your work out there and showcase it. When you're writing about accounting and investigative corporate malfeasance, you also have to be careful that when you do the work, that it's very, very well edited and checked and verified. And that you don't make mistakes, or there's enormous consequences from that, including legal liability.

One of the reasons why I joined MarketWatch full-time is because I wanted a full-time editor. I wanted that protection that comes with working for a large media organization. So that as I was writing more complex things with more consequences for corporations, things that were more high profile, that I would have that editorial and organizational protection. In exchange, I had to sort of put the blog on ice. I only put information about where I was speaking or, "Hey, I wrote this at MarketWatch." Or sort of promoting the things I was doing and what I was writing, rather than putting any original content on the blog.

That went on for almost five years until this past November, when I decided to leave MarketWatch. I had already been aware of Substack. I had talked to Bill Bishop, who is one of your... probably your most successful newsletter writer. And had been in touch with Hamish and some of the founders because they were encouraging me. "When can you start using our platform?" I could not do that while I was working at MarketWatch. To me, it was not going to be worth it to do it, since I already had a blog, because I couldn't get paid. 

While I was working at MarketWatch, I couldn't convert to a paid subscription format and get paid separately. Can't do that. If I wanted to write something and not get paid, I had my own blog or I could ask permission. But in general, I didn't write anywhere but MarketWatch while I was at MarketWatch. I knew I was aware of the platform. I watched as it developed, I watched as functionality was added. When I decided to leave MarketWatch in November, it was an automatic decision that that's where I was going. I think I published my first article within a couple of days of turning on the lights on the newsletter.

Nadia (32:40):

Can you talk a little bit more about these trade offs between... In some ways, I mean, you've been writing about the same broad focus area and topic for a long time. But you've written about it on your own blog and then you wrote about it on MarketWatch. You've had other columns elsewhere and then you also had this newsletter. Just the sort of trade off of deciding. It's your same brain, but it's sometimes I guess temporarily rented out or owned to a different institution. Do you have a preference for one over the other? It sounds like sometimes there are just practical benefits to being under an institution versus not. But creatively, do you have a preference?

Francine (33:17):

Well, I think after almost five years at MarketWatch and looking around at the media landscape, I had developed the confidence that one, I had a large enough following. Two, that I could make sure that when I put something out independently, that it had its T's crossed and its I's dotted, and I would not have any issues. Which I have not had any issues. I've never been sued, I've never had a cease and desist. I've never had a takedown order on my blog since 2006.

I was sued once for something that I wrote at Forbes, but it was actually just an extra thing that I wrote because Forbes was sued and one of their major reporters was sued by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal from Saudi Arabia. I got kind of dragged into that. Here I am having been independent all these years and I've never been sued because of my own lack of care or fastidiousness in making sure that everything is all locked up. The only time I've ever been sued is under a huge giant media umbrella.

I was pretty confident that I could make sure that I protected myself and that I knew how to do things the right way. Frankly, I wanted to just write what I want to write the way I want to write it. I like writing long, I like writing detailed. I like writing for an audience that already knows that they want to read what I want to read. I'm not interested in converting the unconverted, but I'd be glad to teach those who are willing to learn. 

I had a mailing list, an email mailing list still from the blog that was pretty big. Almost 3000 email subscribers that never left me, didn't unsubscribe in all those years. I started with that as a base. I will say that that substantially increased just in three months. I've had more success than I ever imagined in terms of people pretty quickly subscribing on a paid basis, in enough volume to make me willing to keep going. I had set sort of this gate for myself that I would start the paid version in January. That was about a month after I started the newsletter in the beginning of November, or I'm sorry, the beginning of December. If I wasn't up to a certain level within three months, then I would have to go find a job. But I had no intention when I left MarketWatch of looking for another media job or even freelancing. Other than one op ed in the FT, I haven't done any of that since.

Nadia (36:23):

Can you talk a little bit about how you message paid subscriptions to your readers? How do you decide on your pricing?

Francine (36:31):

I have the good fortune of having a very good friend in Chicago, where I'm from originally. He was formally a marketing expert at Arthur Andersen before the collapse. He now runs a marketing communications firm for professional services firms, lawyers and accountants. He and I are... we're joined at the hip and the soul. We know each other's worlds. I asked him and one of his associates to help me sort of suss that out in December. To look at sort of what other publications that were focused on a very focused sort of accounting, compliance, risk management, lawyers. Sort of what other people were charging.

I also looked at... asked them to help me draft some of the boiler plate kind of introductions and emails, and things that go out to people when they subscribe. Only so that I could sort of take myself out of that, sort of not be navel gazing all the time and get an outside, fresh perspective. But in the end, it's my product. It was a collaborative effort. They made very good suggestions to me. This was a paid consulting assignment, I paid for someone else's expertise to do that survey. I had an idea in my mind what I was going to do and they sort of confirmed it and I went with it.

Frankly, on first glance, because it was so... I had such good results right off the bat. I thought, I'm charging too little. People were paying for the full year all at once. I almost thought, maybe I'm charging too little. I didn't put that price point in the right place to sort of convey, I'm providing something that is unique, original, and actionable information. That was the key. It was not just, I'm going to tell you something that I'm thinking about as I'm looking out my window.

I wanted to provide company specific, actionable information that people could use to... that might influence their decisions about investments. I thought about it and then I thought, you know what? I'm not going to second guess. I'm just going to go with it. I'm sticking with my original plan for now, and it seems to be a price point that says, "I see a value in this, but I don't want to make it unattainable for somebody who is not a hedge fund or a big plaintiff's law firm or a big PR person from a big public accounting firm." I have all of those subscribers and those are people that have budgets to pay, universities.

It's developing and now I have a few entities who are asking me about group subscriptions. Bill Bishop knows because I asked his advice. I saw that on his newsletter and I said, "Oh, people want to do that because people are worried about copyright protection." My newsletter, somebody subscribes at a university or somebody subscribes at a hedge fund or at a law firm. Then they want to circulate it to others. Well, these are all smart people that are worried about me getting pissed off and suing them for copyright protection. They're calling me and asking me how to make sure that I don't come back and give them a hard time about this if I find out about it. Thank goodness, so we're... so I crossed that bridge. That's what happens. You don't know until you do it and then you go from there.

Nadia (40:49):

That's funny, that's definitely something that's specific to your audience. But it sounds like you sort of turned that into an opportunity to be able to offer group subscriptions, which is cool.

Francine (40:59):

Right, so again, you have to get... I'm not a lawyer. I had to look around and see, what do other similar publications do in order to make sure people understand that they can't just re-email your newsletter that one person paid for, out to the other 50 people in their firm? I found some examples and I have a lawyer in the family. He helped me refine that. But again, it didn't take much because I'm a consultant, okay? I've written contracts for $10 million system implementation projects. I have some interest but also some aptitude for this stuff.

Nadia (41:43):

For people listening who might not be familiar with your world, did you find any sort of I guess surprise from people who had been following your blog for a while who... are they used to paying for this sort of information? Did you find that you had to message it different to them? How did you decide which posts to make free versus paid, only since you do write both?

Francine (42:05):

The decision right... I put out everything that I put out in December for free obviously. To get people to understand this is what I'm doing, right? To introduce to everybody who may or may not have been following my work recently. This is what I'm doing now. I put out some pretty quality stuff I think, right off the bat. The first story that I put out was one that unfortunately was spiked at MarketWatch, about Under Armour and why I thought Under Armour is under criminal investigation for their accounting right now.

Highly successful. I mean, 10 times more than my mailing list, okay? In terms of views. It went out to everybody and then it got circulated 10 times over. I put out good stuff. Then when I started the paid version in January, I have to keep in my mind, I'm going to put under the paywall things that are company specific and that I think provide actionable information for investors. Or regulators, or lawyers, or accounting researchers, or people who are very interested in these issues.

