One Newsletter I Always Make Time to Read

We subscribe to a lot of newsletters. When you work in the newsletter space, you subscribe to just about anything that seems interesting — sometimes because you want to read it, and sometimes just to see if they’re trying anything that might be worth trying on your newsletter.

But it’s rare to find a newsletter we actually want to read every single time it shows up in the inbox. Dan, for instance, filters almost all of his newsletters into a series of folders. He only lets a handful of newsletters go straight to the primary tab of his inbox. On the days she’s behind in her newsletter inbox reading, Claire often deletes mercilessly in bulk rather than let issues pile up.

The way filmmakers don’t have time to watch a lot of movies and authors don’t always have time to read, newsletter creators have a limited time per day to read other newsletters. However, most have their longtime (or even of-the-moment) favorites. Over the past year, we asked newsletter writers, editors, and operators what they often make time to read and why. We’ll start with our favorites — then we’ll share what others always make time for. (We asked everyone for one newsletter, but some chose to share three or four. More than a handful of writers told us that picking just one felt like picking among their children. We get it — so we’re including all of their picks below!)

Claire Zulkey
Creator, Evil Witches

I nearly always take the time to open and skim Rusty Foster’s Today in Tabs. It gives me a feel for what media/tech/intelligent people care about at the moment with a pithy take that’s irreverent without trying too hard to be edgy. (It probably helps that Rusty is a middle-aged father, so he knows the limits of trying too hard to go for the hot take.) It’s always witty in a way that’s online but doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard to appeal to the very online, which can be a tricky line to toe.

Dan Oshinsky
Consultant, Inbox Collective

Last year, I started a consulting project with a large streaming service, and I realized I didn’t know all that much about the business of Hollywood. I signed up for a few newsletters to learn more about the space, but the one that really stood out was Matthew Belloni’s newsletter, What I’m Hearing, which he writes for Puck. Every edition feels a little like an event — you know when you open it that you’re going to get exclusive reporting and insight you can’t get anywhere else. The depth of the reporting stands out, too. It’s not uncommon for there to be a thousand words of original reporting and commentary before you get to the featured story within the newsletter (which itself might be a thousand words or more). Plus, he’s incorporated reader feedback in such a smart way — he’ll often highlight anonymous feedback he received about a previous newsletter, which sheds light on how others in Hollywood are reacting to the news. When I talk with clients about what a great subscriber-only newsletter should look like, What I’m Reading is the one I point to.

A.J. Daulerio
Creator, The Small Bow

Casey Johnston’s She’s a Beast [about weightlifting]: she’s creating something that she obviously cares about. I think it’s providing a good service; I get something out of it all the time. So that’s kind of the criteria for me.

Anne Helen Petersen
Creator, Culture Study

Mine is Chris La Tray’s An Irritable Métis, which always takes me out of my body and work and space and into something more contemplative. Plus, it’s often really funny. 

Amanda Cua
Founder, Backscoop

The one that I read most of the time is probably Money Abroad by Dexter Zhuang. I really like it because of their cute branding with the penguin, but also the content is great. It’s about personal finance for class. I also try to consciously read newsletters that are outside of my niche. I don’t know how to talk about personal finance, I don’t know how to tailor a newsletter for expats, I also don’t do some of the types of storytelling or writing that he does. I like learning from that as well.

Casey Johnston
Creator, She’s a Beast

I think people would probably imagine since I write about health and science that that would be what most newsletters I read fall under. But this is barely true at all; most of the newsletters I like are smart and fun-to-read digests of subjects I’m interested in knowing about but have no real (or only tangential) involvement in. Others are just very readable writers who have taken their talents to an independent venture, and I feel blessed every day that they have found places to do what they do so well without having to deal with traffic pressure, advertiser pressure, AI, layoffs, and other inanities that have been snuffing media out of existence. 

I open every single After School by Casey Lewis. It’s a smart business-of-fashion-meets-Gen-Z-ethnography newsletter, and she does some pre-chewing of “stuff happening on TikTok,” which is useful to me because TikTok has too high of a dreck-to-value ratio. I appreciate those who do some of the parsing for me. 

I have known the folks over at 404 Media a long time, and their nose for good tech stories is second to none. They cover Garth Brooks’ Bass Pro Shops exclusive CD album as well as they cover AI nonsense.

