Below you’ll find links, meeting times, streaks, and who’s working on what. This page will be pinned in all our calendar events. I’ve tagged everyone who filled out our Google Form, but consider subscribing to the “Essay Club” section in your account settings to ensure you get these each month.

Meeting times:

Live feedback exchanges:

Look out for calendar invites. I recommended you bring a draft for live feedback (these events work as a good forcing function). But I can also (a) pair up people for discussion, and (b) create a focused writing room. Make sure you join the calls before :10 after!

• Tuesday, 6/10 at 3pm ET;

• Thursday, 6/12 at 7pm ET (rescheduled from 6/5);

• Tuesday, 6/17 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 6/20 at 3pm ET;

• Friday, 6/27 at 3pm ET.

Writing gyms:

We also have writing gyms on Mondays at 5pm ET. These are typically 55 minutes focus sessions, but depending on the group that day, we’ll sometimes experiments with prompts and structured exercises.

Published in May ‘25:

Streaks:

• Becky Isjwara (8.0): Cheat on Your Job;

• Lily (6.0): Shame and Loathing in Sichuan;

• Coco Liu (6.0): Community is less about the who, and more about the where and how;

• Camilo Moreno-Salamanca (5.5): My AI Rules;

• Nat Lee (5.5): Postal Code Politics: Election reflections of the politically orphaned;

• Matthew Beebe: (5.5) From Aphrodite’s Tears;

• Gairik Sachdeva (5.5): Creativity from Chaos: Like a Diligent, Discerning, Demon;

• Charlie Becker (5.0): Chelsea is not a metaphor;

• Rose (4.5): Gretchen and the Invisible Weight of Staying Whole;

• Ines Lee (4.0): for anyone worried about being replaced by AI;

• Randall Bennington (3.5): There are still libertarians?;

• Claire Butler (3.0): wHat is ComMuNiTy aNd h0w d0 y0u MeaSure iT?;

• Sam Woods (2.75): Wisdom in the Age of AI;

• Dolores Lucero (1.0): Acceptance;

• Ani (1.0); You should not want doom;

• Malarkodi (1.0): Investing in Equity Around Your Constraints;

• Michael Dean (0.5): The Babbling Idiot & The Tribe;

Our publishing score: 58% (18 of 31 published / up from 55%).
Our weighted score: 52% (16.25 of 31 / up from 47%).

Read more

Meeting times:

Live feedback exchanges:

Look out for calendar invites. I recommended you bring a draft for live feedback (these events work as a good forcing function). But I can also (a) pair up people for discussion, and (b) create a focused writing room. Make sure you join the calls before :10 after!

Writing gyms:

We also have writing gyms on Mondays at 5pm ET. These are typically 55 minutes focus sessions, but depending on the group that day, we’ll sometimes experiments with prompts and structured exercises.

Published in April ‘25:

Streaks:

• Becky Isjwara (6.0): 1,000 True Friends;

• Lily (5.0): Are You There God? It’s Me, Lily;

• Coco Liu (5.0): Helsinki, the Midnight Sky;

• Camilo Moreno-Salamanca (4.5): Spring: A photo essay;

• Nat Lee (4.5): Confessions of a Substack addict : I’ve been scrolling, not reading;

• Karena de Souza (4.5): A LinkedIn hack my teens used for career exploration;

• Aayush Naik (4.0): Poetry #2: Recursive Tendencies;

• Gairik Sachdeva (4.0): “Where are you from?”;

• Rose (3.5): How to not vibecode yourself in the foot;

• Ines Lee (3.0): Our modern obsession with freedom;

• Claire Butler (2.0): Bottoms-up GTM: It’s more than magic;

• Sam Woods (2.0): True Judgment: Making Decisions With Too Many Choices;

• Charlie Becker (1.5): We don’t have time; we are time;

• Jenny Scott (1.0): Brian Patten: “My heart was like a firefly; it moved / through the darkest objects laughing”;

• Paz Pisarski (0.5): Win 2 Free Places in CHAOS;

Our publishing score: 48% (15 of 31 published / down from 60%).
Our weighted score: 42% (13 of 31 / down from 55%).

