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23 April 2022
In August of 2014, I started a weekly email newsletter. Newsletters were just beginning to become the new thing then, and I was, consciously or not, looking for a way to revive the sort of publishing I had done on my previous website: lists of interesting links, updates on what I was reading/watching/listening to and short essays on whatever was caught in my mind at the moment. Few people regularly visit websites or read web content via RSS anymore, so I put it all into email.
My newsletter, which soon picked up the name of Modern Adventuress (after one of my favorite old pulp magazine titles), did just what it was supposed to. It gave me an outlet for what I wanted to share and it helped spur me into writing more. But, as my eulogizing tone might indicate, Modern Adventuress has run its course and, after almost eight years, I’m shutting it down.
The good news is that all of the stuff I put into MA I’m now going to put into my website. I’ve circled back around to the point where I’m less interested in the ephemerality of email and more compelled to build up my own bit of the web. And I’m a little weary of holding myself to an established schedule. So links, recommendations and random thoughts will now show up on my website on a regular but flexible basis. You can still subscribe to get emails about new posts via Feedburner or pop the RSS feed into a reader app. I’ll also be putting links to new posts on Twitter. You could even party like it’s 2003 and bookmark my website to check in periodically.
Also! I do have a new newsletter. Jen Myers: The Newsletter will aggregate links to everything going on at my website and elsewhere in my projects. If you were already subscribed to Modern Adventuress, you have already been ported over to this newsletter. I will be sending out editions of that likely once a month or so.
I will keep all of Modern Adventuress’s archives, including the first two iterations on TinyLetter and Substack, active and accessible. In the near future, I also plan to restore the dedicated essay website that collects all the of the essays to read in a more convenient format.
Speaking of my website: I just gave it a minimalist overhaul. The most significant change is the addition of a Photos feed. Overall, I want to centralize all my own stuff at my own website rather than someone else’s platform. I still have Instagram and I’ll continue to use Twitter, but ideally they’ll serve as auxiliary storage and/or pointers to my self-hosted content.
One more note: For a while I lackadaisically maintained a Patreon, via which some very kind and generous subscribers sent me some funds in exchange for my writing. I have now closed that Patreon. I didn’t do a great job of keeping up with it and I’m also not in as much need of a tip jar these days. If you contributed, thank you so much for your support. 🖤
I’ve had a personal website for twenty-two years now. It has changed form and location frequently, but some version of it was always there. Creating these versions not only engaged my technical skill but also pushed me to define and refine where my creative priorities were and what I wanted to present to the world. I’ve learned that I tend to feel the urge to revise my website and related web projects when I’m ready to step into a new phase. Particularly after the past couple of years, this seems like an opportune time to clear out past debris and set up a fresh framework for the future: one that is simpler, cleaner, more straightforward and under my full control. As always, I’ll adjust as necessary as I go along.