Related, there are precious few writers who are able to shoot it straight anymore about emerging tech topics or provide them with enough cultural context. Max Read is an exception; I always want to read what he thinks.

I read every The Small Bow. A.J. is a great storyteller and writes so well about recovery.

I am a piggie for whatever is happening on Twitter for the day, and have long relied on Today in Tabs for that. 

Chris LaTray
Creator, An Irritable Métis

I must begin with three newsletters written by generous writers with large readerships whose support and friendship have been monumental in the growth of my own newsletter. Namely, Anne Helen Petersen and her Culture Study newsletter; Lyz Lenz via Men Yell at Me; and Holly Whitaker with Recovering. I doubt I’d still be doing mine if not for these comrades and the feisty examples they set. I love them!

Here are four more that are essential to my newsletter reading rotation. First, Thomas Pluck, who writes What Pluckery Is This? Tom and I have been rubbing elbows for almost two decades now, first as contributors to various crime and noir anthologies and now as newsletter writers. Tom is smart, funny, and entertaining as hell. His newsletter covers lots of ground, but what I love in particular are his adventures up and down the East Coast mostly, and especially in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where he lives. Witty and insightful and not without the occasional fart joke.

Next is my friend Anna East, who writes EastKeep, “a newsletter about what it takes to be a teacher.” Importantly, Anna’s background in tribal interactions and her current work in Indigenous language education has been incredibly helpful to the work I do that fuels my newsletter. It is important, important work, and I would be far less effective without her knowledge and advice.

Sometimes I feel like Antonia Malchik is the smartest person I know. It shows in her newsletter, On the Commons. She writes about private property and land use and so much more. The indignation overlap I share with her on so much of what she writes about is exceeded only by the love we share for the world. I keep people like that close to me. Antonia is one of the best.

Finally, the work the folks at The Border Chronicle — Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller — are doing from their base in Tucson is essential and far too overlooked. There is so much bullshit and horror going on down there regardless of who occupies the Oval Office in D.C., and far too few people pay attention to it. Things might change if more people read The Border Chronicle, and I hope more choose to.

Daniel Lavery
Creator, The Chatner

I almost always read Max Read’s Read Max, which is the only way I will even accidentally pick up business and technology news. I have to have that kind of information pureed and snuck into my brownies and macaroni and cheese, like that one Jessica Seinfeld cookbook from 2007.

Ephraim Gopin
Creator, Email 366

I’m gonna shock you a bit: I subscribe to a TON of daily and weekly newsletters and I read all of them! In fact, because I work in the nonprofit space, I am also subscribed to well over 100 nonprofit organization newsletters and I read every email that comes into my inbox. Yes, I’m a nutcase like that, but I like to see what nonprofits out there are up to and learn from their good and bad (and use that in the newsletters I publish).

If I had to give a shoutout to those that I think bring major value to the table beyond what I expected:

• Why We Buy, Katelyn Bourgoin’s excellent weekly newsletter. So smart, well written, always teaches me something new.
• All Things CX and Retention, from Eli Weiss. It’s an excellent weekly dive into a topic (usually ecommerce related) and I always learn from it.

Hunter Harris
Creator, Hung Up

Line Sheet by Lauren Sherman — I wouldn’t even consider myself a fashion girl, and a lot of the very inside baseball fashion business reporting goes over my head, but Lauren Sherman’s newsletter is an immediate open. This one-off line about Taylor Swift’s fashion (non-)influence: “Her fashion is aspirational to many 14-year-olds, or someone of any age who wishes to look like a senior at Emerson College in 2006.” Amazing.

Babbling On by Hilton Dresden — A newsletter is an exercise in trust. I never know where a Babbling On email will begin or end, they arrive irregularly, and yet I’m bowled over every time. Hilton is such a hilarious, insightful, irreverent voice — I love her work.

Gossip Time by Allie Jones — Because I am always late and Allie Jones is forever early to every celebrity trend, sometimes Hung Up and Gossip Time overlap. I’m thrilled and terrified every time: Allie writes shorter than me, and better than me. Gossip Time is a drop-everything-and-read email for me.

