The Perils and Pleasures of Writing on Substack

Publishing on the newsletter platform is emblematic of the struggles and rewards of being an independent creator.

It’s well-known by now that Substack, the newsletter platform, is where it’s at right now. A report from The New York Times back in December highlighted the spectacular success of Heather Cox Richardson, whose newsletter Letters from an American is, as of this writing, is the number one publication in the Politics section on the site. Substack has become a home for all sorts of journalists and writers, some of whom — such as Anne Helen Petersen, Roxane Gay, and others — I deeply admire and whose work is well-reasoned, thoughtful, and eloquent.

The flip side, of course, is that the much-publicized lack of editorial control or oversight on Substack means that it also attracts its fair share of disingenuous writers, many of whom use the site’s “free inquiry” ethos as a chance to spout all sorts of nonsense. Some of this is nothing more than you’d expect, but it becomes especially ugly when the site becomes a haven for those who seek to victimize particular groups, and the anti-trans animus of many of Substack’s creators — including the likes of Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald — has earned it some well-deserved criticism from trans writers (many of…