{"id":3935,"date":"2025-07-12T09:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T09:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/3935\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T09:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T09:49:07","slug":"where-authors-gossip-geek-out-and-let-off-steam-15-of-the-best-literary-substacks-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/3935\/","title":{"rendered":"Where authors gossip, geek out and let off steam: 15 of the best literary Substacks | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

A peculiar aspect of the dawning of the digital age is that it has, in some respects, returned literary life to the 18th century. A hullabaloo of pamphleteers, the effective abolition of copyright \u2013 and a return to patronage networks and serial publication. In this context, then, the way in which literary writers are now turning to Substack<\/a> \u2013 a platform that allows authors to send emails to a list of subscribers, and allows those subscribers to interact in comment forums \u2013 seems entirely natural.<\/p>\n

Literary Substacks don\u2019t follow a single pattern. For some, it\u2019s a way of getting new work into the world, whether publishing a novel in serial form or hot-off-the-keyboard short stories; for others, it\u2019s a way of interacting directly with readers (while building a handy marketing list); for still others, it\u2019s a home for criticism, journalism, personal blowing off of steam, self-promotion, or a more direct version of the traditional writerly side hustle, teaching creative writing to aspiring authors.<\/p>\n

Most of them offer tiers of subscription: a monthly fee (usually a fiver or so) gets you paywalled posts; there\u2019ll be a discounted yearly fee; and a \u201cfounder member\u201d platinum tier that, for a substantial hike in\u00a0costs, offers some extra benefit such as signed copies,\u00a0exclusive events or other interactions with the author. Most Substacks also let you sign up to public posts for free.<\/p>\n

The selling points to its users are its immediacy and the freedom it gives writers to speak to the people interested in their work or their lives without corporate gatekeepers. And for those who can build up a solid list\u00a0of paid subscribers \u2013 like the big-name journalists who ditched traditional media for Substack and made more money doing so \u2013 it has the potential to be a nice little earner.<\/p>\n

Emma Gannon<\/a>, described last year by the Bookseller as \u201cone of the most popular novelists on Substack\u201d, says that \u201cthe thing I love about it is it\u2019s sort of unlike classic social media. It\u2019s based on interests, rather than the humblebragging of showing your life as a highlight reel. People are geeking out on Substack about the\u00a0things they love: writing, knitting, gardening. It\u2019s got\u00a0a\u00a0different vibe to it, because people are showcasing what they\u2019re interested in rather than what they are\u00a0doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is, she says, \u201clike old-school blogging, but people are having long interactions with each other in the comments, which feels really healthy\u201d. She adds that the mechanism for recommending other Substacks means that \u201cit\u2019s got a real generosity of spirit built into it\u201d. In an age when writers make less and less money, the patronage aspect \u2013 \u201cPeople want to support me financially because they like what I\u2019m doing, and it feels like a kind of: \u2018I will pay you, not for a word count, not for a content transaction, just to kind of keep you going\u2019\u201d \u2013 has a human value.<\/p>\n

Another prominent Substacker, the Israeli writer Etgar Keret, shares that view. He says that with most social media the algorithm is the boss (a viral post he made on Facebook earned him 200,000 comments and dozens of death threats), but with Substack you\u2019re engaging directly with people who are interested in your work: \u201cI don\u2019t want to outsource the decisions about this community to something that is inhuman and that has commercial interests.\u201d When you interact with someone on Substack, he says, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s human \u2013 but it\u2019s almost human.\u201d<\/p>\n

Author Margaret Atwood
Title In the Writing Burrow<\/a>
Cost \u00a35 a month or \u00a347 a year
Typical post \u201cThe Oracle Mouths Off, Part 2\u201d
What you get With characteristic puckish directness, Atwood promises subscribers a dose of \u201cwhatever comes into my addled, shrinking brain\u201d. In practice, that means all sorts of sprightly stuff \u2013 a months-long digression on the French Revolution; notes from\u00a0a book tour; prognostications about American politics; or\u00a0personal material such as the inside story of Atwood\u00a0getting a pacemaker (\u201cThe Report of My Death\u00a0…\u201d). It\u2019s\u00a0like getting letters from a wise, spiky and confiding\u00a0aunt.<\/p>\n