¡Hola Papi! by John Paul Brammer — JP’s writing is expressive and generous and thoughtful and fun. JP mines the ordinary — advice-seekers with problems in love, dating, friendship, family drama — for really full-hearted reflections. And, if nothing else, his “Real Housewives of New York” recaps had at least three lines that made me clutch my chest in a good way.

Ines Bellina
Creator, The Cranky Guide to Writing

At the risk of fangirling, I read newsletters that my own newsletter aspires to be. I’m thinking of Jami Attenberg’s Craft Talk and Alicia Kennedy’s From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy. Both writers have the types of career I can only dream of having, but what I admire most about them is that they’ve forged it in completely idiosyncratic ways. Their newsletters maintain that rogue spirit. Though they each have a strong, identifiable topic — writing in Jami’s case, food in Alicia’s — they aren’t afraid to ruminate, explore, and experiment with the format. I read them to learn and feel inspired, but also because they’re simply good writing.

Jay Clouse
Creator, Creator Science

I’ve been reading a lot of Chenell Basilio’s Growth in Reverse. It’s very deep, and it’s very specific as well. There are a lot of great long form newsletters like Generalist or Not Boring, even Stratechery, but I’ll put that aside. These long-form newsletters traverse a lot of subjects. For someone who has a lot of long-ranging interests, it’s stimulating to read those. But I’m not looking for stimulating; I’m looking for a specific edge that I can get in building my business, and there aren’t a lot of people writing that for me.

Jay Acunzo’s personal newsletter, Playing Favorites is one. Jay really leans into a message of quality and personal standards, and he’s also a great storyteller. That’s one I read because I enjoy the experience of reading it.

Joanna Goddard
Creator, Big Salad

One is Ali LaBelle’s à la carte. She has incredible taste and fun finds that I haven’t seen before, and her movie shopping round-ups — like this one about what the Parent Trap characters would wear today — delight me every time.

I also love Youngna Park’s newsletter, Making It Work, for smart finds, life hacks, and parenting commiseration. And Hung Up by Hunter Harris is such funny, fast pop-culture writing that my head spins after reading it, and I love that! Hunter says her newsletter’s written for people who are extremely-online and extremely-with taste, which makes me laugh.

Julia Glum
News Editor, Money

One newsletter I always make sure to open is Rest of World’s The Global. Not only do I love the weekly roundup of RoW’s brilliant feature stories — every Tuesday, without fail, I end up opening multiple tabs and learning something new — but I also think the “dispatches from the ground” section is a clever way to quickly share a lot of information on international issues. I actually modeled a quiz in one of my own newsletters after The Global’s, which uses CTAs/links to webpages for each answer instead of a widget.

My friends and I can’t stop talking about This Week at Baby’s, a weekly rundown of concerts at a Williamsburg music venue. We don’t actually go to the shows — we simply love the newsletter because it’s pure chaos. Each listing includes off-the-wall reviews of the band by Baby’s employees (with Instagram handles linked). It also includes a playlist and signs off with “love u bye,” which never fails to make me smile. It’s a testament to the fact that readers aren’t always looking for technical perfection or high-level analysis — sometimes, they just open for good vibes.

Katherine Jezer-Morton
Creator, Brooding

I always read Embedded, by Kate Lindsay. It’s a newsletter about internet culture, and it very consistently teaches me new things. Also, Kate gets right to the point, and a lot of the interviews and essays are on the shorter side. All killer, no filler, as they say. 

Kim France
Creator, Girls of a Certain Age

I am always delighted when a new installment of Drinks With Broads arrives in my inbox. It’s an offshoot of Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan’s hugely popular celebrity style blog, Go Fug Yourself, and I rely on it to bring me the funniest TV recaps anywhere, important gossip of the day, and awards show wrap-ups. I find most celebrity-centric newsletters and blogs to be a bit mean-spirited, and what I love about Heather and Jessica is that even though their writing has plenty of edge, they both obviously have big hearts, and things never get ugly.

Leigh Kamping-Carder
Head of Newsletters, The Wall Street Journal

I always open What to Read If, a weekly newsletter billed as the place “where book lovers find their next great read.” Writer Elizabeth Held taps into the zeitgeist — recent recommendations have touched on Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter,” the Shohei Ohtani drama, and the eclipse — but also into delightfully specific situations, like what to read if… “You Too are Falling Asleep Early,” “You’re Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner with Your Mom,” or “You’d Love to Say Bonjour to the Eiffel Tower.” The newsletter consistently delivers on its premise, turning the notion of genre inside out while offering handy ideas for my list of books to read. Plus, with clear headings and bite-sized reviews (rarely more than three paragraphs apiece), “What to Read If” is, well, easy to read.

