what happened to all of my big dreams? diary entry 01

posted my first substack article the other day, so i thought i'd share it here.

#substack #writing #writingcommunity #writer #personalessay #diary

The Drunk Cig Will Never Die We know smoking is bad. But you’ll have to pry the drunk cig out of our cold, dead hands.

it's come to my attention that my drunk cig article was, like, way too long. here's a more palatable version - a history of my drunk cigs and why it's kind of nice to smoke together when things suck

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#writing #writer #personalessay #dating #memoir #smoking #millennials #relationships

The Best Cup of Coffee. Ever When it’s not about the aroma or the taste—it’s about the experience

How did such large chunks of ourselves end up inside machines? It’s something I thought a lot about the day I left my laptop—my life—in a Paris post office. What happened next? find out here: tinyurl.com/4cstvx2b #DigitalLife #ModernLife #LifeLessons #PersonalEssay #SelfAwareness #Storytelling

Religion, Science, & the Desert Seeing the awe of the universe beyond religion and science; seeing life in things that aren’t.

this is for people who are like, religion? 👎 spirituality? 🤷‍♀️ nature? 🤠 oh fuck yeah

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#medium #writer #writing #desert #religion #spirituality #nature #lovenature #protectourparks #exchristian #writing #personalessay

@audreyjwhitson.bsky.social reads an excerpt from her #essay “The Great Hunger” published in issue 177 of The New Quarterly. Grab your copy of Issue 177 today: tnq.ca/product/issu...

#newreleases #booksky #personalessay

Flashback Thursday – 1994 Edition A new monthly tradition, digging up old writings from my past, unedited and raw. First stop: second grade, 1994.

Flashback Thursday! Every last Thursday of the month, I'll be posting an old writing, unedited, raw, errors and all. This month we're going back to 1994. Second grade me could not spell baby to save her life.

#FlashbackThursday #Blogging #PersonalEssay #90sKid #Nostalgia

buff.ly/TpiixAj

The dish thoughts about being a woman, doing the dishes, and how healing never seems to feel quite right to me.

this did pretty well its first time around, so here we are: "the dish," a little memory about my a relative's corningware, being a woman, and doing the f*cking dishes

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#writer #writing #personalessay #memory #feminism #sexism #homemakers #family #women #medium #creativenonfiction #exmormon

The wedding cake A horrible, terrible, no good object lesson I’ve never forgotten.

if you grew up in christian purity culture, this one's for you. actually kind of a real read.

#writer #writing #christian #exchristian #atheist #purityculture #exmormon #objectlesson #medium #memoir #personalessay

Get started with a low-cost studio session, you learn, write, leave wth your essay off to a good start. #PersonalEssay #Memoir #GetPublished

May All Beings Be Free: The Modern Journeyer

Last week I witnessed a car lose control. Everything slowed down. Then it sped up. It stayed in my body longer than the moment. I wrote about it, what stirred & stayed & about releasing.

Have a listen; read it.
#Writing #PersonalEssay #CreativeLife

amandamottornartist.substack.com/p/may-all-be...

In a World Apart From Nature, I Am Familiar With the Rocks in a River Memories of a family cabin and growing up in a river.

it's self promo o'clock! I wrote a short prose-y, memoir-y article about being outside (like, the woods). and I actually took this one seriously

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#writing #nature #forest #medium #writer #personalessay #childhood #memory #river #nonfiction

The (Wrong) Stories We Tell About Women On narratives, patriarchy, truthfulness, and a young Aztec girl with a tarnished name.

hot off the metaphorical presses: thinking about women who didn't get what they deserved, crying in an art exhibit, and a little bit about aging

extremely inspired by @yourewrongabout.bsky.social 🥲

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#writing #article #yourewrongabout #medium #writer #personalessay #shortessay #sexism #feminism

The Drunk Cig Will Never Die We know smoking is bad. But you’ll have to pry the drunk cig out of our cold, dead hands.

look, don't smoke, but also, here's an ode to the drunk cig

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#writing #drunkcig #writer #medium #personal #personalessay #milennial #culture #milennialculture #coping

Not Hot Enough to Write Home About: Dating While “Thick” I love the body positivity movement, but I’m still a “category.” My relationship with my weight has always been complicated; dating doesn’t…

dating while "thick" is a fucking roller coaster !! whether you can relate to this or want to read about the experience pls give this a nice look-over, also there's a bad pun

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#medium #article #writer #bodyimage #bodypositivity #thick #personal #sexism #bodytype #writing #personalessay

Natural Loss x Stole Loss A philosophical inquiry into the difference between loss that transforms and loss that is stolen, and what each one asks of the person who carries it.