If it's not company specific, if it's not... if it's more educational, if it's more observational, then that's free. Again, making sure that people are getting something all the time and that people who are just signing up for free are getting something that they don't get anywhere else. But for those that are willing to pay, looking at how other newsletters approach that. You have to give people something that they're willing to pay for, something that they're not going to get anywhere else. I do promise nobody else writes about the stuff that I write about.

Nadia (44:03):

Now that you've been writing a newsletter for a little bit, how does it compare to blogging for you? Since I think for a lot of people right now, newsletters are sort of like a newer or different form. Even though they've been around for a while, the way that people write newsletters now is different. I think, yeah, there's a sort of parallel to blogging, but it's still different. Do you find that they are similar or different?

Francine (44:24):

They're different. One is that when I started blogging, mobile was not in there at all. It didn't matter, nobody read long blog posts on their phone. I mean, it was not an issue in 2006, 2007, until probably 2011 or '12 that you started seeing this focus on mobile. The other thing is, when I first started blogging, it was enough to just have a whole bunch of text that was really interesting to someone. You didn't have to mix it up with a lot of video or audio or whatever. I personally on my blog had this thing, because I like music and movies, I would always try to find some fun piece of music or film scene that I thought was sort of snarky or punny on what it is that I was writing about. 

It was to entertain myself more than anybody else. Sometimes people probably didn't even get the joke, but it was for me. I would put some photo or some piece of music or some snippet from a film up at the top. That was me, so none of that was really mobile enabled. It was not oriented for that. My blog was very, very, very dense, okay? It's not a top to bottom chronological format. I specifically custom designed it to look like a magazine. If you go there and you go to the front page, people usually come back to me and say when they go for the first time, "Oh my God. It's overwhelming, there's so much stuff." That was the exact effect I wanted.

I wanted people to see, "Oh my God, she's so smart. She has all this information. Where do I start?" Until they dig in. I had really, really long time on site metrics. I mean people would, when they would come to my site, they would stay for hours. Because they'd just go from one thing to another. You can't do that with a newsletter. Your format in Substack does not lend itself to that. I write way too long for the Substack format, I realize that now. But I just wrote a 4000 word piece that went out this morning anyway.

My pieces are hard to write on the phone. But then again, I read New Yorker articles on my phone. I read 5000 word Atlantic articles on my phone. There are nerds who do it anyway. But putting it in the newsletter, mixing it up with other links, video, photos, charts. A lot of charts, so the people who are looking at information and looking at it in terms of their investments. They want share price, they want charts, they want comparisons. I learned that in five years of MarketWatch. Writing for an investor focused site got me thinking about, why does the investor care? That's always the question I ask, why does the investor care?

My mind has now been trained to that. I may resist it, I may push against it. But I know it now, I know that that's something I have to keep in mind if I want a post to be successful. Newsletters should be shorter, it should be punchier. It should have personality, but my writing has always had my personality infused in it. When you were at MarketWatch, when I wrote for MarketWatch, even though it was straight news, people said they always knew it was my piece. They could always see me behind the words, and that's my goal.

Nadia (48:26):

I really love that. I think there's something to what you're saying of... even your style of self describing, very dense or something that only nerds are really going to dig into for a long time. I think that is in itself a style, which is really cool to hear.

Francine (48:41):

A really good example of somebody I admire a lot is Matt Levine at Bloomberg. What he gets away with at a major media site in terms of writing a column that has 10,000 words and 19 topics. He's won the Loeb Award. I'm a Loeb Award judge, which is... the UCLA does this journalism award. He's won the Loeb Award for commentary. He does sort of the piece de resistance of dense business journalism in a fun, interesting, slightly snarky but always on point way. I sometimes say, "Does he not have an editor?" But in a way, that's sometimes good. Because the person and their knowledge shines through and those of us who are willing to take the consequences, we go, "Okay, fine, whatever. If somebody doesn't like it, well all right. Don't read it."

Nadia (49:42):

Yeah. In that way, I think it feels very newslettery to me in that it filters probably out for a lot of the general population. But the people that stick around are the people that fought through it and are really there to stay, which is cool to hear. Did you ever consider monetizing your blog when you were writing it, or do you think of monetizing your newsletter as sort of a picking out that thread where you left off? Did it never really occur to you to monetize before?

Francine (50:06):

Oh my gosh. I went through that over and over and over again because certainly people would ask me that question. "You're doing all this work, why don't you monetize it?" How could you monetize a blog back in those days? You could get sponsors, you could get ads. You could get somehow, I guess sponsors and ads, really. Well, the problem was that I was writing something about the business of the big four public accounting firms.

As I said, you don't have too many people that can talk about the things that I talk about in the way that I do. Because very few people are free to openly express those opinions. In the same way, very few are openly able to sponsor or pay for a site that expresses those opinions. Sponsors were kind of hard to find. Anybody who was also looking to stay on the right side of the accounting firm did not want to be seen next to me. 

I had a couple of sponsors. One software firm that sponsored me for a while and then... that stuff is fickle. I tried Google Ads. I ended up with having the accounting firms advertising next to my articles, which was comical. Really what I wanted to do is I wanted to write. I did not want to run a website. The idea of cultivating sponsors, cultivating things like having paid webcasts or things like this, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to write. I ended up using the blog as a showcase for my writing and then eventually to get freelance writing and full-time writing jobs.

Nadia (51:58):

It does seem like that's sort of the way it... the only way you could really make money off your reputation before was that, right? If you wrote for your side projects, that's sort of how you grew your reputation. Then some other firm takes notice of you and offers you a full-time job, it sounds like.

Francine (52:17):

Right, right. I mean, the original purpose of the blog was to attract an agent and get a book contract and write a book. I never wrote the book. I'm trying to write one now because I have more time and the freedom to do that. But that was the idea, was to use the blog as a showcase for my writing, to let people know who I was and what I knew. What that led to was a journalism career and an opportunity to work full-time at MarketWatch.

Nadia (52:48):

Just to sort of wrap things up, you've been writing for a while obviously in a lot of different formats. How do you find and tap into new leaders? Do you feel like you've sort of found your sources and you're kind of doubling down on them? Are there any surprising sources of readership that you've experienced?

Francine (53:06):

Well, I would say in the last four or five years, the trading community, the community of people who are actively trading has just gone bonkers. There are lots of little niches and forums and other sites. I don't focus on that as much as I do on making sure that I'm writing about companies that people are interested in, that are actively traded, and that they're interested in, and that they have active questions.

For that, I have to say that Twitter has been very, very good to me. Every journalism thing that I've ever done pretty much has come from having been on Twitter since 2008. Tweeting constantly, tweeting very, very frankly. Giving my opinion, answering anybody's questions, and letting people know, and developing sort of that reputation as someone who knows about accounting and auditing and the intersection with public companies and pre-IPO companies. At this point, when something happens and it's an auditor, I'll start getting requests. "Francine, can you re: The Auditors?" 

There are people who probably have no idea what my real name is. I see that when I meet them in person. But they'll ask me a question and I'll answer it. Why? In the interest of education, in the interest of peaking interest, in the interest now of getting them to read the newsletter.

Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Zach Haigney of The Trip Report, a newsletter covering the business, policy, and impact of psychedelics.

With a background in clinical research and acupuncture, Zach has closely followed the psychedelics industry for years. As the topic started to gain momentum, he was inspired to write about it. Zach covers not just the business and policy landscape, but also the science behind psychedelics and their long-term cultural impact. These diverse focus areas have allowed him to gain a variety of readers, from psychedelic enthusiasts to investors, researchers, and clinicians who are building the emerging psychedelics ecosystem.

We talked to Zach about why he’s excited about the psychedelics industry, his early days of writing his newsletter and building his audience, and why he believes independent publishing is so important.