Read more

Meeting times:

Live feedback exchanges:

Look out for calendar invites. I recommended you bring a draft for live feedback (these events work as a good forcing function). But I can also (a) pair up people for discussion, and (b) create a focused writing room. Make sure you join the calls before :10 after!

• Friday, 4/4 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 4/8 at 8pm ET;

• Friday, 4/11 at 3pm ET;

• Friday, 4/18 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 4/22 at 8pm ET;

• Friday, 4/25 at 3pm ET (shifted from 12p ET to 3pm ET).

Structured writing gyms:

We also have writing gyms on Mondays at 5pm ET. We’re going to experiment with a different format: instead of 1 hour of focused writing time, there will be exercises and breakout rooms to help you make progress on a draft or idea.

• Monday, 4/14 at 5pm ET;

• Monday, 4/21 at 5pm ET;

• Monday, 4/28 at 5pm ET.

Published in March ‘25:

Streaks:

• Becky Isjwara (6.0): I quit corporate. Then I freaked out.;

• Lily (4.0): I am a victim and I’m saving myself;

• Jeff Giesea (4.0): Agency is the new superpower;

• Rachel Parker (4.0): The shadow of a salesman;

• Coco Liu (4.0): A space dedicated to the meeting of strangers;

• Camilo Moreno-Salamanca (3.5): Abundance — A Book Report;

• Anuradha Pandey (3.5): Women, Power, and the Collapse of Reason;

• Maksim (3.5): The Creatively Challenged Person’s Guide to AI Art;

• Karena de Souza (3.5): Has Harry Potter shaped a generation?;

• Matthew Beebe (3.5): Culture shock;

• Nat Lee (3.5): The empty seats are worth $40,000;

• Gairik Sachdeva (3.5): My STAT Essay — Volatile is the new normal for the biotech workforce;

• Rose (3.0): Why my English doesn’t sound French;

• Aayush Naik (3.0): Wasteland #2: The Jade Demon;

• David Kiferbaum (3.0): I Love Steely Dan;

• Matt Cyr (2.5): An Emotional Ending?;

• Ines Lee (2.0): i’m sorry, mother(s);

• Claire Butler (1.0): 10 things I learned from 10 years at Figma;

• Sam Woods (1.0): The New Discernment: Sensing Reality When AI Can Fake Everything;

• Erin Nolan (1.0): Reflection Calendars Reveal What Words Can’t in Your Journal;

• Charlie Becker (1.0): To Discard, To Preserve, To Bury, To Build | Friday Footnotes #2;

• A.C. Siegel (0.5): Why my career is like E. coli;

• Dolores Lucero (0.5): 3 and a Half Minutes of Reprieve;

• Rob Tourtelot (0.5): The Things We Lose;

Our publishing score: 60% (24 of 40 published / up from 58%).
Our weighted score: 55% (22 of 40 / up from 48%).

Read more

Meeting times:

Look out for calendar invites. I recommended you bring a draft for live feedback (these events work as a good forcing function). But I can also (a) pair up people for discussion, and (b) create a focused writing room. Make sure you join the calls before :10 after!

Live feedback exchanges in February:

• Friday, 3/7 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 3/11 at 8pm ET;

• Friday, 3/21 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 3/25 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 3/28 at 3pm ET;

• Saturday, 3/29 at 12pm ET.

*I introduced two new times based on request: I shifted one Tuesday back to 8pm ET, and I shifted our last Friday call to be on a Saturday at 12pm ET.

*Our daily weekday Writing Hour is at 5pm ET. That will start up later next week. Around 20 people opted in for that already, but if you want to join midway through the month, send me a DM.

