Hi friends!
Wow, I feel like it has been so long because, well, it has :)
First of all, this e-mail might look a little different than what I’ve sent before. That’s because I’ve changed the platform to Substack, and I think I’ll stick to this one for now :)
So…where have I been? I was on an amazing vacation in France - I visited Paris, Bordeaux, Antibes, Monaco, Nice, Aix-en-Provence, Lyon where I saw a World Cup game(!!!), and the middle of nowhere countryside where I met the sweetest lil pup <3 After I got back I was busy applying for a fellowship, but I’m done and I’m back with some updates and reads.
But right before I left for France, Medium reached out to me to feature a piece I had already written for them! I worked with a fantastic editor to refine it, and it was published to Medium's new political publication, GEN. In "Facts Alone Won't Destroy Fake News", I explore how the concept of fake news can be fought in a different way: by investigating personal bias and experience as opposed to proving facts.
Then, something quite unexpected happened. An editor from The Times of India reached out to me to edit and publish the same piece! It was so heartwarming to have my relatives in India snap pictures of the piece in print and send it to me! They didn't even know it was going to be published. So not only was this great in terms of distribution, but it meant a lot personally. Feel free to take a read here.
I'm so grateful to be manifesting my writing and sharing it with you. But I also want to share some great pieces I have read as well.
- I love how Madhuri Sastry digs into colonialism and mothering in Body Boundaries, Indian Culture, and Healing Enough to Be Mothers to Our Mothers - this is a beautiful and very relatable piece.
- I took a class through Catapult earlier this year, and a classmate of mine, Shanna B. Tiayon, published Vacation Memories Marred by the Indelible Stain of Racism in Longreads! I was so thrilled to hear about this and then read it. She explores the realities of racism in the outdoors.
- Lastly, I'm so glad I read The Crane Wife in The Paris Review. The writing is woven so easily and while the story tells of pain, it also sings of triumph.
Whew, thanks for reading if you've gotten this far. I'll be in touch more, promise!
And here’s a pic of my boo and me at the World Cup game!
With love,
Nisha