Links

* The Trip Report, Zach’s newsletter

* Zach on Twitter

* Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an organization that has been studying psychedelics since 1986

* How to Change Your Mind, a book by Michael Pollan about the science of psychedelics

* 60 Minutes, an episode on how researchers experiment with psychedelics to treat addiction, depression and anxiety

* Psychedelics Today, a podcast on how psychedelics relate to human potential and healing

Highlights

* (10:47) Why psychedelics are a hot topic right now 

* (21:55) Why Zach believes independent publishing is important 

* (27:40) The Trip Report’s community of readers and subscribers

* (36:42) How Zach grew his newsletter list, despite not having a preexisting audience or social media following

* (41:59) How Zach powered through writing in the early days and learned from other newsletter writers 

* (47:12) Why Zach decided to start a paid newsletter

On social media:

Social media is a weird place. I don't know how to navigate it. I feel much more comfortable in the confines of a newsletter. The medium of the newsletter, where you're going to somebody's email is really ... it makes sense to me. I get it and I love it.

On imposter syndrome:

If you can use imposter syndrome when you're writing your newsletter, it's a great tool because it forces you to think about what you don't know, and use that to flesh out the questions of what you don't yet understand. That's great fodder for, at least, what I'm trying to do.

Transcript

Nadia (00:42):

First question, which I'm sure a lot of people ask you, is how did you start writing about psychedelics?

Zach (00:50):

I've been watching the development of a few of the organizations that have been funding the science. There's been some research over the last 20 odd years or so of really small studies of looking at psychedelics for things like depression and cancer-related anxiety and some other indications. They're really impressive results for really challenging conditions. I've been watching this and watching it grow and I felt I missed the boat of a career of being involved in this space. I knew I wasn't going to go back to school to be a scientist or I didn't quite know how to get in. I started writing about it. Here we are.

Nadia (01:36):

Love it. I mean, it seems like you have been involved or in and around both Eastern and Western medicine and that you have an ongoing interest in the human body. I guess psychedelics helps bridge that gap.

Zach (01:50):

I spent my first stint in a career in clinical research right out of college. I did HIV and Hep C clinical trials. I managed what's called an expanded access program in phase two pharmacokinetic studies. That was really cool. I was planning to go to medical school and be a doctor. Just through whatever circumstances, I decided, at some point, to pursue acupuncture and Chinese medicine. I went to acupuncture school. After that, I did have a brief stint in Silicon Valley. That was a huge embarrassing failure.

Nadia (02:30):

Yeah. Been there.

Zach (02:32):

But yeah. I've been working with patients primarily for conditions like chronic musculoskeletal pain for the last five or six years. My research into the workings of the nervous system and pain brought me back into understanding psychedelics from a scientific perspective. It's really interesting. I thought I had this audacious idea that I might be able to offer some insight in that. Because I think that there's a lot of overlap and a lot of similarities, psychedelic as tools for spiritual development and as medicines goes back thousands of years across cultures. There's some parallels between that and Chinese medicine that I'm really interested in and I've just started to explore in the Trip Report.

Nadia (03:33):

Where do you see psychedelics fitting in? Since you've been around both clinical research and Chinese medicine, is there an ideal, I guess, in terms of whether you would like it to be taken into one of those specific disciplines or how you would like the world to see and treat psychedelics?

Zach (03:52):

Well, that's the $64 million question. What I've been thinking about is I'm covering the news that's coming through, especially in the business and the policy side of psychedelics. But I'm also trying to generate, just collect themes or concepts or ideas. One of the main concepts that we're grappling with or thinking about or communicating about is the different ways that this grows. We have what's happened recently in Oakland and Denver where there's been a decriminalization or really a deprioritization of psilocybin in Denver, and then entheogenic plants or things like Ayahuasca, POD ... or maybe not POD ... psilocybin in Oakland. That's one of these vehicles, so to speak of broadening access.

Zach (04:54):

On the other end of the spectrum is the FDA route. There's a few companies and nonprofits that are developing pharmaceutical grade psychedelics for prescription use. That's this really interesting area where there's going to be tradeoffs and pros and cons to all of these different means of changing policy and stuff like that. The way I'm thinking about it is there's two ... My perspective is I like decriminalization. Portugal has been this model for drug reform, where they've decriminalized all drug use. You're not going to go to jail for possession or intoxication, perhaps, maybe but drug possession has been completely decriminalized. You have this opportunity to rehab people rather than put them in prison.

Zach (06:04):

Anyway, the opportunity, I think, to conduct psychedelic assisted therapy, or guide, or journeys in a nonmedical context I would really love to see. That's where it might resemble more like a Chinese medicine and acupuncture approach. On the other end of the spectrum is the opportunity for the FDA to say, "The science looks great. Let's approve this as pharmaceutical grade drugs." That would then be delivered in a more conventional medical setting. I think it's going to take some time for these different options to grow and to blossom. But I'm hoping that there's a diversification and some diversity within the ways that people are able to access and use them.

Nadia (07:02):

It's simple. But there's this toeing of the line of wanting to frame it in medical terms to establish legitimacy, while also not doing a disservice to the nature of psychedelics, which inherently does have this spiritual aspect to it that a lot of people find very fulfilling. Are there learnings from what's happened with cannabis research, which is ... I’m just like a casual connoisseur of information in both these realms, but it seems it's a little bit further ahead. Is there anything that parallels what's happening in cannabis with psychedelic?

Zach (07:40):

From the science perspective, the body of literature in psychedelics is much larger and more expansive than we have for cannabis. That has to do with issues around funding and regulation and access to that scientist can get access to cannabis. It's a really weird, bizarre thing where they can only get it from a university that's growing in Alabama or Arkansas or something. Whereas psychedelics, it hasn't had…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

We spoke with Zach Haigney of The Trip Report, a newsletter covering the business, policy, and impact of psychedelics.

With a background in clinical research and acupuncture, Zach has closely followed the psychedelics industry for years. As the topic started to gain momentum, he was inspired to write about it. Zach covers not just the business and policy landscape, but also the science behind psychedelics and their long-term cultural impact. These diverse focus areas have allowed him to gain a variety of readers, from psychedelic enthusiasts to investors, researchers, and clinicians who are building the emerging psychedelics ecosystem.

We talked to Zach about why he’s excited about the psychedelics industry, his early days of writing his newsletter and building his audience, and why he believes independent publishing is so important.

Links

The Trip Report, Zach’s newsletter

Zach on Twitter

Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an organization that has been studying psychedelics since 1986

How to Change Your Mind, a book by Michael Pollan about the science of psychedelics

60 Minutes, an episode on how researchers experiment with psychedelics to treat addiction, depression and anxiety

Psychedelics Today, a podcast on how psychedelics relate to human potential and healing

Highlights

(10:47) Why psychedelics are a hot topic right now 

(21:55) Why Zach believes independent publishing is important 

(27:40) The Trip Report’s community of readers and subscribers

(36:42) How Zach grew his newsletter list, despite not having a preexisting audience or social media following

(41:59) How Zach powered through writing in the early days and learned from other newsletter writers 

(47:12) Why Zach decided to start a paid newsletter

On social media:

Social media is a weird place. I don't know how to navigate it. I feel much more comfortable in the confines of a newsletter. The medium of the newsletter, where you're going to somebody's email is really ... it makes sense to me. I get it and I love it.

On imposter syndrome:

If you can use imposter syndrome when you're writing your newsletter, it's a great tool because it forces you to think about what you don't know, and use that to flesh out the questions of what you don't yet understand. That's great fodder for, at least, what I'm trying to do.

Transcript

Nadia (00:42):

First question, which I'm sure a lot of people ask you, is how did you start writing about psychedelics?

Zach (00:50):

I've been watching the development of a few of the organizations that have been funding the science. There's been some research over the last 20 odd years or so of really small studies of looking at psychedelics for things like depression and cancer-related anxiety and some other indications. They're really impressive results for really challenging conditions. I've been watching this and watching it grow and I felt I missed the boat of a career of being involved in this space. I knew I wasn't going to go back to school to be a scientist or I didn't quite know how to get in. I started writing about it. Here we are.

Nadia (01:36):

Love it. I mean, it seems like you have been involved or in and around both Eastern and Western medicine and that you have an ongoing interest in the human body. I guess psychedelics helps bridge that gap.

