What Do We Do Now That We're Here?
Newsletter (Digital)
It’s a Substack-featured publication and a Substack Bestseller. It’s also been mentioned or featured in the New York Times, Outside Magazine, New York Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, and Sierra Magazine.
Most of the things we need to do to heal the planet and our society are the same things that would heal ourselves. This newsletter explores that idea by touching on a wide variety of themes including the climate crisis, collapse, personal development, mental health, social isolation, recovering from overachievement and more.
About me
I’m Rosie Spinks, a writer based in the UK. For ten years I was a journalist whose work was published in places like The Guardian, Quartz, VICE, NPR, Sierra, Outside Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Pacific Standard, Lucky Peach and many others.
My reporting career was varied: I aggressively covered the lack of regulation in the cruise industry; questioned the impacts of “live like a local” travel; chronicled gentrification in east London; covered the weird world of wellness, from Instagram life coaches to “all natural” birth control — and lots more. One of the most popular stories I’ve ever written (and my personal favorite) is about why we don’t squat more.
I started this newsletter in 2016 as a form of self promotion for my journalism work. Over time, it’s because something else entirely—and the primary home for my writing. I hope you enjoy it.
If you’d like to hire me for writing, ghostwriting, editing, or editorial consulting, please visit: rojospinks.com or email rosiespinks [at] gmail [dot] com. Source
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesThings that make me feel rich
Most of my camera roll is pictures of vegetables I grew. We bought a new car recently. It was a major downgrade from our old one, which we gave back at the end of our agreement term. The “new” one is a 2012 Ford Focus station wagon in a color we thought was red, but turned out to be a lot closer to orange when we saw it in person. It has great AC and you can connect your phone via bluetooth, but that’s about it as modern tech goes.
Living beautifully in collapse with Sarah Wilson
Thank you so much to Sarah Wilson for joining me for this conversation — and for the 100+ of you who joined us live! Please buy Sarah’s gorgeous book, I Eat the Stars: How to Live Beautifully in a Collapsing Worldand subscribe to her Substack This Is Precious. Here’s her post about the Paris heatwave I quoted. What Do We Do Now That We’re Here? is a reader-supported publication. All content is free to read, but paid subscribers help provide me with the time and space to write on these themes.
On collective effervescence
A time-sensitive programming note before the short essay below: Sarah Wilson and I finally are going Live on Substack this Thursday at 1pm UK time to talk about her new book on collapse. Scroll down for details… I don’t really give a shit about football. At times in my life, I’ve thought the whole thing is kind of stupid, a way for British men to access deep emotions in absence of any other socially acceptable means. Alas, I am now married to one of those British men.
On not doing stuff to my face
A selfie I took after climbing to the top of a mountain, where I did have time to overthink it. A few months ago, someone asked me to provide a photo to accompany a short Q&A interview I’d done. I sent a selfie I’d taken more than a year before, of me sitting on the bench outside of my house, squinting into the sun. When the piece came out, a caption had been added to the photo. It complimented my refreshingly natural face and complexion.
Make peace with the process
Thank you to the 50 or so of you who joined our Live conversation last night all about non-fiction book proposals. You can watch the full recording above. Here’s a little taste of what we talked about: “Writing a book proposal is a gamble. So then you might say, okay, well then why the hell would you do this? Why would you submit yourself to this painstaking, long process? I think that’s a really good question to ask yourself and put front of mind during your writing process.
Catching my breath
I turned in the first draft of my book manuscript right after Easter, and after a few weeks of catching my breath and sitting in the sunshine, I’m about to embark on the edit and fact check. Before I do, I’m sending this grab-bag of things that I’ve been meaning to share, highlight, and promote. It also includes a hearty list of recommended reading, the likes of which I haven’t sent in ages.
A project will save you
One year ago, I wrote a post entitled “Everyone I know is worried about work.” Unfortunately, it has aged very well. In the last few months, more and more people with white collar jobs — or perhaps it’s more accurate to just say laptop jobs — feel insecure in their positions, unsure of their value to our economy and what the future holds. I had to do a double take the other day when I read a headline about software company Oracle’s last round of layoffs.
The logic of extraction
Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. While in London for work last week, I ate a kale chicken caesar salad that cost £13 and suspiciously claimed to have 50 grams of protein in it. This kind of “meal size” salad is something that, as an American in the UK, I’ve historically complained was not available.
Make it easy to say yes
Here’s the video from last night’s Live. Thanks to those of you who joined me! We had a technical issue at the beginning (no audio) so I had to restart. Skip to about 7:45 in the video above to get to the part where you can actually hear me. The conversation covered: How to think about the balance of power, prestige, and team when reaching out for interviews and other creative collaborations The mechanics of reaching out to someone. How to do it, how not to do it etc.
The art of reaching out
Just a gratuitous picture of my cat. Hello paying subscribers, Just a reminder of the workshop I’m offering this Thursday, February 19 at 7pm GMT. You should have received an invitation to add it to your calendar in a separate, automated Substack email right around the time you received this one. If you can’t join us live, don’t worry: I will be sending the replay out to the paid list on Friday along with some accompanying notes.