Letters to Summer

View in browser  💌  View archive

Hello Pen Pals! This is a bonus letter just for you, to thank you for supporting us on Patreon. In this letter, we've each chosen to try out something that the other person recommended in a past letter—because what good are recommendations if you don't give them a try? We hope you like it!


We tried

💡Turning off notifications

From Letter 33

Sometimes a stress reliever can be so incredibly obvious but you just need another little push from a friend to actually follow through. I’m in a few discords with Jill, two that she runs, and in the welcome channel she reminds everyone to mute the channels they’re not interested in—it’s very silly to me how impactful that push is. I’m obsessed with knowing everything and so honestly, I know that if I do not take away the option of reading through or checking something, it will take away my attention. I’ve basically muted all of my notifications on my phone besides texts, no push notifications from Twitter, nothing from Discord, nothing at all. It is so, so good for my brain, it is such a stupid easy thing to do but I truly wouldn’t without friends reminding me it is, in fact, something you should do.

– Summer

🔗 The Limits of the Lunchbox Moment by Jaya Saxena

From Letter 56

This essay is really good and important and I really just want to get out of the way and tell you to go read it if you haven’t already, because there’s really nothing I could possibly add to it. But since the whole point of these follow-up letters is to talk about our recommendations, I will say that part of why I loved reading this is because I am such a sucker for pieces that unpack other styles, forms, archetypes, etc. of writing. I know it’s nerdy, but I just like to read writing about writing. This piece is a good example of that, as well as being a very important part of a larger discussion about food writing and identity politics.

– Jillian