Zach (01:50):

I spent my first stint in a career in clinical research right out of college. I did HIV and Hep C clinical trials. I managed what's called an expanded access program in phase two pharmacokinetic studies. That was really cool. I was planning to go to medical school and be a doctor. Just through whatever circumstances, I decided, at some point, to pursue acupuncture and Chinese medicine. I went to acupuncture school. After that, I did have a brief stint in Silicon Valley. That was a huge embarrassing failure.

Nadia (02:30):

Yeah. Been there.

Zach (02:32):

But yeah. I've been working with patients primarily for conditions like chronic musculoskeletal pain for the last five or six years. My research into the workings of the nervous system and pain brought me back into understanding psychedelics from a scientific perspective. It's really interesting. I thought I had this audacious idea that I might be able to offer some insight in that. Because I think that there's a lot of overlap and a lot of similarities, psychedelic as tools for spiritual development and as medicines goes back thousands of years across cultures. There's some parallels between that and Chinese medicine that I'm really interested in and I've just started to explore in the Trip Report.

Nadia (03:33):

Where do you see psychedelics fitting in? Since you've been around both clinical research and Chinese medicine, is there an ideal, I guess, in terms of whether you would like it to be taken into one of those specific disciplines or how you would like the world to see and treat psychedelics?

Zach (03:52):

Well, that's the $64 million question. What I've been thinking about is I'm covering the news that's coming through, especially in the business and the policy side of psychedelics. But I'm also trying to generate, just collect themes or concepts or ideas. One of the main concepts that we're grappling with or thinking about or communicating about is the different ways that this grows. We have what's happened recently in Oakland and Denver where there's been a decriminalization or really a deprioritization of psilocybin in Denver, and then entheogenic plants or things like Ayahuasca, POD ... or maybe not POD ... psilocybin in Oakland. That's one of these vehicles, so to speak of broadening access.

Zach (04:54):

On the other end of the spectrum is the FDA route. There's a few companies and nonprofits that are developing pharmaceutical grade psychedelics for prescription use. That's this really interesting area where there's going to be tradeoffs and pros and cons to all of these different means of changing policy and stuff like that. The way I'm thinking about it is there's two ... My perspective is I like decriminalization. Portugal has been this model for drug reform, where they've decriminalized all drug use. You're not going to go to jail for possession or intoxication, perhaps, maybe but drug possession has been completely decriminalized. You have this opportunity to rehab people rather than put them in prison.

Zach (06:04):

Anyway, the opportunity, I think, to conduct psychedelic assisted therapy, or guide, or journeys in a nonmedical context I would really love to see. That's where it might resemble more like a Chinese medicine and acupuncture approach. On the other end of the spectrum is the opportunity for the FDA to say, "The science looks great. Let's approve this as pharmaceutical grade drugs." That would then be delivered in a more conventional medical setting. I think it's going to take some time for these different options to grow and to blossom. But I'm hoping that there's a diversification and some diversity within the ways that people are able to access and use them.

Nadia (07:02):

It's simple. But there's this toeing of the line of wanting to frame it in medical terms to establish legitimacy, while also not doing a disservice to the nature of psychedelics, which inherently does have this spiritual aspect to it that a lot of people find very fulfilling. Are there learnings from what's happened with cannabis research, which is ... I’m just like a casual connoisseur of information in both these realms, but it seems it's a little bit further ahead. Is there anything that parallels what's happening in cannabis with psychedelic?

Zach (07:40):

From the science perspective, the body of literature in psychedelics is much larger and more expansive than we have for cannabis. That has to do with issues around funding and regulation and access to that scientist can get access to cannabis. It's a really weird, bizarre thing where they can only get it from a university that's growing in Alabama or Arkansas or something. Whereas psychedelics, it hasn't had, for whatever reasons, the capacity to manufacture it and create pharmaceutical grade psilocybin or LSD or DMT. In a bizarre...it hasn't been as difficult. There's been more research.

Zach (08:27):

On the other hand, I would say the patterns of use in cannabis are way different than they are in psychedelics. Microdosing of LSD and psilocybin is a little bit more how cannabis is used. But I would say that there's some overlap. These are Schedule 1 illegal substances that are moving through policy and science and reform. In that sense, psychedelics are somewhere between 5 and 10 years behind cannabis and marijuana.

Zach (09:02):

The predominant business model in cannabis has been as a consumer packaged good. You go to a store, cannabis store and you take some home and whatever. It's more like coffee than it is a pharmaceutical drug. Whereas psychedelics, what's being proposed by the FDA would be ... a same-day hospital visit where you go in for an extended period of time and then leave at the end of the day to a specialized clinic. They're categorically different in that sense.

Zach (09:36):

What's interesting is that Oregon has a state measure that is going to be on the ballot, presumably in November, called the Psilocybin Services Initiative, where they're creating a medical psilocybin system where there's going to be infrastructure and regulation around the manufacture and the sale, but that will go to a clinic. The access to natural mushrooms or whatever the patient decides would be through a clinic setting. That's really interesting. It parallels early days of medical marijuana in California, with the exception of the delivery model. There's a ton of overlap. There's a ton of differences. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to figure out and tease apart the similarities and differences.

Nadia (10:28):

You’ve been alluding to this as you've been talking, but can you tell us a little bit just about why psychedelics are so interesting right now and what's changed recently in terms of policy and research? Maybe a useful exercise would be: what would it have been like writing a newsletter about psychedelics, say, 10 years ago versus now? Why is now an interesting time?

Zach (10:47):

Yeah, that's a good question. I would say the ... There's an organization called MAPS, which stands for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. Studies or science? I think it's studies. They've been around since 1986. They have been doing the slow plodding policy work and scientific work to bring us to where we are, so to speak, them and others. There's a couple other groups, the Heffter Research group.

Zach (11:24):

But the prohibition of psychedelics, I think it was in '71 the schedule ... the Nixon administration just caught wind of Timothy Leary, and the hippies, and got really afraid. That was in the early '70s. There was a ton of research that had been done up until that point, mainly in psychiatry around addiction, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, those kinds of things. It was really promising.

Zach (12:00):

The scientists in the 2000s, early 2000s had to start from scratch. Scientists changed dramatically. The tools available changed dramatically. There's been a recapitulation back to two or three generations ago of building the scientific body of work. One of those projects has been spearheaded by MAPS, which is MDMA for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Zach (12:36):

They're in what's called the phase three of the FDA approval process where they're doing large scale studies on patients with PTSD to show efficacy and that it works. It's the final stage. There's a few other companies and nonprofits that are shortly behind them. It's like in the FDA approval process, it's a long grind. We're in the last year and a half to maybe two years with the first wave of psychedelics that will be approved. That definitely has something to do with it.

Zach (13:25):

Michael Pollan's book, How to Change Your Mind, was definitely a watershed moment because he represented "respectable culture" commenting on the benefits and his experience with psychedelics. That was definitely a ... They coincided, those two streams. I think the aftermath of that, which I think was published in maybe 2018. There's just been a huge surge. And then cannabis, the cannabis is the next wave of cannabis, so to speak, which some of us have some issues with that phrasing. But that's what it is essentially. I'd say those three things have combined into this perfect storm of, okay, we're in this period of time now where there's a lot of hype, there's a lot of cultural and media exposure to this new way of looking at psychedelics. It's just gaining momentum, and fomenting excitement.

Nadia (14:32):

It's interesting you bring up the Michael Pollan book that you feel that was, in my mind, just as an outsider watching it, it felt like the moment where this thing crossed over from being ... I guess, I would have expected the types of people I would want to follow along on psychedelics news, are people that are using it themselves, or have some deep personal interest in it, and it's this hush, hush. It felt Michael Pollan using his social capital to shed light on this topic made it suddenly then okay to talk to people about it and not have this fear around, “Do I look like I'm a weirdo or something if I talk about this thing?”