Lyz Lenz
Creator, Men Yell at Me

The Department of Salad, by Emily Nunn. It’s beautiful, it’s tasty. I’ve made a few of the recipes. It’s just a nice escape for my brain. It’s a happy little gem, I look forward to opening it. In a world that’s on fire or dying, in a world that’s like “Bad news! Bad news!”, you can make your own Caesar salad. For at least one hour, you will enjoy something.

Nathália Pandeló Corrêa
Creator, Imagina Só

Uma Palavra, by Aline Valek — Aline Valek is a Brazilian writer currently living in Germany. She made a name for herself on the internet, building a readership over the years via her weekly newsletter, but also crossing over into the “real world” through handmade zines and a few novels. Her writing is personal, but also so relatable. Aline is great at finding beauty in the banal, in everyday life in a refreshing way. I tend to write long newsletter posts, and it’s great to learn from her the ability to say so much in such few paragraphs. 

Passageiro, by Matheus de Souza — Passageiro is a newsletter written by a former digital nomad, so it is filled with travel stories and tales from the road. Matheus is currently based in Paris, but life has already taken him to lesser-known destinations, which he writes about with generosity. He’s not trying to make them sound exotic — he’s showing the life that exists in these places far beyond the most usual tourist spots. Matheus also writes about writing, a topic that will interest basically anyone who considers themselves a writer (of any kind). The fact that he associates the essay with a song makes it even more tangible.

Tira do Papel, by Tiago Henriques — This is a newsletter that may appear too simple and even too short. It’s a two-minute read, which makes it easily stand out in my inbox. It always amazes me how much Tiago can deliver with so little writing. He also says a lot with the illustrations, collages and photos — yes, in the age of AI, it’s all done manually — that adds layers to each edition. His content is focused on helping creative people find ways to create their art, especially those who have been dormant for so long (myself included). Henriques makes creators get out of their heads and free from their preconceptions to find new angles to develop something unique. That makes his newsletter both helpful and enjoyable to read.

Kate McKean
Creator, Agents + Books

I like Dearest, which is about antique jewelry. Monica McLaughlin publishes not super consistently, which I’m OK with. I don’t remember when she does or doesn’t post. I’m like, “ooh a treat!”, instead of “here’s three posts a week.” It’s very absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder. 

Min Le
Email Marketing Strategist, KQED

I usually open all Litmus newsletters to keep up to the date on the latest email trends, design and news. They recently came out with their perfected email templates that anyone can use, which is a great “litmus” to how our emails are stacking up and what improvements I can make.

Pete Huang
Co-founder, The Neuron

Semafor has a lot of really good stuff. I love their Technology newsletter. It’s original reporting, but it’s done in a way that is much more personality driven. The writer behind it, Reed Albergotti — I trust his take. He’s a journalist, and he really understands the industry.

Roxane Gay
Creator, The Audacity

I subscribe to Jami Atteberg’s newsletter on writing, Craft Talk, and her new one about aging, The 52 Project. I also subscribe to David Kwong’s newsletter about puzzles, Enigmatology, which is a fun read every week. Others I subscribe to are Lauren Hough, who is such a great writer [with Badreads], Brandon Taylor [at Sweater Weather] who is an incredible critic and novelist among many other things, and Sohla El-Waylly’s newsletter about cooking, Hot Dish with Sohia. 

Rusty Foster
Creator, Today in Tabs

I read Casey Newton’s Platformer more often than not. I like the new Last Week’s New Yorker. It goes through the previous week’s New Yorker stories and sorts them into “must read” and “don’t read.” It gives a good summary of them. I almost always read Tom Scoccca’s newsletter Indignity.

Sari Botton
Creator, Oldster

I don’t have a whole lot of time to read other newsletters, especially since I am producing three of my own. That said, I subscribe to, gulp, 306 of them on Substack, and a few more on other platforms. (I know, it’s nuts.)

