Patti Smith is launching a subscription-based newsletter via Substack, titled The reader is my notebook. The musician, poet, and author shared the announcement in a (wonderfully digressive) video posted to Instagram, saying that it will include original essays about books or films she’s enjoyed, as well as images, “shards” of poetry and music, and explanations of how she wrote certain songs.
Paying subscribers will also gain access to a serial written by the punk icon over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Titled The Melting, she describes the serial as: “a journal of my private pandemic.”
“Every morning for some hours, at my usual café, I sit and write,” Smith says in an introduction to the newsletter. “Notebook and coffee reign. Writing is what I do, and have since twelve, imagining myself Jo March. Now, in the time of the pandemic, isolated from family, friends, and fellow workers, we are reinventing our processes.”
“Through Substack I plan to form an inter-connective body of work for a responsive community.”
In 2020, Smith was awarded the PEN America Literary Service Award for her multifaceted writing, which has seen her pair “vital literary and raw punk sensibilities”. She’s also shared new poems to mark Greta Thunberg’s birthday, while earlier this month it was announced that she’ll play a socially-distanced show for Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday.
Dazed recently asked a bunch of the best fashion newsletter writers for their top tips on running a successful Substack gig. If, like Patti Smith, you’re looking at getting into the newsletter game (or just interested in how it works) check out their advice here.
Watch Patti Smith’s newsletter announcement below.