I have been touched by Sally’s generosity and kindness towards me, her giving spirit, her willing ear, her ready advice. Early in substack, before notes, she was one of the first people to “befriend” me on Office Hours, the sole social hangout space on substack at the time. She has encouraged me and offered me advice when writing fiction here on Gibberish.
I challenge any one of you to say you don’t know who she is, that she has said an unkind word to you, and that she hasn’t tried her best to help you succeed. I challenge any one of you to say the worlds she writes haven’t invited you in and made you feel things. It’s an easy challenge, I know there’s no one out there who can say it honestly. Even Substack recognized her talent and community-building by making her a featured publication the very first week of the new year. 2024 is the year for fiction.
So I am writing this, not because this is my idea, but because this is an idea many people I speak to share, that we want to help make Sally’s dream of writing full-time a reality. And making this dream a reality asks for two things: First, to spare $5 to put towards a deserving souls dream. Second, to share this appeal with two people. Spare, and Share.
Why Sally? Why Now?
Like many of you, I was touched by Sally’s recent essay at
called “Of Fluttering Eyes & Forecasts”. In it, Sally describes the challenges of writing full-time. It’s a BIG dream, and we live for big dreams. But it also raised, in myself and others, a very real concern: There’s a remote chance that Sally’s dream can not come true. If she can no longer commit to sharing her worlds with us, it is we who will suffer, by losing her writing magic and the community she curates around fiction on substack.I’m not writing this because Sally is a friend—though I do consider her a friend! I am not writing this because Sally is talented—though she IS talented. We all have many friends, and many of those friends are very talented. But not everyone we encounter has this confluence of talent, generosity, and ability which Sally has actualized in her writing. Not everyone we encounter has a dream hanging on a knifes edge the way Sally does.
Sparing $5 does not cost each of us very much. It’s not about a subscription, it’s not about what she is giving us. It’s not about whether it’s worth it. We know Sally’s writing is worth it. All of us, we already know how good she is. Sparing $5 makes us Patrons of a dream. She just quietly announced, in her typical understated way, that she has 2,000 subscribers. If each of those subscribers contributed $5, that would be $10,000. $10,000 falling out of the sky is enough to change most people’s lives forever. It’s enough to keep a dream alive forever.
Will you help become a Patron of this dream? Will you help make Substack a Dream-Engine?
Spread The Word
Share this post with two people. Any two people. And challenge them to do the same. The only way to make fiction work on Substack is to help bring eyes to fiction. At
, Sally hosts Talestack News where you can learn not just about her fiction but ALL fiction in the Substack fiction universe. Because Sally cares about helping you as much as she is working hard to grow herself. Sally is the rising tide.Sharing this article will have the twofold effect of helping Sally, and helping you. If you write fiction, Talestack News will point eyes to your writing. If you read fiction, you will be swimming in some of the best fiction writers in the world who are WAITING for a chance to be published, WAITING for a chance to be discovered.
Share this article with two people. Two people who will love the engaging and imaginative world of Ferris Island Sally has created. People who will love the subtle magic of her story, The Book. People who will love the expansive, heartfelt, and overwhelming world of The Sleeper, The Singer and Cliffsong.
Imagine if all those stories disappeared. $5 can give them life.
Spare and Share
Spare $5, and make yourself a Patron of the Arts. Share this article, and help save a dream.
Thank you for reading, thank you for considering. Thank you for helping not just my friend, but a true friend of all of us. Thank you for helping her stories become stories we tell, and stories we share. Thank you for helping all of the Substack Fiction community.
God bless you!
- Scoot