Published in February ‘25:

Streaks:

• Becky Isjwara (5.0): I reached my savings goal. Then I lost it all;

• Rachel Parker (3.0): What the body knows;

• Jeff Giesea (3.0): This political moment feels like a rocket;

• Lily (3.0): How I arted;

• Coco Liu (3.0): China’s past and future, a celadon cup from the Song dynasty;

• Michael Dean (2.75): Watch me draft;

• Camilo Moreno-Salamanca (2.5): Book polygamy;

• Anuradha Pandey (2.5): The Diagnostic Manual of Feminine Behavior;

• Nat Lee (2.5): Why the failure to write is not a failure at all;

• Matthew Beebe (2.5): It’s tricky to rock a rhyme;

• Gairik Sachdeva (2.5): Drugs in the Balance: FDA’s Complex Job …;

• Karena de Souza (2.5): Co-Existing. Is it really that difficult?;

• David Kiferbaum (2.0): A Vision Statement;

• Rose (2.0): There is no TV inside my mind;

• Maksim (2.5): The Otterly Proper Tea Collective;

• Aayush Naik (2.0): Wasteland #1: Idealism and realism;

• Paz Pisarski (2.0): The Community Collective;

• Matt Cyr (1.5): Bad Idea? Or a Good Idea Gone Wrong?;

• Sairam Sundaresan (1.0): AI Myths & the Human Glitch;

• Melissa Silva (1.0): Did I Miss Anything?;

• Cris Valerio (1.0): The Drug Dealer At The Corner Bakery;

• Ines Lee (1.0): oops, i’m becoming codependent on AI;

• Hari Kanth (1.0): Redefining sitcoms with The Good Place;

• Rosemary DeSena (1.0): The Best Way to Write a Magnetic Poem;

• Justin Mather (0.5): Logs;

• Charlie Becker (0.5): Orson Welles as Falstaff on Late Night TV;

Our publishing score: 58% (26 of 45 published / down from 67%).
Our weighted score: 48% (21.5 of 45 / down from 61%).

Read more

It was great to see our group hit another publishing record in January: 67%! I hope this club let’s you keep up your writing habit all year. And if you missed, don’t fret: every month is a new chance to restart.

Important links:

• Zoom calls

• Substack Chat: UPDATE — Our group voted to switch up the Substack Chat format. In February, the chat will be locked for Essay Club members only, and everyone has permission to start a thread. This hopefully leads to a more free-flowing space. Have an idea or a draft to share? Start a thread. I’ll make a thread in there soon to let everyone know, but feel free to jump in. I also set it to “notifications for all threads.” Let’s try this out and then recalibrate in March.

Meeting times:

Look out for calendar invites. I recommended you bring a draft for live feedback (these events work as a good forcing function). But I can also (a) pair up people for discussion, and (b) create a focused writing room. Make sure you join the calls before :10 after!

Live feedback exchanges in February:

• Friday, 2/7 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 2/11 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 2/14 at 3pm ET;

• Friday, 2/21 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 2/25 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 2/28 at 3 pm ET.

Additionally, we’re experimenting with a daily weekday Writing Hour at 9am ET. If you didn’t opt-in for that in your form, and you’d like to join, send me a DM.

Published in November ‘24:

Streaks:

• Becky Isjwara (4.0): How I’m reinventing myself in 2025;

• Michael Dean (2.25): Best American Essays?;

• Lily (2.0): 32 Things I Know;

• Coco Liu (2.0): The unique spatial patterns of Rio Di Janiero;

• Matthew Beebe (2.0): What problem are you trying to solve?;

• Rachel Parker (2.0): Drowning in Plain Sight;

• Jeff Giesea (2.0): You need to come out to yourself right now;

• Dolores Lucero (2.0): Firsting;

• Nat Lee (2.0): Yes, I knew what a mistress was when I was eight;

• Chenshu Zhou (2.0): 10 Things I Fear Most;

• Karen de Souza (2.0): Tilt the Future;

• Anu Pandey (1.5): The limits of DEI;

• Mark Connolley-Mendoza (1.5): Young James Joyce Punk-Rocked My Teenage World;

• Camilo Moreno-Salamanca (1.5): Everyone sucks at driving (not me though);

• Rose (1.5): The Care and Keeping of a TBR;

• Kevin Hsu (1.5): 5 Things I Learned From My 5th Year of Software Engineering & 2nd Year of Writing