Author Hanif Kureishi
Title The Kureishi Chronicles<\/a>
Cost \u00a35 a month or \u00a335 a year; \u00a3240 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: \u201ca copy of one of my books, signed with an inked thumb, as I am unable to use my hands\u201d)
Typical post \u201cSmall Town Rebels\u201d
What you get Kureishi\u2019s Substack started with a catastrophe. At the end of 2022, the writer suffered a\u00a0fall<\/a> that injured his spine and deprived him of the use of his limbs. He wrote (or, rather, dictated) his way through his experience of this sudden disability (\u201cYour writer,\u201d was the moving sign-off to his tweets from his hospital bed) and his 2024 memoir, Shattered,<\/a> went on to tell the story of his illness. This Substack was and remains a very intimate, episodic first draft of his experiences, a characteristically unsparing and humorous account of day-to-day life (\u201cHeidi comes down, empties my urine bag […] before putting the kettle on\u201d) mixed with a generous selection of essays, interviews and other material new and old.<\/p>\n

Author Mary Gaitskill
Title Out of It<\/a>
Cost Free
Typical post \u201cHave Salt in Yourselves\u201d
What you get Longform letters, about twice a month (though Gaitskill takes the occasional apologetic pause) on whatever crosses the mind of this outstandingly sharp and clear-eyed writer. Gaitskill \u2013 author of the short story collection Bad Behavior and the novels This Is Pleasure and Veronica \u2013 says she\u2019s using her Substack \u201cfor the same reason I started writing a long time ago; to connect with people\u201d. Literary meditation, memoir, rapturous appreciation of a pole-dancing video (\u201cbasically tickled my will to live\u201d), or commentary on Donald Trump\u2019s re-election through the prism of the memoirs of the eccentric, heroin-addicted British dandy Sebastian Horsley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Author Elif Shafak
Title Unmapped Storylands with Elif Shafak<\/a>
Cost \u00a37 a month or \u00a365 a year; \u00a3195 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: personalised messages and signed copy of her new book)
Typical post \u201cReading Books in the Age of Angst\u201d
What you get Audio, video, images, text. Shafak sees her Substack as a multimedia home for \u201cliterary fragments\u201d and \u201cvignettes from a bookish life\u201d; a way of connecting directly with her readers. You\u2019ll find reflections on Flaubert, Proust and George Sand, updates on Shafak\u2019s globetrotting interventions, and meditations on the writing life and the life of the spirit.<\/p>\n

Author George Saunders
Title Story Club with George Saunders<\/a>
Cost \u00a35 a month or \u00a339 a year
Typical post \u201cAbout This Here Sentence Right Here\u201d
What you get A masterclass in the mechanics and techniques of short story writing from an outstanding critic of the form and a Booker prize-winning practitioner of fiction. The jumping-off point was Saunders\u2019s book about the Russian masters, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. He\u2019s interested in what short stories can tell us about ourselves and the world, too. Posts on Sunday (for paid subscribers) and every other Thursday (for everyone) include page-by-page close readings, as well as writing prompts and other discussions of the craft. Feedback and interaction are encouraged.<\/p>\n

Author Salman Rushdie
Title Salman\u2019s Sea of Stories<\/a>
Cost $6 a month or $60 a year; $180 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: \u201cI\u2019ll come up with something! For now, thank you very much\u201d)
Typical post \u201cThe Seventh Wave, Episode 7\u201d
What you get As well as a strong strand of the author\u2019s musings on literary nonfiction (\u201cJournalism as Literature\u201d), which is one of the courses he teaches at New York University, the main sell for paid subscribers is access to emailed instalments of Rushdie\u2019s serial novel The Seventh Wave: An Entertainment in 51 Episodes, which he has been writing since autumn 2021. His last Substack post was in August 2022, but the hiatus isn\u2019t down to laziness. Five days later came the nearly successful attempt on his life.<\/p>\n

