Value Good Writing and Resist the Machine
Big news—you can now become a patron of Missives from the Edge
Correction note: Oops! I invited readers who wanted to express their value for Missives in ways other than becoming a patron to leave their thoughts in the comments—but then I made commenting closed unless you were a patron! Rookie error. I’ve corrected this, though I suppose it’s too late now. Still, comments are always appreciated!
As subscribers to Missives from the Edge, you currently receive thoughtful missives from the edges of society, continents and history, at the intersection of society and faith. At its best, Missives is a platform encouraging prophetic voices speaking into the chaos—which means voices of love.
In this same spirit, we hope to convene a conversation that moves us collectively forward. And we’ll often continue to be what society labels wrongthink for both the Christ-curious and the churchy-jaded.
Your current “free” subscription means you’ll receive:
The fortnightly update: Missives from the Edge. A shot of thoughtful, sometimes provocative analysis of issues at the intersection of faith and society.
Occasional short notes, long-form essays and book reviews.
Candle Profiles that celebrate transformative, for-profit businesses that go the extra mile (a subset of The Hidden Life).
The Hidden Life Profiles of everyday people quietly making a difference: small things, great love.
The big news
As of November 6, 2024, I have moved Missives from the Edge to a patronage subscription model. This means I am enabling payments but leaving my content outside of the paywall, for now. We’ll see how it goes. If you’d like to support me in this work, I encourage you to become a patron. This will help me to know that you value this community and my writing.
Thanks to all of you who had previously pledged a paid subscription! You are now a Patron of this substack. For the rest of you who regularly read the stories, essays and other pieces that I write here on Missives, I invite you to become a Patron—a supporter, upholder, defender—of the newsletter by contributing financially.
To support my work, consider becoming a Patron for just $8.00 per month, $80 per year, or a Founding Member at $170 per year (all prices USD).
Patrons, or “paid subscribers,” will be invited to share comments and stories in the comments section at the end of the newsletter, as well as participate in a monthly salon-style chat around topics of mutual interest.
Founding Members are committed to seeing this work thrive and want to go the extra mile. As a thank-you, they will not only be able to comment and participate in monthly chat conversations hosted on Substack, but they will also be invited to participate in big theme community discussion zoom calls with myself and other Founding Members.
Why have I chosen a patronage model?
My hope and goal is to create a sense of community here, rather than just to encourage commerce, consumption and self-promotion. So I want to leave my pieces open for others to discover. Yet it’s also important to me to value my work as a writer. Making things free that might be purchased does little to disrupt the historic pattern of devaluing writing that is the legacy of the Machine.
There is an unfortunate tendency to view writing as simple work that anyone can do—something that doesn’t require significant effort or skill, therefore it needn’t be highly valued. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth, as my work as a book coach—helping others to create a professional manuscript—attests. The ability to create quality writing is not guaranteed by one’s ability to speak. Good writing requires training, skill and talent. Many multiple hours go into creating worthwhile content.
Indeed, many think that writing can now be performed by a machine, and writers are encouraged to let AI “help” them write—an abomination that amounts to nothing more than regurgitated, increasingly derivative, soulless pablum with no creative, innovative or inspired thought.
As you know, I will never allow AI to touch my writing or my work. I have even forgone allowing AI platforms to train off of my writing—a fact that means that search engines do not categorize this substack among their search engine results. This of course, limits Missives from the Edge’s exposure outside of the Substack platform.
I’m thrilled that more than 1,600 people currently find Missives from the Edge valuable and follow my work here. The percentage of those who subscribe for free (at the moment nearly 650) encourages me even more. Now, I’m opening up a patronage model to allow those of you who value this community to support the work financially. When you do so, you let me know you appreciate the work I do here and want to see it continue. I support my family in part through my writing and would like to have Missives substack become an even more significant percentage of the work I do.
If you would like to let me know in other ways that this work has value to you, you can share a story about what these newsletters have stirred in you. Please write your story as a comment on the bottom of this post, or, if you prefer, you can write to me directly by replying to this email. Your stories, engagement and financial support will help me to continue to carry out this work.
Another way to express its value to you is to share Missives with your friends. You can also request a gift membership by sending me an email at megmittelstedt@substack.com.
Lastly, thank you all for your support of my writing. I enjoy the engagement with all of you who interact and look forward to continuing the conversation. An especially big thank you to those of you who will become Patrons or Founding Members after reading this post.