Zach (15:13):

Totally. I think there was also the ... I lived in San Francisco from 2005 until 2012. Whenever I go back to visit, it feels like a very different place. But one of the things I would say is, more kids or people that would have gone into other industries ended up in the Bay Area because of the rise of the technology industry. A lot of them then ended up going to Burning Man. That phenomena, I think, exposed a lot of people to just the expansion of the tech sector, exposed people to Burning Man, and Burning Man exposes people to psychedelics. It's something like that.

Nadia (16:02):

Almost helps normalize it a little bit of ...

Zach (16:03):

Yeah.

Nadia (16:04):

Yeah. A shared experience, shared cultural reference point that people can talk about in the Bay Area.

Zach (16:10):

Totally. Tim Ferriss is a major person that people know and he has talked about it in a few different instances on his podcast. There's a physician by the name of Peter Attia, who's got a great podcast. It's very informative, super high level. But his first episode was with Tim Ferriss, and they were talking about, essentially, the utility of psychedelics for a lot of these conditions. It hit an inflection point through various things. Here we are.

Nadia (16:53):

Yeah. I mean, it feels there's been this increase in the number of people who are writing about psychedelics. I can think of a couple different newsletters starting to cover this topic and you're starting to mention some names here. Can you paint a picture for us of just who or what else is out there in terms of trusted information sources around these emerging topics and where the Trip Report fits in?

Zach (17:12):

The key insight that I had or the thought that I had that gave me the thought that to start doing this was like, I thought the science is well covered by places like MAPS, the Heffter Institute, the cultural and the indigenous use, the spiritual uses is covered well by places like the ... one of the main organizations is a group called Chacruna Institute. They're a non-profit. They have a newsletter. They have a conference. They're well respected and a guiding voice into space.

Zach (17:57):

I thought there was this burgeoning industry forming here. It's going to be a really interesting nexus of consciousness, whatever that means to people, spirituality, neuroscience, healthcare, clinical research, capitalism, business startups, pharmaceutical industry. It was just this ... I mean, endlessly fascinating topics in their own right are all converging in this area.

Zach (18:39):

I thought there wasn't much in the way of coverage of what are the businesses forming in this space? What are the strategies? What are the plans? Are they going to be tackling decriminalization? Are they hoping for decriminalization that they can sell it, mushrooms in a market, in the way that we do with cannabis? Is it going to be strictly an FDA-approved route?

Zach (19:08):

There's all these questions and businesses forming about it. I thought it would just be an interesting way to 1) have an audience that would read. Because I started with the idea of like, I want to be like the Stratechery of psychedelics. That was the key insight. I thought that there was an opportunity to do that. I just wanted to explore and learn and use it as a self-edification tool to figure out what companies were trying to do.

Zach (19:42):

There's a handful of other peoples that are looking at, that are gearing their publications towards, what I would call day traders or people who are solely interested in the investment potential, because there's a handful of companies that are traded publicly up in Canada. I try to position the Trip Report. I guess it's constantly changing, which is a challenging thing. But as this people who are trying to build the long-term ecosystem. So it touches on news announcements and stuff like that from different companies. But I'm really interested in what are the long-term forces shaping the space, and what are the questions that we need to answer, and that kind of thing.

Zach (20:36):

From the more conventional vices consistently writing about it, more and more pieces are showing up in places like Fortune and Forbes. It's slowly growing into this space of more and more coverage. I mean, 60 Minutes had a special on psychedelics that aired last summer, again in October where they talked to researchers and participants in the cancer for anxiety trial. Yeah. Those are the other areas where news is getting covered, I'd say. My goal is to, I don't know, carve out this weird business policy, opinion analysis type of space. Because I'm just figuring it out as I go.

Nadia (21:36):

I kind of think about this interplay between independent newsletters, news sources, publications, and then the more traditional media that you're referencing. What do you think that independent publications can do for this space and psychedelics that traditional media can or couldn't?

Zach (21:55):

I think that one of the founding theses of Substack is a reader supported publication. Journalism, media has jumped the shark chasing clicks and selling ads and stuff like that. I just was really attracted to that. I also sent emails to publications, if they would take any of my writing and I never heard back from everybody. I was like, "Okay, I'll start my own."

Zach (22:26):

I don't know how to answer that question. I think what I'm trying to do is cater to people who are invested in this either because they work for companies that are forming. They are activists and advocates in some capacity. They have a personal investment in psychedelics. It's almost like a B2B with a ... what I'm calling B to fanatical C. People are really invested in this space. Even if they're not professionally invested in it, if that makes sense. That was an insight that I had that I thought this could work. This model could work.

Zach (23:20):

I don't know. There's a handful of podcasts. Psychedelics Today does a good podcast. Those guys have been at it for a while, four or five years. They have a different approach where they’re, I believe, I’m not sure what lineage they're a part of. But there's a transhumanist or, yeah, I guess, interpersonal psychology or transhuman psychology schools and fields that they have worked on. They're coming from that perspective, and they offer classes and stuff like that as a monetization tool.

Zach (23:54):

I don't see anybody else doing the "Substack model." But in terms of ... if you're writing for the reader, it changes the calculus instead of ... if you have to write to satisfy an advertiser or something like that.

Nadia (24:20):

I was asking just because I think the opportunity I'm seeing is for ... Substack definitely attracts a lot of folks that are focused on some particular niche or community. It feels almost like if I were trying to get my news on a topic that is maybe not super well understood yet, I would want to hear from people that are really deeply immersed in it. Yes, it might be nice every once in a while to get the 60 Minutes special and I can share that with my friends, or whatever. But I don't know that...they're not going to really have that same love, I guess, that this research and reporting.

Nadia (25:03):

There's some mental Venn diagram ahead, I guess, of topics that are rapidly developing and then topics that are not well understood. There's this really great opportunity to be a curator and a go-to person in that space where, yeah, if you're writing about a topic and tons of people are getting interested and not many people know about it, being the dedicated go-to person in that space is really valuable.

Zach (25:28):

Totally.

Nadia (25:29):

Something from your about page, it always sticks in my head. You said something about like, "Don't destroy your dopamine system looking for the light. Let me destroy mine on your behalf.” and I just feel that really speaks of the value of curators for these topics.

Zach (25:45):

Yeah. That's a good way of framing it. One of the things that is a constant, I don't want to say struggle, but an interesting thing to think about is what level of knowledge am I assuming of the readers and how much explaining needs to go into something? Which is just inherently I don't think there's ever going to be a definite answer to that question, but it's something to use for what I'm calling the Trip Report Pro, which is the paid subscribers, which goes out on Monday and Friday. It's a little bit more ... or maybe they're all conversational, but it assumes a little bit more knowledge, I think, I try, than the Wednesday post, which goes out to everybody.

Zach (26:35):

But yeah. Also that idea between curation and analysis and capture of different ... whether it's an article that was written or news event or topic, I mean, that's something that I'm constantly retooling and rethinking, and it's virtually different for every time I sit down to write. But yeah, I agree. I don't think I would be able to jump around from different industries or different topics and do it as frequently, for sure. Like diving into something that I've never learned about for two days to publish on deadline would be a real challenge for me. Yeah. I completely agree. That's a good way of thinking about it.

Nadia (27:30):

What is your community of readers? Can you tell us a little bit more about the types of people that subscribe to The Trip Report? You were talking a little about that difference between people that pay for it versus people that might be wandering in.

Zach (27:40):

I remember I was listening to, I think, an interview of Robert Cottrell, who writes another Substack called The Browser. He had a great insight where he was like, he asked you guys to not show him what people are clicking on. I have that same perspective of people. I get emails from readers. I connect with people in that way. I've had a number of conversations and Zoom calls and it's been really fun to get to know people that way. But it's a really small percentage of the overall readership. The dedicated readers, the people who are paying for the pro subscription, they're working in this space. They're attorneys, they're scientists, they're clinicians, they're people who have money on the line, who are investors. They're executives at the companies that are forming, on the one hand.

