Two Years of Writing Emails

Plus Big Fat Summer To Dos! And a giveaway.

I obviously always dress up this much for work. (Photo by Stephanie Diani for The Times)

Two years ago this week, I launched Burnt Toast.

I’d actually been working towards that moment for about six months, so regular readers know the story: In January 2021, I lost two anchor clients and realized that after nearly 20 years of freelance writing for corporate media, I was done. Done with the hustle and uncertainty of erratic freelance income. Done with the tacit agreement that seemed to come with almost every contract that I’d be available to editors 24/7 and keep my parenting work invisible and secondary to their needs.

Most of all, I was done with the continual compromises required to write about body liberation for media outlets who have never reckoned with their own institutional anti-fat bias. Or how that bias informs their editorial process and advertising relationships.   

So I turned on paid subscriptions and kept writing, and launched the podcast too. This list grew to 10,000, then 20,000, and then 30,000, and we just keep going! Those of you with paid subscriptions cover my income and enable me to pay contributors — namely the amazing

Corinne Fay

and Tommy Harron, without whom, there would be no Burnt Toast! You also provide honorariums to podcast guests, which is key to centering marginalized voices in this space. (And when a guest declines the honorarium, we donate it to the cause of their choice.) You guarantee I can offer comp subscriptions to anyone who asks. And Burnt Toast has supported an independent film on eating disorders, raised funds for state legislatures, is a regular donor to ASDAH and NAAFA, and will be a sponsor of PhillyFatCon this October. You’ve made all of that possible.  

I’ve never loved a job more.

That’s partly because it turns out that newslettering might just be the one truly sustainable writing business model. (For more of my inside baseball thoughts on the newsletter biz, check out this conversation with

KJ

on the

The #AmWriting Podcast

.) And it’s in much larger part because of all of you. The community we’re building here is one of the great joys of my life. I love the discussions we have here. I love how you hold me accountable when I get it wrong. I love your good faith questions and how much we are learning together.

Talking Fat Talk and Substack Success: Episode 362 with Virginia Sole-Smith

I wanted Burnt Toast to be a place where I could report out the nuances of what it means to exist in a fat (or otherwise-marginalized) body in an anti-fat, beauty ideals-obsessed culture. I wanted to be able to chase down answers to a question truly plaguing a lot of us—like why are all the jeans bad— without worrying about whether or not I had a newshook. And without explaining to a thin editor why yes this matters and no weight loss won’t solve it. I wanted to tell stories I couldn’t tell anywhere else, and build a platform that could help center voices that aren’t being heard in enough other spaces. 

We are doing all of this—and more.

Because I didn’t expect that writing this newsletter would help me start to unpack my own relationship with perfectionism. I didn’t expect to be able to be my full, unapologetic plant lady self here, because I grew up in traditional journalism where journalists don’t really get to be people.

The garden, currently

I didn’t expect what it would mean to me to have this space, when I went back out into the wider media world this year, to talk about the AAP guidelines and then to promote the book. I know the value of being a person who can get conversations about anti-fat bias into the mainstream media. I also know the cost of that work and wow has it been easier to roll with the backlash this time, knowing I’ve already got my people. We’ve already built the safe space. 

Depending on when you first subscribed, you may be getting a notification this month that it’s time to renew. Of course I hope you still consider this a community still worth investing in! And if you renew or subscribe for the first time this week, you can take 20 percent off the usual subscription price. 

But if it’s no longer financially feasible for you to do so, just let me know and I’ll happily move you to the comp list. Even if you never open another email from me, I’ll always be grateful you were here, helping us make this place. 

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Big Fat Summer To Do List!

I don’t have a lot of grand plans for what’s next for Burnt Toast right now. There are some story ideas percolating, there is a great list of podcast guests lined up. But I mostly want us to keep doing what we’re doing—and to lean into what my book twin

Sara Petersen

is calling our Summer of Minimal Effort (after a rather effortful spring/last two years!). So rather than brainstorming out some big vision for the newsletter today, Corinne and I came up with our big fat, anti-diet summer to dos, instead.

Virginia’s List

1. Become an accidental dahlia farmer. You’ll hear the full story on an upcoming podcast, but I ended up ordering more than double the number of dahlia tubers I needed and have now planted 66(!) in my garden. Will they all make it? Will I learn how to effectively pinch and stake them? Should I be on Gardener’s World? Stay tuned.

2. Go on Kid/Dog/Ice Cream Dates. We’ve been taking the kids and Penelope to get cones at our favorite local ice cream spot and it’s so much more delightful now that everyone is old enough to mostly not bathe in chocolate ice cream or drop their cone and cry! I’ve also been wanting more one-on-one time with each of my girls (they are delightful together, but we have such different conversations this way) and this feels like such an easy and repeatable format.

3. Read a lot of feminist romance/beach reads. I’m in a new feminist romance book club with two friends (at least we have a group chat NAMED Feminist Romance Book Club, which seems like a promising start!). Give us recs! Also I just want to read a lot of fun fiction, preferably from a pool float.

Corinne’s List

1. Powerlifting Meet! I started lifting in December and I am now in the midst of meet prep for my first ever powerlifting meet, the Southwest Women's Open. I'm nervous, but my coach told me to think of it as a snapshot of my lifting at a specific moment in time. I can't wait to see how competing feels and my mom is coming to watch! 

2. Fat Swim. I feel like fat pool parties loom large in the collective consciousness of plus size folks (like on Shrill) and yet I have never been to one! So a friend and I are going to host one in New Mexico in a couple of weeks. I can't wait!!

3. Ice Cream. I love ice cream year round but I especially love getting a cone and eating it outside when it's hot. We are lucky enough to have a new soft serve spot in Albuquerque with the most delicious toppings, like roasted hazelnuts and maldon sea salt. I hope to be eating that at LEAST once a week all summer long.

Tell us yours! (Yes, it can also be ice cream.)

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Two Years Of Burnt Toast Reader Survey & Giveaway

Speaking of where do we go next, I’ve put together a new version of our annual reader survey and I would love, love, love you to fill it out. We’ll be collecting responses all month so yes I will remind you five million more times. And everybody who completes the survey will be entered in our Two Years of Burnt Toast Giveaway! We’ll choose two winners (for two years!) at random on July 1. 

Your prize: Signed copies of BOTH of my books, your pick of any book featured on the Burnt Toast Podcast, a box of the world’s best brownie mix, and some fun Fat Talk swag. Fill the survey out here! 

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Book Tour Reminder

We’ve got one more book tour stop coming up! I’ll be at Northshire Books in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, June 15 at 6pm, in conversation with the brilliant Kate Manne. Come on out, upstate NY! Register here.