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Seduce Your Readers on Substack: An Interview With Laurie Stone
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Seduce Your Readers on Substack: An Interview With Laurie Stone

+ Her checklist for writing posts and Notes that resonate

I’m so pleased to bring you my interview with

. She writes the literary Substack Everything Is Personal and a monthly column, “Notes on Another New Life,” for ’s .

She’s also a Substack phenomenon. Everything Is Personal is a literary Substack. In just two years, it’s grown to over 10,000 subscribers.

In this conversation, we talk about how she grew so quickly—plus her writing process, her approach to “marketing,” Notes, publishing, the nature of narrative, and how she seduces the reader.

She also shares her checklist for writing posts and Notes that resonate with her readers:

  • Start in the middle,

  • fail to arrive,

  • remember to love something,

  • make the reader hot,

  • make the reader laugh.

She was a longtime writer for the Village Voice (1974-1999), which comes up here. She’s also the author of six books, most recently Streaming Now, Postcards from the Thing that is Happening (Dottir Press, 2022), long listed for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. She writes for The Paris ReviewEvergreen Review, and Galerie. 

You can join her monthly Zoom conversations on writing craft by contacting her at lauriestone@substack.com

Subscribe to Everything Is Personal here:

Subscribe to Everything Is Personal

Laurie’s next Zoom is this Saturday, July 27 from 3 to 4 pm EST. If anyone would like to come, please email Laurie for more information: lauriestone@substack.com.


Timestamps:
00:15 Laurie’s Substack success
02:14 Narrative techniques
04:39 Using Notes and social media
05:51 Teaching and workshops
09:41 Laurie’s writing process
17:37 Building a sustainable Substack
25:47 What’s next for Everything Is Personal

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