Author Etgar Keret
Title Alphabet Soup<\/a>
Cost \u00a34 a month or \u00a339 a year; \u00a3115 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: \u201cimmortalised by having a\u00a0problematic character in a future Alphabet Soup story named after them\u201d)
Typical post \u201cGod the Midget\u201d
What you get Keret is a hugely prolific Israeli writer of short stories whose Substack is the one that Rushdie (\u201cSo witty and enjoyable, and he\u2019s clearly having a wonderful time doing it\u201d) credits with getting him on board with the platform. In this newsletter, his \u201cAbout\u201d page says: \u201cWe serve two types of soup\u201d. \u201cFresh soup\u201d is a new text or first English publication (he writes a lot in Hebrew) of one\u00a0of Keret\u2019s texts \u2013 from stories to poems to screenplays to fragments of memoir or other nonfiction. \u201cCanned soup\u201d is something that\u2019s been in print before. You can even get \u201calphabet audio soup\u201d, which \u2026 makes your ears wet?<\/p>\n

Author Roxane Gay
Title The Audacity<\/a>
Cost \u00a36 a month or \u00a355 a year; \u00a3265 for \u201cRide or Die\u201d (extra benefit: \u201cmy endless, boundless gratitude\u201d)
Typical post \u201cPrivate Rites: Lesbianpalooza\u201d
What you get Gay is a novelist, memoirist, essayist, podcaster, comics writer (making her one of the first Black women, with co-writer Yona Harvey<\/a>, to write a\u00a0Marvel comic), journalist, cultural critic and academic. So you get a bit of all of that when you sign up for The Audacity. The heart of it is the Audacious Book Club, where Gay introduces a book every month (recent featured authors include Laila Lalami and Kevin Nguyen), with regular prompts for community discussion in the newsletter. There are also opportunities for paid subscribers to join an interview with the author over Zoom.<\/p>\n

Author Howard Jacobson
Title Streetwalking with Howard Jacobson<\/a>
Cost \u00a35 a month or \u00a355 a year; \u00a3150 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit not specified)
Typical post \u201cThe Necessity of Offence\u201d
What you get Jacobson is as distinguished a journalist as he is a novelist, and his Substack hops tracks ad lib. Sometimes it\u2019s an opinion column, sometimes whimsy (he kept a post about pleated trousers behind the paywall because, he notes wanly, \u201creaders who might otherwise be circumspect are happy to pay for fashion tips\u201d). There\u2019s cultural commentary (including an excellently feeling post on the cultural appropriation of bagels) and in response to Trumpism and the war in Gaza, some characteristically acidic reflections on free speech and antisemitism. He\u2019s a grouchy man, with good reason to be grouchy, and few grouch more eloquently.<\/p>\n

Author Miranda July
Title Miranda July<\/a>
Cost \u00a35 a month or \u00a347 a year; \u00a3135 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: \u201cyou\u2019ll be the first and possibly only people to know about certain things\u201d)
Typical post \u201cWhat is fun and how to fun and why\u00a0fun\u201d
What you get The Onion once published an article headlined: \u201cMiranda July Called Before Congress to\u00a0Explain Exactly What Her Whole Thing Is\u201d. Accordingly, July\u2019s Substack makes no promises to\u00a0stay in its lane, and it offers subscribers \u201cNew writing! Lists! Dance videos! Other body things! Experimentation! Free form!\u201d July is a multidisciplinary writer and artist, and if her Substack has a guiding principle it\u2019s July\u2019s magpie sensibility. So in addition to the newsletter the site hosts podcasts and vlogs, there\u2019s a commenting community which July hopes will be \u201can actual good way for people to make friends, colleagues, lovers\u201d, and an unboxing post commemorates the arrival of a\u00a0vintage lavender dress July ordered on the internet.<\/p>\n

Author Jami Attenberg
Title Craft Talk<\/a>
Cost $8 a month or $60 a year; $100 a year for \u201cdreamboat supporters\u201d (extra benefit not specified)
Typical post \u201cI Want You to Be Both Gentle and Tough With Yourself\u201d
What you get Attenberg\u2019s Substack is strongly tilted towards aspiring writers. The novelist and short story\u00a0writer known for The Middlesteins<\/a> and All This\u00a0Could Be Yours<\/a> has been running what she calls an \u201caccountability practice\u201d for writers called 1,000 Words on her newsletter since 2018. For two weeks each summer the Substack features #1000wordsofsummer \u2013 \u201ca 52,000-strong community of writers of all levels\u00a0who are all supporting each other to write 1,000\u00a0words a day for two weeks\u201d. Which means a daily keep-it-up email from Attenberg, additional thoughts from a published writer guest-star most days, and a Slack and social media community for participants to share encouragement and brag about their word counts. The rest of the year sees Attenberg posting on aspects of literary craft \u2013 prompts, vignettes from the writing life, and even the odd interview \u2013 once a week, every\u00a0week.<\/p>\n

