Weekly Newsletter - 10th March 2024
The Week I Surpassed 100 Subscribers
This week kicked off by me passing the infamous 100-subscriber milestone, partly thanks to the interview I did with
bringing many new faces this way (and if you’re here because of that interview - welcome!). You can find the interview below if you haven’t watched it already:
The rest of this week has seen me setting myself up to be able to deliver you even more great works, including setting up a new laptop, making preparations to leave my current jobs amongst many other things. With all that said, there’s still plenty of other stuff that I’ve been able to bring you this week that’s worth discussing. Let’s talk about those.
New Poems
To celebrate the 100-subscriber milestone (although now well over 150!), I wrote a little poem entitled “Why I Write” to convey some of the sentiments of why I do what I do. You can find the poem below:
Although I didn’t make a print or a video as I did for my other poems, I’m keen to maybe go back at a future milestone and create a print to go alongside it. Perhaps the 200 subscriber milestone?
Tribe Updates
This week marks the first of the Tribe Podcasts, in keeping with the new rotating release schedule for my paid subscriber-exclusive content. I’ve had a recorded discussion with my good friend
for a little while now, but until now it has remained unpublished. It felt right to release it now, and you can find the link below:
If you’d like to join the Tribe, I’d be honoured and glad to see you join, and you’ll get plenty of gifts in return - like the podcasts.
Other Updates
Gift Subscription Giveaway
Last week, I announced I would be giving away five 1-month gift subscriptions for people restacking my poems and sharing what they think. The lack of take up on the giveaway means I am unable give them out in the manner I originally intended, but thankfully I’ve had a better idea. I’m going to give those gift subscriptions to five of the other writers on Substack that I’ve had some extended engagements with in the past few weeks as a recognition of the work they are doing as well as a thank-you for the positive engagement we’ve had.
These subscriptions are thus going to:
- Words In Bloom has been putting out some excellent poetry and writings, and graciously added me to her Recommendations too. We’ve had a lot of fun reading each other’s poems, so definitely deserving of a gift subscription! - Honeygloom runs the excellent Horror Haiku Club which has proven to be an excellent writing prompt system for me. Honeygloom has graciously provided comments on all my submissions and was generous enough to purchase a copy of my book. - The Rewind has not only been restacking my poems like crazy, but has also been bringing many other great writers my way though their Notes section. They also produce many excellent writings of their own.- Daniel has been writing some great articles ranging from thought-provoking essays to explorations in living the best life possible. We shared some love over fermentation and mushrooms which I always enjoy discussing. - Another great poet who added me to their recommendations as I was writing this newsletter! They also write great essays like this one.It was tough to decide who to give these to, and there are many more authors I could have given some to. I look forward to growing my relationships with all the authors and readers I already have as well as forging new ones, finding ways to promote the works of those I’m finding value in and getting them to the people who need it.
Social Media Update
I turned to the dark side this week and set up on TikTok. Cue comments on training people for short attention spans, data harvesting, social media indoctrination, and so forth.
I am conscious of all these things, which is why I am hesitant of using social media as an individual. However, there is no denying the fact that people - and particularly youth - are going there and spending extraordinary amounts of time there. I fundamentally believe that to have any hope in enriching people’s lives, we have to meet people where they are at. We cannot expect people to meet us outside of whatever matrix they live in if they have no frame of reference for what lies outside. It’s something that
spends a lot of his work on and someone who has really helped to shape my approach to this, through his work with ReachingPeople.net.And I think there is a place for TikTok as a platform to reach people who otherwise wouldn’t be reached. I recall Laura Aboli’s excellent speech from the 2023 Better Way Conference doing surprisingly well on there, which is part of what encouraged me to experiment with this platform. Finding out that other writers in my personal circle are also having a lot of success in reaching people on TikTok has also encouraged me to give it a go. Will some of my posts be cliche, even cringey, as I experiment with what works with TikTok’s algorithms? Quite possibly. But I certainly intend to have fun with it, and hopefully learn some valuable insights in how to reach people through digital platforms.
A Poem From Elsewhere
The past few weeks, I’ve been focused on writers of the past in these newsletters, including Neruda and Lovecraft amongst others. This week I buck the trend and talk about a current poet - one who is even on Substack!
This week I was introduced to the work of
via her “Water Ways” poem - which was a very fun read in and of itself. This prompted me to dive into some of her other work, leading me to “Friend to Dragons”. I really loved the subject matter, and the final stanza absolutely knocked it out of the park for me. I just knew it had to be the poem I shared this week, so you can read it over on her Substack using the link below:
And Finally
Thank you for continuing to follow my progress. If you want to support my work, there are numerous ways you can doing that, including:
Becoming a Tribe member (paid subscriber)
Sharing the poems that resonate with you most with others
It's incredibly heartwarming to know you are here and believe in the work I'm doing, and I can't wait to be able to share more with you and the rest of the world soon.
With gratitude,
Tom
A lot happening at the moment for you Tom! Thank you so much for access to the paid subscription option!
Thank you for your kind words Tom, and for the gift subscription :)