Zach (28:46):

Then there's, like I said, this fanatic ... fanatical maybe as a pejorative. But they're really into it, and they're super fired up about these questions, and what's going to happen, and how it's going to go and what does the future hold? There's a neuroethicist from Oxford, who's getting his PhD at Oxford, who's one of the early readers. There's a handful of pharmacy students and pharmacists who are interested in this because that's going to be a really interesting area of how this interacts with the pharmacy portion of the value chain in pharmaceuticals.

Zach (29:36):

It's pretty wide, I would say, of the ... and then, I really ... unless people have reached out or I've taken the time to Google them, I know there's a lot of people who I just don't know. But that's also cool, because I presume it's a pretty wide swath of people.

Nadia (30:02):

Do you talk to other folks that are ... I assume you do ... who are also involved in the psychedelic community? Where do you feel you get your trusted sources of information? How are you sharing this information? Do you have systems around reading the news or certain places, certain people you're talking to?

Zach (30:24):

I'm working on this. This is an evergreen topic of the process of collecting information, reading through it, distilling it, trying to figure out what interests me, what's looking to be turned into an article or a post or what headline deserves to be mentioned? I don't have a great system. I'm definitely not doing reporting. I'm not a journalist by training. I don't claim to be. Although I was just asked to write a piece for another ... for an outlet called Lucid News, which is another publication dedicated to psychedelics started by people who have been in this space for a long time and that was a really nice vote of confidence. I'm going to be doing some reporting where I actually reach out for quotes and check sources and stuff like that.

Zach (31:26):

But really, I'm flying by the seat of my pants to be honest with you. I collected. I got my Google Alerts. I scroll through social media. There's a handful of people who I have regular email back and forth with or phone calls just to check in and see what's going on and touch base. I would love to be more organized, because I'm up until 3:00 in the morning, too many nights a week trying to get this out and proofread. My sleep is definitely taking a toll.

Zach (32:10):

But I think that there's some value in working with the garage door up, I think is the phrase, that you’re kind of learning on the fly, showing your work. Actually in the last post, I said, "I appreciate your patience with the nature of this." I'm trying to figure it out. Not that anybody has complained or anything, but it's something I'm conscious of.

Nadia (32:36):

I think bringing out that side and showing that transparency and honesty is really appreciated by people because they know that you're doing all this work to bring them only the best stuff. I mean, you share. You mentioned Robert from The Browser, and I think it might have actually been another Substack writer. Gosh. I want to say it was Dan Shipper. I'm not sure. Someone who had interviewed him about his process. I think the title of the article was something like “The Man Who Reads 1,000 Articles a Day” or something ... some really crazy number. I'm sure I'm misquoting it now. But it just has stood out to me as this image of someone who is reading like a thousand or thousands of articles every day to only surface a few of the best things to someone else.

Nadia (33:28):

When you see that that process is happening regardless of how it's organized or what exactly they're doing, as the reader you’re just like, "Wow. I'm glad you are destroying your dopamine system on my behalf. Thank you. Please take my money."

Zach (33:44):

Yeah. I guess, there's a saying, "Only the paranoid survived" and I'm operating with that principle of ... I don't know what's too much. I don't know. I have this. I want to keep some space between the input and the feedback in the sense that I want to continually push the boundaries of my capacity to do it. Not to blow my own whistle. But it's like, when people reach out and they're like, "Dude, this is awesome." It's the greatest feeling in the world. But it can also eat away at the quality, if that makes sense. You can't get lazy with it.

Zach (34:33):

I feel I'm fighting that in some ways because it's just a ton of work and it's chaotic, and it's emotionally taxing. It takes a lot. I want to make people laugh and have an insight and have fun with it and there's a lot of work. When you're feeling lousy or bombed in, it's even tougher.

Nadia (35:01):

I think maybe one of the secrets to writing consistently is just it's a lot of emotional management. I've felt that with my own writing. I hear it from a lot of other writers ... and everyone comes up with these adaptive strategies. A lot of people, myself included, do just put up that mental wall where it's great to know that people love things. It does feel so good when someone says something nice about your work, but you don't want to let it get to your head or anything like that. You kind of just put it off in a corner somewhere and put up this mental wall and just kind of go heads down and do your thing and try not to be super affected by how it's being received. Because when it’s good, it’s good. Then when it's not so good, you also don't want to feel at the whim of, well, someone said something bad today. Now I feel terrible.

Zach (35:49):

Totally.

Nadia (35:50):

For me, it's hedging against ... it's nice when for the most part, you only hear positive things. But I don't ever want to feel that one comment can destroy my day tomorrow.

Zach (36:01):

I mean, that was ... I guess I didn't appreciate looking in on people whose podcasts and writing and stuff that I respect and admire. The effort that goes into it, I would say as a passive reader, which is how I consider myself up until I started writing newsletters and making an attempt at this kind of thing, and people actually reading it and paying attention to it. It can be challenging, for sure. I didn't anticipate that.

Nadia (36:42):

Can we talk about how you grew your list, because one of the reasons that I want to have you on this podcast was it, at least from my perspective looking in ... I mean, really you started, as far as I can tell, last fall, and you really just started from scratch. I just sort of have this mental image in my head of you being like, "Screw it. I'm going to start my own thing, and just start typing for no one for a while."

Nadia (37:05):

You've had this amazing success story of just growing your list and growing an audience with what feels just one thing at a time. As far as I could tell, you don't really have a social following or a preexisting audience that you were drawing from, and you're just like a mysterious figure online. How did you grow this list from nothing?

Zach (37:30):

Thank you. That's really nice of you to say. I'd say I started writing and I wanted to commit to being... authentic, is not the right word, but I wanted to have fun with it. You want to have fun with it. You want to ... like the term bleed on the page. I think it's Nietzsche who that quote is attributed to. But you want to leave it all out there.

Zach (38:00):

I grew up playing soccer and the term "leave it on the field" is a phrase of just give it your all kind of thing. What I mean by that is as a self-learning tool, which is research for your own interests, it has a different, I don't know, feel or whatever than if you're reading something from just another, I don't know, run of the mill article or something like that. I started with that in my mind. I didn't want to sway from my weird sense of humor, and memes, and inside jokes, and stuff like that, and cursing. I will curse and I haven't gotten any complaints on it when there's an F bomb in there. Really people who are professionals in the world are okay with it. That's a nice thing to realize if anybody's thinking about that.

Zach (39:03):

I started writing and I started sharing it on LinkedIn, and in Facebook groups, and then really rudimentary psilocybin, #psilocybin or #psychedelics in Facebook groups that are related to it. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell my partner. I didn't tell friends because I didn't want to ruin it, which I think can happen. It’s like, “Oh, what happened to your newsletter?” “Oh, I gave it up. Sorry.” I didn't want to put that pressure on me. I didn't tell my fiancé until I had 200 readers, until it was real and people were sharing it.

Zach (39:54):

Anyway, to get back to the story. I was just sharing in appropriate groups in Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn. That's just how I got the first maybe 200 to 400 or maybe 300 people. Then I stopped sharing it all together. Social media is a weird place. I don't know how to navigate it. I feel much more comfortable in the confines of a newsletter. The medium of the newsletter, where you're going to somebody's email is really ... it makes sense to me. I get it and I love it. I just can't stand—my palms sweat when I'm trying to think of a tweet that goes out to whoever. It's just been word of mouth. I mean, people share it. You can see how many times somebody has opened a Substack email. It’s just been that people share it. It's been word of mouth, which feels really gratifying. That was intentional. I wanted to stop promoting it just to see what would happen.

Zach (40:59):

Then occasionally, there's been a bunch of webinars and Zoom conferences and stuff like that. It's getting really nauseating. But occasionally somebody who's presenting will mention it. If I'm there, or if somebody's there, and they throw the URL into the chat, on the Zoom chat or something like that, there have been some good upticks... 50 readers all at once that was pretty cool. A CEO of one of the emerging companies told everybody to go read The Trip Report. I happened to be watching. I just put the URL into the chat and then just watched all these subscribers come online. It's pretty cool.