• Gairik Sachdeva (1.5): What Baby Shark and the Supreme Court Have in Common;

• Maksim (1.5): A Space for Doodles;

• Matt Cyr (1.0): The Year of Push-ups;

• David Kiferbaum (1.0): Conversation is a Revelation;

• Claire Butler (1.0): Reflections on my first year of motherhood;

• Catalina Munoz (1.0): Playing both sides: Lessons from my secret life as a freelancer;

• John Min (1.0): Spirituality is bullshit;

• Chris Coffman (1.0): The Secret World;

• Aayush Naik (1.0): Status Games;

• Anu (1.0): What to do if you don’t have a passion;

• Libby Fosters (1.0): No wonder he’s being an asshole.

Our publishing score: 67% (28 of 42 published / up from 63%).
Our weighted score: 60% (25.25 of 42 / up from 49%).

Publishing in February ‘25:

Read more

Excited to kick off 2025!—I just went through all the December posts; our publishing rate went up to 57%. Looking forward to reading through everything this weekend. Hope we can keep up the momentum, and that Essay Club can help everyone sustain new writing habits through the year.

Substack Chat

Our chat is live! Link here. The old message has been footnoted.1

Meeting times:

Look out for calendar invites. I recommended you bring a draft for live feedback (these events work as a good forcing function). I can also (a) pair up people for discussion, and (b) create a focused writing room. Make sure you join the calls before :10 after!

Live feedback exchanges in January:

• Friday, 1/3 at 3pm ET;

• Friday, 1/10 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 1/14 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 1/17 at 3pm ET;

• Friday, 1/24 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 1/28 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 1/31 at 3 pm ET.

Published in November ‘24:

Streaks:

• Becky Isjwara (3.0): How I Found My Book Editor;

• Randall Bennington (2.5): Lying Eyes Part 2;

• Sam Woods (2.25): Your Perspective is a Power Law;

• Charlie D. Becker (2.0): You’re not Simon Sarris;

• Erin Nolan (1.5): Expressive Journaling with Erin Nolan;

• Michael Dean (1.5): On writing code vs. prose;

• Karena de Souza (1.0): Through the Eyes of a Child;

• Jeff Giesea (1.0): Yep, I’m almost 50;

• Gairik Sachdeva (1.0): Timeless Beauty Lost to Time: Art of the Glass Flowers;

• Kevin Hsu (1.0): Curiosity is an antidote to getting old (mentally);

• Nat Lee (1.0): Uneasy, unearthed truths;

• Coco Liu (1.0): An eleven year journal, on crossing thresholds in life;

• Rebecca Jones (1.0): Beyond the Price Tag: Arts True Worth;

• Rachel Parker (1.0): Through the Glass;

• Chenshu Zhou (1.0): Making my GPT not so “basic”;

• Saalik (1.0): Why I’m building a business with my family;

• Rose (1.0): A review of the writing course that started this - Holiday Special;

• Paz Pisarski (1.0): Be a Great Coachee: 10 Tips to Get the Most from 1:1 Coaching;

• Brigitte Katz (1.0): A loveletter to my typewriter(s);

• Dolores Lucero (1.0): Signs of Humanity #1: Thank you UPS Store Guy;

• Camilo Moreno-Salamanca (1.0): The Prophecy: The Burden of Potential;

• Lily (1.0): Rejecting Elite Kids;

• Maksim (1.0): Great work does not speak for itself;

• Matthew Beebe (1.0): Getting lost in a van with the greatest rock band you never heard of;

• Mark Connolley-Mendoza (0.5): My Cold is a Brutal Editor;

• Susanna Devlin (0.5): Three lessons I learned from going solo;

• Anu Pandey (0.5): Finding the divine: growing up in a (Hindu) cult in America;

Our publishing score: 57% (27 of 47 published / up from 53%).
Our weighted score: 49% (23.25 of 47 / up from 43%).
Our list is sorted by (a) streak, and then (b) timestamp of form submission.

