Beyond Turns Two! 🎈🎈

Words of Gratitude! And a Birthday Giveaway!

Enter giveaway below to win this gorgeous medal!

Hello Darling Beyonders!

Beyond is Two Years Old!! This doesn’t seem possible. I can remember sitting on my couch contemplating how wonderful it would be to start a newsletter of author interviews that might bring some light and joy and wisdom and laughter and happiness—plus incredible craft advice—into this world and wondering if I could pull it off. Thanks to all of you, we have!

I started with a platform of exactly zero. Well, maybe nine if I count my dad, a few cousins, and my best friends. We’ve grown to over 10,000! (close to 12,000, including followers) Over the past two years I’ve interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert, George Saunders, Cheryl Strayed, Ross Gay, Maggie Smith, Andrea Gibson, and so many (many!) more. I have to pinch myself some days over my good fortune. And there are many beautiful interviews yet to come.

“Jane is a great interviewer - her warmth draws the interviewee out into new territory…” George Saunders

There are also all the glorious guest essays and the questionnaires and, when I’m able, my own writing. These are never paywalled and well worth an adventure into the archives. For instance, there’s this beauty by B.K. Jackson about discovering a family she never knew she had and this wonderful questionnaire from Courtney Maumwhere she shares about her path to publishing and how she avoids other people’s wisdom. This essay by me about how walking my neighbor’s dog helped me heal from head and brain injury remains close to my heart.

☀️I’m deeply grateful to all of you for reading my work with such care and leaving such thoughtful, brilliant, and respectful comments; for gifting and sharing my work; for sending me kind and supportive emails. For creating this beautiful, thriving, growing community.☀️

I often receive emails and comments about how much people enjoy my style of interviewing — that my questions tend to focus on how to be kind to ourselves and others and, of course, animals; our relationships with our bodies; our hopes for ourselves, and our fears; what brings laughter and joy; the various ways love manifests in our lives; how we can help each other through.

I hadn’t viewed this as a style. It was simply my natural curiosity. But I’ve come to realize my approach to these interviews, and everything else involved with Beyond, is shaped by all that I have lived through with my health. For nearly three decades, or just under half my life, I have been living with daily challenges from the aftermath of head and brain injury. Some days are better than others, but there is always something.

I would very much like to be fully healthy again and even after all this time, I still believe that can happen; in fact, I’m trying a new protocol and seeing some slow but hopeful results. But I’m also grateful for the ways this journey has shaped how I experience the world and the people in it. I’ve come to believe that these sorts of challenges either make you hard and bitter or they blow your heart right open. Mostly, my heart has been blown open. And what I seek most in the writers I interview are those who, for various reasons, have also had their heart blown open. And, of course, people who write magnificently!

On the topic of my health, the past couple of months have been a bit extra challenging. In the midst of the forward progress, I’ve slipped back into constant head pain. It’s nowhere near the level of the staggering head pain I’ve lived in through in the past (Dr. Gotlin, the sports doctor for the Knicks and the Yankees, once told me the type of head pain I had—generated from a jammed occiput—was nicknamed “suicide headache” because of its severity) and I’m incredibly grateful for that. But as many of you know, constant pain at any level is difficult. And it’s happening on top of symptoms that I have dealt with for years now such as daily vertigo and cognitive issues and a couple symptoms that are way too hard to describe but are difficult. It’s also, I’ve discovered, a trauma trigger. The debilitating head pain was the first symptom after the accident, so it holds a lot for me.

Many readers have asked me to share more about my health on Beyond. Outside of personal essays, I largely steer clear of mentioning it here. I was raised by two Brits and my upper lip is quite stiff. Plus, I have this fear that if I write about myself as someone with chronic health issues that I make it real in some more pronounced way than it already is — and then I lock myself into being this way forever. But after nearly three decades of daily challenges, I don’t think it could get any more real! So perhaps allowing my public-facing persona to be more fully integrated with the truth of my life will help my healing — alongside letting others know they’re not alone. I know I can find solace when fellow humans share some of their struggles.

☀️☀️☀️

I want to extend a special gigantic gratitude shoutout to Anne Kadet, Alex Dobrenko`, and Michael Estrin. We’ve been each other’s support system since our early days, and it’s made such a tremendous difference. I couldn’t ask for a kinder, smarter, funnier crew. And also Jillian Hess and Caroline Cala Donofrio whose friendships have extended beyond Substack.

Massive gratitude to Beyond’s paid subscribers. Your support keeps a roof over my head and allows me to keep doing this work. Without you, Beyond literally wouldn’t be happening. Plus, each month our contribution to DeTommaso Dogs grows. The fewer dogs that are on the street, the better our world!

I toyed with the idea of including some sort of survey in this post but a) I don’t actually know how to create one of those fancy surveys and b) I wasn’t really sure what to ask that would make sense in a formal survey. But I would very much like to hear from you! So I’m hoping you can share in the comments what you most enjoy about Beyond, what you’d like to see more of, what you’d like less of. Are you pleased with the length of the interviews? Do you enjoy the Craft Advice? What sort of essays do you most enjoy? Any Substackers you’d love to see fill out the questionnaire? Who would you love me to interview next?`I am hoping to share more of my own writing, depending upon health and time — what topics would you most like me to write about? Your thoughts on this beautiful community and anything else you’d like me to know!

These two beauties will also come with their own history card!

And finally, my dear friend Kate Glahn gave me one of her handmade “Secret Society of Badass Women” medals for my birthday this year and it instantly became one of my most precious treasures. Since then, she’s started the Fictional Medal Collector’s Society and made many more and they are so insanely enchanting — each one comes with its own fascinating history. They make my heart happy!! I encourage you to follow Kate and her beautiful medals on IG so your heart will also be happy.

🎈In the meantime, to celebrate Beyond’s Second Birthday, Kate is generously gifting these three charming medals. If you’d like to be one of the recipients, please add “Medals” after your comment. The winners will be chosen at random on April 5th and notified by email. (Shipping is limited to the United States) If you’re interested in some of Kate’s other lovely medals, you can dm her via her IG account.

Thank you all so much for being here. It truly means more than I can say. Wishing everyone good things today and always. So much is happening out there — we’re in it together.

xJane