Nadia (41:44):

What was writing in the early days like, when you're writing for 10 people or whatever and trying to put together these high-quality posts, but then also feeling people aren't reading it. How did you mentally power through that time?

Zach (41:59):

My inclination is to say I listened to every episode of the Season One Substack podcast, because there’s so much wisdom in there from people who have done this. I was committed to ... I remember Bill Bishop talking about it, and Nick Quah and Luke Timmerman in particular. They just described the life, the type of career and work that I wanted, which is poring over a topic that you're super interested in, and passionate about, and capturing some of that value. I felt I had been doing that just in terms of reading stuff and thinking about stuff, whether it's acupuncture, whether it's pain science, whether it's psychedelics, whether it's Premier League Soccer. I was like, "Gosh, these guys are just doing it and it's awesome."

Zach (42:51):

Then Jessica Lessin had a good point where she was just like, "We picked up the phone and we started reporting. I knew that I had this goal in mind of doing this work." It was actually really liberating when no one is reading it because you can be more of yourself. There's less consequences of misspeaking. It wasn't until I had, what I thought was a huge following, because I never did this before that I got really tense. I got really nervous about it.

Zach (43:27):

The early days, it was so much fun. I mean, it still is so much fun. But it didn't have some of the pressure that comes along with it as it grows. It's amazing.

Nadia (43:40):

It's so funny. That's so true now that I'm really thinking about it. I feel now I really romanticize the earliest days of blogging for me where I go back on some of those posts. I'm like, "I would have been so embarrassed to publish something like that now." Careful.

Zach (43:56):

Yeah. For sure.

Nadia (43:58):

But it's so liberating then because no one's really paying attention. You're really just saying whatever you're thinking. You have to be like ... or you don't have to be. You should probably continue to think that way. But it gets a lot harder when more people are-

Zach (44:10):

It gets harder, for sure. But imposter syndrome is a great tool. I mean, most people are ... or I myself have held back from doing anything in any of the areas of interest that I've had throughout my life or career, whatever, just because, "Oh, well, I need to go to school to do this." But if you can use imposter syndrome when you're writing your newsletter, it's a great tool because it forces you to think about what you don't know, and use that to flesh out the questions of what you don't yet understand. That's great fodder for, at least, what I'm trying to do.

Nadia (44:50):

It speaks to ... you mentioned this a little bit throughout our conversation, specifically, this idea of just learning. It's something that you're doing because you're deeply interested in this topic and you're trying to learn it for yourself and you're trying to make sense of it. Then you put that on paper, and then maybe other people benefit from it. But there's so much intrinsic motivation there as well.

Zach (45:08):

I mean, it's a labor of love, for sure. But yeah, it's been so rewarding. It's been so much fun. I never thought I would be able to do this. I have, by any stretch of the imagination, it hasn't reached where I needed it to be to make this a full-time thing. But yeah, it's been awesome.

Nadia (45:28):

Is there anything you would have done differently from the early days of trying to build up your lists just knowing what you know now?

Zach (45:36):

I had the initial idea in May of last year, just about a year ago, and I started it. We moved from Brooklyn to Maine. I had to start my whole ... get my business up and going here. I took time off there. I wish I kept going. I wish I just kept going through. Because I took maybe a four or five months hiatus from ... and I mean, granted, I only had 10 readers at that point. When I picked it back up it was essentially starting over. But consistency is just the thing and I knew that going in ... I don't know. I'm not comfortable yet with promoting it and marketing it and speaking up for myself, if that makes sense in any way. I'm pretty passive with the calls to action. I'd like to get stronger with that.

Nadia (46:35):

That’s one, I think totally just also a mental challenge for a lot of folks, of just like, “I'm going to write this and I'm going to talk about it. It's going to be awesome.” That was a little challenging. I will say ... I mean, so we can talk a little bit more about your paid subscriptions as well because you offer ... started offering Trip Report Pro in February. That is just really, in itself, a very bold thing to do is to start asking people for money. I’d just love to hear a little more about why did you decide to go pay to that moment? How did you message that to your readership?

Zach (47:12):

I started, it was October 22nd or 23rd that I picked it back up with 10 or 15 readers. There's a great little group called Indie Mailer, which is a paid newsletter discourse group that I stumbled upon. Somebody was, "Why wait until you have X number of readers? Why not just start now? People who are going to value it are going to value it." I was like, "That's a good way of thinking about it." Because in my mind, I had this number of how many free readers I needed to get before I turned on to subscriptions.

Zach (47:59):

But a few things happened. My business, my acupuncture practice was just not going as well as I was hoping. It was pretty slow. We found out that we were pregnant with our second child. I needed to make money. I needed to at least contribute more to the family, because I was spending a lot of time doing this. Those are two things that are unrelated to it. But after enough people signed up, I didn't know what a good open rate was. But when you and I talked a few months ago, and you told me what a good open rate was, I was like, "I kind of have that." It was a gut impulse. I think I announced it on February 2nd.

Zach (49:00):

I just decided, “Okay, I'm onto something. People seem to like it. People are sharing it. People are showing up.” I think that was one of the reasons why I stopped posting it on social media, was to see what organic growth it could have in the absence of my own sharing it. That continued to grow. I thought I was onto something. I thought I had enough conversations with people who I thought were in a position to be willing to pay for it. They could expense it in the company that they're building that's in this exact niche.

Zach (49:38):

I just said, "We're going pro." As the great Hunter S. Thompson quotes "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," and things were pretty weird. It was like there were rumblings of things out of China about COVID-19. It hadn’t yet hit here. It was very fortuitous timing, because I asked people to come on board a few weeks before that, before that happened. I created a call-to-action. This is what I'm trying to do. Don't burn your dopamine system by crawling the web looking for updates in the psychedelic space. I got you covered. I did that for a few weeks.

Zach (50:34):

I think I have a call-to-action right at the beginning and then right at the end. Then I started putting it at the end. Because I figured if people had read all the way to the bottom, they might be interested in that. I'm retooling how I'm going to continue to do that. I haven't been as aggressive in promoting the subscriber content. But I've also talked to a handful of people who are like, "Oh, yeah, dude, I keep meaning to do that. I just haven't done it yet."

Zach (51:04):

Yeah. It was a gut feel and life circumstances, like “I want to commit to this. If I give myself another two deadlines a week, then that's enough motivation to write, and the sooner I start, the quicker I get to this being 100% what I'm doing as a career.” I had the motivation out of that just to get going.

Nadia (51:29):

Awesome. So bold. I really love it.

Zach (51:31):

I'm also painfully naive to digital marketing and the media landscape. There's definitely some dumb luck. I didn't know what I was doing. I still don't know what I'm doing. I'm just figuring it out as I go and operating by feel.

Nadia (51:46):

I mean, it seems to be working well. Your intuition is good. You have one free post a week and then you have two paid ones. Has that changed at all just how you thought about writing for your broader readership and community and now writing for this smaller subscriber base?

Zach (52:03):

Yes. Yes. I think about this all the time. I think about the business model and how to make it better, and how to create a better product. I feel if we were to translate this into startup sort of speak, I'm still working on the product. It's how I think about it, and I’m not as focused on marketing. I'm doing more referencing and linking back to what I've already written and using that a little bit more. If anybody reads Ben Thompson's Stratechery, he has this uncanny ability to know what he said in 2016 October. You know what I mean? He's able to link that.

Zach (52:49):

I'm trying to create a system where I can better understand what this bit of news relates to what I've already said about it and written about it. And then what are the larger... themes or concepts or evergreen topics that will be with the space. For example, this concept of open science is an important issue and an important thing for people to understand in psychedelics. It comes from a different domain where social sciences are having a lot of trouble replicating foundational research. This open science initiative was a way to promote more of the methodology and the process of the science, and that's being advocated for in psychedelics. There's an ethos in the space of this open collaboration compared to conventional pharmaceutical stuff where it's very hyper competitive, and you use patents to block competitors and stuff like that.