Publishing in January ‘25:

Read more

Below you’ll find meeting times, streaks, who’s working on what, some classic essays to check out, 3 decisions to vote on, and a message board. Let’s use this post through the month to share updates and exchange feedback. You’ll also find a link to this page in all the calendar events.

I’ve tagged you all in this post, but consider subscribing to the “Essay Club” section in your account settings to ensure you get these each month.

Meeting times:

Look out for calendar invites. I recommended you bring a draft for live feedback (these events work as a good forcing function). It’s also possible that I can (a) pair up people for discussion, and (b) create a focused writing room. Make sure you join the calls before :10 after!

Live feedback exchanges:

• Tuesday, 12/3 at 7pm ET;

• Thursday, 12/5 at 3pm ET;

• Wednesday, 12/11 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 12/13 at 3pm ET;

• Thursday, 12/19 at 3pm ET;

• Monday, 12/23 at 7pm ET.

2025 Goal Setting Q&A:

• Monday, 12/30 at 3pm ET (tentative).

Published in November ‘24:

This is where I’ll keep a running list of who published last loop. You’ll see a number next to each name which denotes a streak. You get +1.00 for reaching the goal you set out on time, +0.75 if you’re late, and +0.50 if you veered from your goal but still published an essay (with a public URL). If you miss a month, your counter resets to 0. If you publish your last month’s goal late, DM me and I can update below.

Featured:

MSR

To Dilate Time

Bryan Johnson is aging at a rate of 0.76 years per year. This means that his ‘biological age’ increases by 277 days for every 365 ‘chronological days’ that he lives. His health and longevity protocols cost him two million dollars per year…

Read more

a year ago · 7 likes · 3 comments · Matt Švarcs Richardson

Streaks:

Randall Bennington (2): Lying Eyes;
Becky Isjwara (2): The Jump Out of Bed Test;
Sam Woods (1.75): Tomato Revelations;
Matt Svarcs Richardson (1.0): Time Dilation;
Charlie D. Becker (1.0): The map is clear but the road is bump;
Michael Dean (1.0): post-election hangover: goals for 2028;
Hugo Lebarrois (1.0): Started a logging habit;
Karena de Souza (0.5): On Rite, Write, and Right of Passage.

Our publishing score: 53% (8 of 15 published / down from 62%)
Our weighted score: 43% (accounts for not hitting original goal on time).

Publishing in December ‘24:

(Everything below this point is locked for the members of Essay Club. It includes a list of what everyone is working on, recommended reading, voting, and a message board.)

Read more

Essay Club will help you keep a long-term writing habit. We’re all unified by a simple ritual: we publish something by the 1st of every month. You’ll have both freedom and momentum. Each month, you can set your goal to be as ambitious, as relaxed, or as experimental as you want, but regardless, we hold you accountable. And once you lock into a publishing groove, the curriculum of Essay Architecture will help you learn the pattern language of essays.

More details below, but here’s the gist of what you’ll do in Essay Club:

• Publish by the 1st of every month.

• Join Zoom calls to exchange feedback (Fridays 3pm ET + other slots).

• Share drafts, ideas, and updates in a private Substack community.

• Unlock all Essay Architecture posts.

• Get early access to software that will show you the patterns in your writing.

Essay Club is hosted here on Substack, and it costs $560/year. It’s an opportunity to publish for a whole year without missing a month. You’ll get to know a range of writers, all unified by a shared vision—that writing essays online can unlock many dimensions of your life.

Join Essay Club

How it works:

• Get a monthly invitation to set goals and join our loop: In the last week of every month, I’ll send you a Google Form. This is where you set your goals. You’ll set your publishing pace (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) and share a quick blurb that the whole group sees. You’ll also opt-in for live events and vote on different decisions to help shape the group. Example (note: this was for last month’s loop; each month has its own form).

• Join weekly calls to exchange drafts and meet writers: Our group voted on Fridays at 3pm ET as our primary time. We have additional bi-weekly slots (currently on Tuesdays at 7pm ET) to account for other time zones. Each session is an opportunity to either (a) exchange drafts for live feedback, (b) talk through ideas, or (c) carve out some writing time. These sessions typically end with optional, open-ended hangouts.

