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2 weeks ago | 
courtney.substack.com | Courtney Martin |Amanda Ripley |Anna Sale
Thank you so much to all of you that became paid subscribers last week in response to my little plea. Interestingly, right after writing it, I found out that I didn’t get a fellowship that I applied for—something that would have given me more space and time to write about eldercare—so it was especially sweet to see that my paying membership scooted upwards. You cushioned my rejection with your generosity. I am now at 826 and I’m still shooting for 1,000.
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3 weeks ago | 
momspreading.substack.com | Sarah Wheeler |Viet Thanh Nguyen |Courtney Martin |Katherine Goldstein
The other night it was 70 degrees in Oakland, so my seven-year-old daughter and I filled a bag with cold desserts and took her bike to the local basketball courts to sit and lick and watch another mom run drills with her son (“I love the mom-coaching that’s going on!” my daughter remarked. This child tho).
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3 weeks ago | 
courtney.substack.com | Courtney Martin |Amanda Ripley |Katherine Goldstein
If you read this newsletter (and over 20,000 of you do! How thrilling!) then you know that I pour my heart into delivering essays on the personal, the political, and the ethical every single week (sometimes in the midst of some pretty intense caregiving). In the last year, I’ve been really leaning into voicing what it’s like to be someone caring, not just for two beautiful, small weirdos, but my parents, and most especially, my dear dad, whose dementia is very advanced.
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1 month ago | 
thegoldenhour.substack.com | Anya Kamenetz |Courtney Martin
Hello friends. It’s my beginning-of-the-week paywalled post! Copy this and send it to a friend who says they are “tuning out the news.” Almost 10 of you are joining in every week! I was grateful for the callout last week in ’s about how she’s approaching reading the news. I’m a journalist with two decades of experience. I’ve covered technology and policy in depth, and I have a special interest in media literacy and mental health—how we experience the news, and what it does to us.
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1 month ago | 
courtney.substack.com | Courtney Martin |Anya Kamenetz |Twilight Greenaway
It seems like everyone is having a sort of come-to-Jesus with themselves about news consumption. Glennon Doyle and her crew are talking about “calm news.” has a new series called “What Really Happened Last Week” in an attempt to protect her readers from all the sturm and drang. And The Harvard Business Reviewis worried about the elite getting overwhelmed.
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1 month ago | 
courtney.substack.com | Courtney Martin |Sarah Wheeler |Garrett Bucks
It hasn’t been a big movie-watching year for me, truth be told, but I still enjoyed hearing my very smart, very funny palstalking about the Oscars tonight. I’ll be watching, clueless about the movies but very much enjoying the vibes, I’m sure.
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1 month ago | 
thegoldenhour.substack.com | Anya Kamenetz |Sarah Mathews |Courtney Martin |Garrett Bucks
Hello friends. Community, friendships, and mutual aid have been on everyone’s lips, seemingly, since the election. I’ve been listening and learning from so many amazing writers like , , , , and ; we touched on this theme in my podcast conversation with a little while ago, too. Katharine Wilkinson: " Extraordinary, productive, magical things happen in the dark" Building community IRL is difficult when people are even more stressed out than normal and, as always, feeling pressed for time.
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1 month ago | 
courtney.substack.com | Courtney Martin |Elissa Strauss
Hey y’all, don’t miss new episodes out this week from The Wise Unknown and The Greenroom. Do you like these little audio essay experiments? Let me know. And as always, when you subscribe to this substack, or even more, become a paid subscriber, you signal to me that this work matters and is useful and beautiful to you. That’s my whole thing. Thank you so much for being here and creating such a gorgeous example of humanity really showing up in the comments section.
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2 months ago | 
mercurynews.com | Courtney E. Martin |Courtney Martin
When my dad was young, he took off his own braces with pliers in the garage after his parents ran out of money to take him to the orthodontist. He answered the door for debt collectors, faking as if his parents weren’t home to avoid confrontations. He knew economic precarity in his tiny bones. It’s no wonder, really, he became a bankruptcy lawyer when he grew up.
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2 months ago | 
courtney.substack.com | Courtney Martin |Laurel Braitman |Elissa Strauss
This was a really special conversation. It felt sacred to hear stories from two people who have lost their homes in fires, years apart, and see the ways in which grief and loss and renewal and family are all intertwined so infinitely. And is just always a gift to hear from.
