2020 was the year newsletters got big. Of course, the "rise of newsletters" thinkpieces have been coming steadily for quite some time, but we are in a fresh moment of zeitgeisty breakthrough. I love that it's become normal for readers to pay writers, and I have benefited directly from this! But it also makes me uneasy to consider how the heralded rise of newsletters fits into the broader media picture. Most publications slashed their budgets this year, and many disappeared altogether. These trends are connected: Newsletters like mine are part of a shift from collectively produced media to standalone writing by well-known individuals.

This puts me in an awkward spot. I'm a self-employed writer who's been sending a newsletter for seven years—a success story of this new era. I am also a former editor who loves magazines, and a former intern who hasn't forgotten how hard it is to make a name for yourself in this industry. How do I reconcile these facts?

**BIG NEWS!** I'm making a few changes around here in 2021. I'm starting a fellowship for two writers who aren't yet established. I'll be regularly featuring their work in my newsletter to help them build their own following. (Click for details about that.) I'm also going to start paying artists to license their work for the header image of this newsletter. (Click here if you're an artist who's interested.) And I'll be making regular charitable donations, based on your suggestions. To pay for all of this, membership rates are going up to a $15/year minimum in early 2021.

I wrote a short essay about all of this, with more details on what's to come. Please read it! 

Thanks for muddling through it with me, and being part of the ongoing experiment that is this newsletter. I'm grateful for you every year, but this weekly practice has been such an anchor for me through the pandemic. "Now more than ever," as they say, I appreciate you clicking and reading.

Millions of hungry Americans are turning to food banks for the first time, and more people are shoplifting to survive. Renters who were just getting by before the pandemic are now teetering on the brink of eviction. How direct-giving apps like Venmo and Cash App are upending the old charity model. The astronomical cost of childcare in the pandemic. Motherhood in America is a multilevel marketing scheme. The women who fear the pandemic stole their chance to become mothers. A single mother in rural Appalachia on what Hillbilly Elegy gets wrong. Abolitionists Mariame Kaba and Josie Duffy Rice on rethinking accountability and punishment. Casey Goodson, Jr. was killed by police last week for carrying a sandwich the cops thought looked like a gun, and Kawasaki Trawick was killed by police last year for holding a bread knife in his own kitchen. "My role was victim and teacher all at once, and it enraged me." How police came to be stationed in schools, and how Black Oaklanders got them out. When your hometown football team gets a new identity. The last children of Down syndrome. What does it mean to consider yourself a disabled person? The athlete's guide to menopause. Our quarantine brains often ask, to post or not to post?

Pie is free thanks to all of you who support this newsletter with your dollars! Become a paying member here. If you're already a member, you can increase, decrease, or cancel your membership here.

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On CYG, the great Myisha Battle chats about setting personal boundaries around COVID safety. Photographer Curtis Ray Benally's portraits of indigenous women on their tribal lands, and Reynaldo Rivera’s photos of Los Angeles's queer underground scene. What mutual aid looks like. A quiz to find your quiz.

What isn't a pyramid scheme these days?

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Snacking season! I'm making Crispix arare, the perfect mixed nuts, spicy buffalo white-bean dip, and my most beloved cheeseball. 

Our last Big Friendship conversation of the year is happening next week—Wednesday, December 16—with Rebecca Traister at NYPL. It's free. Join us and invite a friend!