• Share drafts and updates on our Substack page: Each month has a dedicated private Substack post. This is where you’ll find events and see what everyone else is working towards. You can use the comment section to post drafts and coordinate feedback exchanges. Example.

• Publish by the 1st to keep your streak: As someone who makes little justifications to betray my own publishing deadlines, I want to incentivize everyone (including me) to publish on time. To that end, I’ll measure streaks and organize them onto a leaderboard. Over time, there might be “rewards” involved for different levels, but we’ll vote on those as a group. For now, here’s how the streak system works.

  • If you meet your goal on time, you get +1.0. 

  • If you meet your goal but you’re late, you get +0.75. 

  • If you miss your goal but still publish something, you get +0.5.

  • If you miss a month, you restart at 0.

Values:

I’m going to keep a running list of values that I want Essay Club and its members to embody. For now, I’ll list out some ideas. I could imagine this expanding into a Constitution that members of the group can help shape.

• Think in years, not weeks.

• Let time be your muse.

• A monthly cadence lets you explore while staying consistent.

• Avoid niches & narrow optimization.

• This club is for essays, not content (and the distinction matters).

• You can transcend algorithmic feudalism through the right virtues.

• Be honest, rigorous, patient, experimental, kind, and self-aware.

• Have faith in your destiny (and trust fall into the Internet).

• Embrace paradox.

• Sometimes aim for perfection, sometimes publish typos.

• Quality is only worth considering once you’re in a groove.

• I can’t be a leader unless I’m in the trenches.

• Community emerges from shared vision, actions, and deadlines.

• Scale matters: keep Zoom calls to a single grid.

• To give members ownership, important decisions should be voted on.

I’ve tagged you all in this post, but consider subscribing to the “Essay Club” section in your account settings to ensure you get these each month.

Meeting times:

Look out for calendar invites. Either bring a draft for live feedback, or use the hour as a time for focused drafting. The group voted for Fridays as the recurring weekly slot, but we’ll have some calls on Tuesdays too. There are 12 of us in this loop, and let’s welcome , , and Hugo ( to the group!

• Friday, 11/1 at 3pm ET;

• Friday, 11/8 at 3pm ET;

• Tuesday, 11/12 at 7pm ET;

• I will be out this week, so let’s exchange async (here) from the 18th-22nd

• Tuesday, 11/26 at 7pm ET;

• Friday, 11/29 at 3pm ET.

Published in October ‘24:

This module is where I’ll keep a running list of who published last loop. You’ll see a number next to each name which denotes a streak. You get +1.00 for reaching the goal you set out on time, +0.75 if you’re late, and +0.50 if you veered from your goal but still published an essay. If you miss a month, your counter resets (TBD if this is back to 0 or cut in half). It was neat to see how this format can work for different kinds of essay projects (chapters of a book, parts in a series, and standalone essays at various cadences).

Chris Coffman (1): Nicole’s Voice;
Randall Bennington (1): Axiom of the Mind;
Becky Isjwara (1): The Corporate Letdown;
Sam Woods (0.75): The Best Prompts are Conversational Archetypes;
Erin Nolan (0.75): Elements of Expressive Journaling;
Justin Mather (0.75): Searching for the Great Valley;
Charlie D. Becker (0.5): Statistics are people, too.;
Michael Dean (0.5): Essay Writing as Personal Sovereignty.

Our publishing score: 62% (8 of 13 published).
Our weighted score: 48% (accounts for not hitting original goal on time).

I like this group metric because there are now stakes to not publish. Don’t let the hivemind down! Plus, If we hit 100% I’m taking everyone to Disneyland (this was a lie our middle school band teacher told us every semester—we never went to Disneyland).

Publishing in November ‘24:

(Everything below this point is locked for the members of Essay Club. It includes a list of what everyone is working on, recommended reading, and a message board.)

Read more

I’ve tagged you all in this post, but consider subscribing to the “Essa…

Read more