Vol. 67: Second birthday edition

Author

Allison Punch
February 14, 2023

Hey y’all! Happy Valentine’s Day if you celebrate - and if you don’t, please join me in celebrating my NINE YEAR coming out anniversary!

In addition to today marking nearly a decade of gay, this past Friday, February 10 marked two years of my newsletter! I believe in celebrating all moments - big and small. Though my newsletter sometimes feels small compared to my writing dreams, I don’t want to downplay my accomplishment of having this newsletter as a consistent writing practice. 

This past year in particular, being vocal in the newsletter about my desire to grow as a writer has deepened my relationship with other writers and creative friends, and given me courage to finally start taking creative nonfiction classes, even submitting my writing or applying for a fellowship here or there. Sometimes my newsletter is written like a journal, and I don’t anticipate that going away, but I really enjoy leaning into practicing craft. I think that intention and influence is evident in the greatest hits I’m sharing below.

For my first newsletter birthday last year, I shared a list of greatest hits and expressed a desire for more fun & joy in my newsletter. You tell me: Have I been incorporating joy? This is an ongoing priority in my life offline as well. My wife and I will be having a relaxing evening and I’ll start talking about death or oppression or something extremely dark. I’m working on it. Lowkey - I think it’s a white woman thing, and other writers or internet creators have spoken more eloquently about the particular white woman behavior (see: the obsession with true crime). But I digress… 

If you have any feedback on this newsletter or suggestions of future takeovers (they will be back this spring!) please let me know here.

Greatest Hits - Year 2

Newsletter Goals - Year 3

  • Give the newsletter a name! This is much overdue! 

  • Finalize a logo (hi Natalie LOL I haven’t forgotten about this)

  • At least 6 takeovers: I will be reaching out for spring 2023 takeovers very soon; if you’re at all interested in seeing someone specific write for the newsletter, send your recs my way!

  • Subscriber goals: Numbers aren’t sexy but in truth, I want my work out there. I lose anywhere between 3 - 5 subscribers each time I send out a newsletter, sometimes more, but I also gain 2 or more whenever I share my newsletter on social media. Taking a social media break over the fall slowly tanked my subscriber count. I’m almost back up to my highest subscriber count ever - 1,046 the day after my takeover of Leave it to Leonor - and my goal for the next year is to maintain above.

  • Find more ways to make the newsletter interactive - I absolutely love when I hear from readers. I have my typical correspondence crew, but I’d love to crack the code on how to hear from even more of you!

Support the work of this newsletter

  • If you’d like to support the work of this newsletter by buying me a coffee, you can venmo @Allison-Punch or cashapp $AllisonPunch.

  • Please forward this newsletter to a friend you think may enjoy it! They can subscribe here.