It has been a strange and scary time to be alive for a while now, but particularly in the past four months. I try to think of the last time I hauled ass from work across town to pick up my son from school or the last café where I ordered a chai and wrote or the last late night movie I went to see by myself when I was able to get away, but I come up empty. Mundane moments seem just that until we re-examine them later in retrospect.
Because of the way the world has changed in the past few months and because there honestly isn’t a realistic “end” in sight, we have revamped our entire business model. This week we shipped our last physical Plume subscriptions. It’s been bittersweet to see people posting about them, saying how much they’ve enjoyed getting our little doses of inspiration and self-care in the mail. But the writing was on the wall that we needed to make a change and we are nothing if not resourceful. We do have hopes to return to some physical products and mailings, but that won’t be anytime in the foreseeable future.
For now, we are charting a new course for Plume in terms of our mediums, but not in terms of quality or mission. Our goal is still to inspire and encourage women and non-binary writers. As you may have seen on our social media accounts and even referenced on this blog, we have started a podcast. Twice a month, we chat about writing, books, relevant issues in the writing community, and we interview a successful woman or non-binary writer. The first interview is with our featured writer that month, and right now we’re lining up our (fabulous!) past featured writers for the second monthly interviews. It’s a good time, and we hope you’ll give us a listen! You can find the podcast under Plume: A Writer’s Companion on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, and many other podcast platforms (and if we’ve missed your preferred podcast app, please let us know!)
We’ve also started a Patreon. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Patreon is a platform for creatives to build a community and to share their work. Right now we have two tiers: Plume Pal and Plume Petite. Plume Pal is $2/month, and you get a monthly shoutout on the podcast and membership in Plume’s exclusive Facebook group. Plume Petite is $5/ month and this tier includes everything from Plume Pal, as well as the monthly digital edition of Plume. This digital edition is the chapbook of creative work and a letter of encouragement from our featured writer, in electronic, rather than print, format. We’ve got some excellent writers lined up for the rest of the year, so we hope you’ll consider joining to read more of their work and get inspired.
Also, JICYMI! We are still hosting our weekly (free!) Plume Zoom virtual writers’ meet-ups, where we chat about writing challenges and victories, share our work, and sometimes write together. It’s a drop-in group, so don’t worry about staying the whole time or coming every week. You just need to register first. Please note, although we encourage men to join and support our community, this group is one space that we are reserving only for women and non-binary writers.
We don’t know what’s coming, but we do know that we want to continue growing Plume and celebrating the important creative work that you do. Thank you for your engagement and support.
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