What is The Truth Does Not Change According to Our Ability to Stomach It?

If there was a Venn Diagram featuring two circles, one being journalism and the other being essay, this newsletter would occur at the place where those circles intersect. Kind of like this:

This newsletter is inspired by many things: great novels, beautiful essays, narrative journalism, long drives, big trees. It is a place for readers who are curious about what it’s like to be a working writer right now — the good, the bad, the sad, the hilarious. I talk to writers about writing and non-writers about the interesting things they do. Occasionally I share my feelings about making journalism. Sometimes I give behind-the-scenes tidbits from my reporting on the Western United States in the past two decades. Every month (and sometimes more than every month if you’re a paid subscriber) you will find something new here. I hope you like it.

The sentence “the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it” is one uttered by the great writer Flannery O’Connor, whose work and life I take much inspiration from.

About Leah Sottile

Leah Sottile is the author of the books Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets and the Fever Dream of the American New Age and When the Moon Turns to Blood: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell and a Story of Murder, Faith and End Times. As a freelance journalist, her features, profiles, investigations and essays have been published by the Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, California Sunday Magazine, Outside, The Atlantic and High Country News. She is the host of the podcasts Hush (OPB) Burn Wild and Two Minutes Past Nine (BBC), and the twice National Magazine Award-nominated series Bundyville. You can read her work here.

Why subscribe?

Right now, the situation is dire for freelance journalists like myself. There are fewer publications to write for than ever, with outlets shutting down regularly. By supporting this publication, you are directly funding the journalism I create about the western United States. Subscriber dollars have paid for countless public records requests, research expeditions, reporting trips and gas mileage — all of which have turned into works of journalism, be it in book, longform article or podcast form. I cannot state it enough: paid subscribers have kept me in journalism when paychecks I am owed simply just aren’t coming. For that, you have my deepest gratitude.

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