Author Chuck Palahniuk
Title Chuck Palahniuk\u2019s Plot Spoiler<\/a>
Cost \u00a35 a month or \u00a335 a year; \u00a3150 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: \u201clifetime admission to Study Hall perks as Chuck invents them, personalised shit\u201d)
Typical post \u201cThe Orgy Moment: Cascading Payoffs\u201d
What you get Chuck Palahniuk\u2019s lunch spoiler, potentially. The author of Fight Club has always had\u00a0a taste for extreme material, and as he told me a few years back, Substack gives him \u201ccomplete licence to put anything on the page that I want, and not be curbed by the timidity of the editor\u201d. Subscribers can enjoy his Substack-exclusive serial novel Greener Pastures, as well as \u201cshort, upsetting fiction from me\u201d. But it\u2019s also a writing community, where Palahniuk showcases the work of his best students, dishes out \u201chomework\u201d (watch Animal House, \u201cthe douchiest movie ever\u201d, carefully), offers giveaways and discusses craft in a direct and unpretentious way.<\/p>\n

Author Emma Gannon
Title The Hyphen by Emma Gannon<\/a>
Cost \u00a38 a month or \u00a369 a year; \u00a3100 for \u201cI can expense this!\u201d (extra benefit: \u201cmy eternal love and\u00a0appreciation\u201d)
Typical post \u201cHow I Make Six Figures on Substack\u201d
What you get Gannon has a millennial\u2019s ease in the multimedia environment: she\u2019s a popular novelist, a\u00a0podcaster, a journalist, trained life coach, wellbeing and business influencer, and all-round self-facilitating media node. She\u2019s very engaged with her community and generous in paying it forward: a\u00a0fortnightly \u201cSlow Sunday Scroll\u201d rounds up her recommendations of books, links, podcasts and consumer items she likes. Typical posts are savvy and friendly stuff about professional life and hanging on to your sanity in the social media age.<\/p>\n

Author Catherine Lacey
Title Untitled Thought Project<\/a>
Cost \u00a34 a month or \u00a343 a year; \u00a375 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: \u201cmy endless thanks\u201d)
Typical post \u201cOh, God\u201d
What you get Lacey, author of the astounding short story collection Certain American States<\/a>, and fugitive postmodern novels such as Pew<\/a>, Biography of X<\/a> and Nobody Is Ever Missing<\/a>, never writes the same book twice. Accordingly, perhaps, her Substack promises \u201ca\u00a0place of confusion and curiosity, a\u00a0repository for open\u00a0emails and things that are not quite essays\u201d. Her\u00a0special sauce in the Substack are her Oulipian micro-essays \u2013 exactly 144 words each, \u201ca dozen times a dozen, also known as \u2018a gross\u2019, a\u00a0term I learned while doing an inventory of nails and screws in my family\u2019s hardware store\u201d. A\u00a0particularly charming aspect of the Substack is that the word limit means that even though the posts are \u201conly for paid subscribers\u201d, you get the whole micro-essay in the preview pane anyway.<\/p>\n

Author Elif Batuman
Title The Elif Life<\/a>
Cost \u00a35 a month or \u00a347 a year; \u00a3115 for \u201cfounding member\u201d (extra benefit: \u201cPeriodic mini photo-essays of things I find interesting\u201d)
Typical post \u201cAdventures in Molybdomancy\u201d
What you get Batuman\u2019s bouncy brain bouncing into your inbox. Here, she muses on 1924, the connections between James Baldwin and Henry James, and the person who dissected Lenin\u2019s cerebellum. There, she realises what the Beach Boys have to tell us about environment and culture, and how Surfing USA can,\u00a0besides, cheer up the crosspatch writer. And elsewhere, she offers a bonus multimedia post \u201cabout my experience trying to have my fortune told with Turkish coffee grounds\u201d. Erudite, elliptical and\u00a0irrepressible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A peculiar aspect of the dawning of the digital age is that it has, in some respects, returned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-3935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}