Girls of a Certain Age — I’ve been reading what started out as Gen X icon Kim France’s blog, and is now a newsletter, for pretty much as long as she has been producing it. I love her style and lifestyle tips, and often purchase things she recommends. Behind a paywall, she’s also been posting chapters of the memoir she ultimately chose not to publish, and it is so good, and filled with juicy media gossip from a different time. Plus, she’s added a Q&A series.

The Small Bow — I love The Small Bow’s new tagline: “A recovery newsletter for everyone.” I am not in recovery, but I have loved reading this newsletter since A.J. Daulerio started publishing it in 2018. Yes, it’s often about recovery, but it’s more broadly about mental health and being human. I am so inspired and moved by every post, often to tears. 

It’s Not Us — Last year, author Sara Eckel extended the premise of her smart book, “It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single,” to a newsletter that explores “the ways that individuals confront systemic problems — and the ways they navigate the line between what they can control and what they can’t.” Every entry is eye-opening. And realizing where we don’t have power is surprisingly… empowering.

The Marginalian — Maria Popova curates the most inspiring thoughts and writings from some of the greatest creative minds of the past and today.

Tanmoy Goswami
Creator, Sanity by Tanmoy

The one that I absolutely love is by Peter Fremlin. He produces this newsletter called Disability Debrief. There is nothing like this on the internet. He is a disabled creator. What he does is both a roundup of disability news from around the world, which I love because nobody else is doing that, but then also really speaks with. He surfaces people from parts of the world that the mainstream media has forgotten. Just the other day, he produced something from a disabled activist in Yemen about life in Yemen.

The reason why I like it, apart from these functional reasons, is also because I have had a very uneasy relationship with the idea of my own disability. Reading his work allows me to think of all the ways when I’m actually disabled by my illness and still feel like there is this whole other community. I mean, when you are writing about mental health, sometimes you feel like that’s an ocean already. Then to connect with this other much bigger ocean called disability — I’ve been wanting to explore the connection between visible and invisible disabilities, and his work serves as a bridge, helps me explore that world, makes me contextualize my own struggles in a larger context.

Quinn Emmett
Creator, Important, Not Important

Someone who really does incredible work — it’s not going to be the most uplifting — but it’s the real deal, is Amy Westervelt. She’s a climate journalist, and she writes a newsletter and a whole media empire called Drilled. She’s done incredible investigative reporting, but also puts together a weekly newsletter with a lot of really hard-hitting news. It’s like she’s saying, “Look, there’s bad guys out there, and this is what you need to know about them.’”

Vidar Bergum
Creator, A Kitchen in Istanbul and Mezze

Alicia Kennedy is one of the top food writers, and she’s got a very unique perspective on food writing, which really, really appeals to me. And she’s touching on topics that I think go a little bit beyond what a lot of people think of as food writing. So it really engages my brain as well. It makes me question things that I think I should be questioning as a food writer.

I think a lot of people who have a platform in our space, they take the responsibility that comes with that a bit too lightheartedly. I think reading Alicia’s newsletter is really a good way of keeping on your toes in terms of that and realizing we’re actually delving in a space which isn’t just about pretty pictures and making a nice meal — there are questions about culture. And I think it’s our responsibility as writers with an audience to, maybe you don’t need to have an opinion on everything, but I think you should at least be thinking about those questions and be aware of the responsibility you have when you’re sharing stuff.

Virginia Sole-Smith
Creator, Burnt Toast

​​Evil Witches, for sure. I definitely read Sara Louise Peterson’s In Pursuit of Clean Countertops. I open every issue of Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study — I’m always interested in it. My friend Amy Palanjian does Yummy Toddler Food, and I always read hers. When I’m, like, “What am I making for dinner tonight? Oh, here’s Amy’s email. Okay, this will tell me.”

Zain Kahn
Co-founder, Superhuman

I don’t read any of the massive newsletters. I’m more interested in the hyper-niche stuff. The CEO of Beehiiv, Tyler Denk, he has his newsletter, Big Desk Energy, which I read every week.  He’s also a startup founder plus in the newsletter industry — that’s just interesting to see. I think they have an interesting culture as well, and they ship very fast. I find that one interesting.

Update: Joanna Goddard’s recommendation was added to this piece on 4/20/24 at 2:40 p.m.