Zach (54:00):

Anyway, that's a topic that I want to figure out how to link to with everything that comes through the news. Managing those three buckets of information, I think, I use the paid subscribe subscription posts, Monday and Friday, to write more longform thinking out loud. This is how this connects to this. What just happened to this? Which connects to this topic and this theme is what I'm trying to do. Whereas the Wednesday, for everybody, is I'm just letting it rip with a little bit of that process and more curating news. I guess the short version of that long rambling answer is the Wednesday, the free post is more curation. Then the pay subscriber posts are more in depth analysis, if you will.

Nadia (55:02):

The more you write over time and the more you develop this personal repository of knowledge and thinking over time, you see common themes and topics develop. It's almost like it becomes more and more valuable over time as that knowledge base grows. Just to wrap up a little bit, given that you're in this very rapidly developing and interesting and exciting world of psychedelics, when you look back at this time, and 10, or 20, or 50 years from now, what role do you hope that publications like yours will have led?

Zach (55:34):

I'm thinking of it as iterative sense making. We're continually in ... it's circular learning. We're coming back to themes and topics and ideas and processing new information and new announcements and the growth of the space in a way that it's almost an ongoing time capsule, I guess. That's how I think about that. I don't know if that would be a viable way of thinking about it. If somebody is writing a column for The New York Times or The Atlantic or something like that, but I'm hoping that it's one ... if I can turn this into some punctuated summaries of the last six months or a year or something like that, or use it as a reference for writing a book or something down the road. That's how I envision it. I definitely ... You just said 50 years, if I could be doing this in 50 years that would be so radical. That'd be awesome.

Get on the email list at on.substack.com

We spoke with Kevin Muir of The MacroTourist, a newsletter about trading and investing that aims to make finance fun.

Formerly a proprietary trader, Kevin quit his job at a bank in the early 2000s to start working for himself, and he still trades his own capital to this day. Kevin started keeping a journal about trading, but so many people asked for his opinions that he decided to share his writing publicly. Today, he shares his passion for the markets with a loyal following of paid readers, who love his almost-daily updates on his trading portfolio and breezy, irreverent writing style.

We talked to Kevin about his motivation to write about markets, how he differentiates his content from others in the finance blogging world, and how he transitioned to a 100% paid newsletter.

Links

* The MacroTourist, Kevin’s newsletter

* Kevin on Twitter

* The Reformed Broker on CNBC, a finance blogger who uses Twitter effectively

Highlights

* (04:26) The world of finance blogging

* (06:06) How Kevin uses Twitter as a tool for blogging

* (08:23) The start of Kevin’s writing journey and how he grew his readership

* (15:19) Why Kevin’s writing style is distinct in the world of finance blogs

* (26:13) How Kevin came to Substack after experimenting with other writing platforms, including WordPress, Squarespace, and Mailchimp

* (35:02) Why Kevin decided to switch to 100% paid subscriptions

* (42:27) How paid subscriptions allowed Kevin to learn more from his readers

On getting started:

The one piece of advice I'd give is, just keep producing content, and it's going to go slow at first. But then the power, as I say, the power of compounding will cause it to accelerate.

On keeping a writing schedule:

I always tell them [new writers] to write and write on a regular basis, because one of the things that a lot of people do is, they go and they start writing and then they fall off. They don't bother with the discipline of it. A lot of times people are desperate for content, but what they don't want is for you to go away for two months and then you're back for two episodes and then you're gone. So I always told people to make your schedule and stick to it.

On giving and receiving from readers:

I realized that as people started reading it [my newsletter], it ended up being something I could give, so that I could receive back some information. And that's how it really kind of morphed for the longest time, I said, “I'm just going to write this thing, put it out there, and then I'm going to receive back as much as or all the effort that I'm putting into it.” I felt like it was coming back at me, in more than enough, to pay for itself that way.

Transcript

Nadia (00:27):

You write The MacroTourist, which you described as an almost daily email about markets. From my poking around, it kind of looks like finance with a bunch of memes involved, and very breezy, irreverent style that definitely caught my eye. And it seems like that breezy fun style has also sort of dictated your career path. From what I can tell, you've kind of had a very interesting path of getting here from trading for other people, trading for yourself, and now also writing about trading. So yeah, just diving right into, what is your day job right now? How did you end up here?

Kevin (01:02):

Okay, well, in the nineties, I actually was an equity derivative trader at a Canadian large bank. And so, what they do is, we sit around and we make markets for institutions like pension funds, and we trade blocks of stocks. And in my case, I actually traded ETFs like index derivatives and other fancy stuff like that. And I was very fortunate because I got that job in the nineties when I was actually...I hadn't yet finished university. And I got the job because, as my boss told me at the time, there was guys better at computers and there was guys better at trading, but I was the right mix of both.

Kevin (01:46):

And back then there was very little computerized trading. And what I was...I had that ability to kind of bridge the gap. And so, I was hired to handle all the index clients and it was a very entrepreneurial firm. And before I knew it, they had gone from me just covering clients, to me trading for the bank, meaning taking positions, until finally I was the basically head risk-taker for the equity derivatives for most of the late nineties, during the dot-com bubble. Then what happened was our daughter was born and she was born with a heart defect that was fixed at birth.

Kevin (02:25):

It was one of these things, the wonderful doctors came in and they operated laparoscopically and fixed her problem. But it was one of these moments in life where you kind of sit back and wonder what's important in life. And I decided that there was more than just trading and I wasn't having as much fun because the bank was becoming increasingly like a bank, and less entrepreneurial. So before the market crashed in 2000, I hung up my skates, and I kind of semi quit/retired. So I came home and I thought to myself, "I can go work for a hedge fund or do something like that, but I can also go try trading for myself. And if it doesn't work a year from now, I could go back and work for a bank or a hedge fund and nobody will remember that year."

Kevin (03:14):

Well, one year turned into two. And then turned into five. And next thing I know I've gone 15 years, just trading for myself with another guy. And during those periods, it was kind of lonely at times. So I started writing a blog, or it was actually more of a journal when I first started, because one of the things they encourage traders to do is write down your thoughts. And people would phone me up and say, "What do you think of the market?" And I would just say, "You know what? Here, I'll send you off what I wrote to myself." And that's how the MacroTourist was born. And for the longest time it was just a free thing I like to... because I don't work for a bank anymore. And because most research is often boring and not very kind of fun to read, I do like to make it a little more fun. So at the very least, I always say to people, "I hope to make you smile."

Nadia (04:06):

I definitely, going through some of your posts, I was giggling to myself... and I don't even understand finance, so it was great. Your goal has been achieved. What is the world of finance blogging? I don't even really necessarily know, is that the right term that you'd use? There are other people that write like you, but what you're doing is so different.

Kevin (04:26):

For sure. There are a lot of blogs out there. And one of the things that a lot of people as well do in finance, is that we're big Twitter users, and it ends up being that Twitter is the perfect vehicle for traders and investors, because what you want is basically real time information flowing back and forth. So there's many people that will be on Twitter posting kind of long form, string together 20 tweets that they kind of give their views, and they include charts. And then there's some that go off and actually go and create full-on blogs. There's a very famous guy called The Reformed Broker that's on CNBC, and he originally started as just a broker that wrote a blog, until he parlayed into a million plus Twitter followers, and a job on CNBC.

Kevin (05:16):

So it's definitely something that's out there. One of the problems that occurs is that anybody who works for a large firm is often hindered by compliance. Compliance basically means legal sign off, because if you're registered as an investment advisor, it's difficult for you to write. So there's a whole slew of guys and women very similar to me, in that they don't work for anyone but themselves, and are posting information out there like my blog. Although I would say that my style's a little unique, the fact that I'm writing a finance blog is by no means unique.

Nadia (05:57):

Did you.... because it seems like you're somewhat active on Twitter as well, did Twitter come before blogging? Did blogging help with Twitter?

Kevin (06:06):

No, so I hated Twitter. When I fi…

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