A meditation on natural loss, stolen loss, and the identities they carve.
open.substack.com/pub/stillher...
#Loss #Identity #Transformation #Memory #Psychology #Anthropology #HumanBehavior #PersonalEssay

5 Things I'd Tell My Younger Self If I Figured Out Time Travel and Lost My Oatmeal I should probably say something, or else it would just be really weird! Right??

#amwriting #Writer #personalessay

open.substack.com/pub/ckanomal...

The Latchkey Years: How Generation X Raised Itself I was a latchkey kid—one of millions of Gen X kids who came home to empty houses, fed ourselves, and learned to manage our own lives while our parents worked.

There was a kind of freedom in all that neglect, though calling it “freedom” feels wrong. It wasn’t that I was given independence—it was that I had no choice but to claim it.
chriscampbellauthor.substack.com/p/the-latchk...

#Substack #PersonalEssay #GenerationX #GenX #80sKid #Memoir

Out of Hibernation A St. Patrick's Day in Cleveland

Forced myself into the Cleveland cold, and ended up somewhere I hadn't been in thirty years — a room full of strangers becoming, something like family.

open.substack.com/pub/mikeandm...

#Cleveland #StPatricksDay #ThisIsCleveland #Substack #PersonalEssay #CommunityVibes #outofhibernation

Do I Like Dating Men, or Am I Just Competitive? A really, really, really honest review of my dating habits.

bored at work? here's a read full of icky honesty on dating competitively. and it should take you less than 5 minutes, so your boss probably won't even notice

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#dating #datingexperience #personal #personalessay #relationships #lgbtq #bisexual #medium #writing #writer

When Measurement Fails Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos By Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos The numbers arrived without ceremony: a small column of figures, neat and confident, delivered through a screen that assumed fluency…

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is let the engine go cold for a while.

'When Measurement Fails'—it's live today.

borderlessjournal.com/2026/03/16/w...

#Tamaraleewrites #PersonalEssay #WritingCommunity #SubstackWriters

Religion, Science, & the Desert Seeing the awe of the universe beyond religion and science; seeing life in things that aren’t.

and this is a stupid ""personal essay"" about how the earth feels alive even when you know it isn't....it's also about being atheist, and how mean the desert is. please read

#writing #medium #personalessay #atheist #atheism #spiritual #spirituality #desert #thedesert #nature #personal

Memoir feels big? Start with the personal essay. Join a Personal Essay Studio Session and build the skills to write, publish, and grow into book-length work.


#MemoirWriting #PersonalEssay

We are excited to introduce our first flash nonfiction piece, a personal essay by Agatha Valencia called "the kind of man i want".

Read it at carminepen.com/the-kind-of-man-i-want-by-agatha-valencia/

#PersonalEssay #FlashNonfiction #IndiePublishing #IndiePress

PREGNANT MADONNA SCRUBBING FLOOR by Kim Dana Kupperman — Alaska Quarterly Review Take the matter of being born . . . . If most people were to be born twice they’d improbably call it dying –

A beautiful personal essay on the myth and the reality, the sacred and the mundane of motherhood: "Pregnant Madonna Scrubbing Floor" by Kim Dana Kupperman, in the Alaska Quarterly Review www.aqreview.org/aqr-vol-23-n... #essay #personalessay #motherhood

Why I don’t ask questions on dates We can’t simplify personality into discrete chunks, so why do we do it on dates — and why do women bear the brunt of it?

Why don't I ask questions on dates? Let's complain about sexism, objectification, and dating in general. | #dating #medium #essay #article #personalessay #sexism #patriarchy #dates #playboy

An essay on the perils of beinc gluten intolerant on vacation. #author #writer #personalessay #glutenintolerant

helixmagazine.org/2026/03/03/a...

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates In The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates talks openly and compassionately about how his life was changed by visits to Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine.

With The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates delivers three formidable essays about three powerful trips: Senegal, South Carolina, and P@l3stin3.

Read my full review at my blog, and please subscribe!

dryvetyme.online/2026/03/04/t...

#TheMessage #TaNehisiCoates #Nonfiction #PersonalEssay #Memoir

Signs of Intimacy and Other Things We Found in Gary’s House

Sometimes a life is already packed long before anyone seals the boxes.

A new essay: Signs of Intimacy
amydesouza.substack.com/p/signs-of-i...

#personalessay #memoir #writing #substackwriters

Loving Myself for the First Time, the Truth About Self-Confidence Learning that to have confidence I must love myself first, and shed the instinct to make myself small for others.

The stifling act of placing myself into a box, sealing it shut, and slapping a bow on top has always been on behalf of someone else’s comfort.

Continue reading Loving Myself for the First Time, the Truth About Self-Confidence for free:
medium.com/modern-women...
#personalessay #mediumwriters

My latest Substack post is about why I write and what stories mean to me. #personalessay

dreaminginwords.substack.com/p/the-lords-...