Happy almost-weekend folks. I’ve been hosting friends & family in Paris over the past few weeks. It’s good to get back to a routine on this space with Episode 2 of Finishing the Hat, a writerly interview series featuring people who focus more on their work than their personalities.
Episode 1 was with Meg Oolders, the fantastic flash-fiction writer of
. One of my favorite quotes from our discussion—dare I call it an Oolderism?—was“Nothing I’ve ever done has been about money. If it was, I’d have a lot more of it.”1
Amran and Meg, it turns out, have also become real-life friends via Substack, calling each other on a semi-weekly basis from their respective homes in Chicago and New Hampshire.
And this is what Substack is all about, at least for me:
forgetting about validation and subscriber counts and instead focusing on the extremely simple principle of fostering connections via language on this communal space.
Lo and behold, when we engage with fellow writers and focus on cultivating communities and friendship versus a “following” (what are we, cult leaders?), good things happen. It’s funny how that works.
“We met in the comments section via Substack”
sounds like a line from a Gen-Z version of When Harry Met Sally, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true (plus, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan are a perfect match).
Since I first discovered Amran’s witty, outspoken, and acutely intelligent
, we’ve exchanged letters about whether we write to embrace or escape and what the point of good comedy and good fiction is all about2.But after a while, the lengths of our letters became unwieldy, and I thought it’d be worth jumping on a call with Amran to continue the conversation.3 In the hour-long discussion, I learned about Amran’s parenting philosophy, why he thinks some of Substack’s policies are “boneheaded,” and how to remain a decent human being in indecent times. He also gave me some great business tips on making Substack’s subscription model work for me.
I got a lot out of this conversation, and I hope you will too. Down below I’ve included a few of my favorite quotes (I’m calling these Gowanisms), but obviously this is a podcast, which means it’s best to be listened to, so I hope you’ll press play, rest your eyes, kick back your feet, and have a listen while you take a stroll through nature, or maybe while you squint up at a glistening urban metallic cityscape up above, or maybe—gasp!—whilst you ride through Paris on an allegedly bug-infested commuter train.
PS: Episode 3 will be a lively conversation with
, a wise human, a prolific Substacker, and one of the main reasons why I first felt seen on this space. Elle and I began our friendship over a year ago via a philosophical discussion about what modern literature is in the 2020s. You can find the link down below.4 And yes, there are many Griffinisms.7 Gowanisms from Finishing the Hat, Episode 2
On the Human Known as
“I’m just a washed-up 43-year-old man trying to make it in the world. I’m just trying to operate from some real-life pragmatic principles and stand up for what I believe in.”
On Politics
“I don’t cover weekly politics. I’m not covering that beat, man. That shit is exhausting.”
On Belief
“Pick your actual value system. The policy implementation system is always going to be really hard, and it’s never going to be perfect. Start with an overarching value: do we believe in freedom of expression? do we believe in freedom of religion? do we believe in not living in a surveillance state? do we believe in privacy? do we believe in equity and fairness?”
On Children
“Kids don’t know what they don’t know. I think as a parent, there’s this prerogative to shield your children from stuff. And that’s exactly the wrong way to approach it. I think you gotta expose your kids—you don’t have to traumatize them—but you gotta tell them: look man, 70 years ago, you wouldn’t have been allowed to live in this neighborhood. We might not even have been allowed to vote. There are still a lot of problems, but the problems get better because people decide to do the right thing.”
On Substack Writers who Write about Writing on Substack
“The best way to make money as a writer is to dupe other writers who don’t know anything about business.”
On his Lifetime Payment Model vs. Recurring Subscriptions
“People don’t realize that the recurring paid model creates expectations in both directions […] then the lifetime payment model just kind of clicked with me. I call
a living book. It’s not a subscription to a newsletter. It’s a living book. When you buy it, you own it.”On Owning Up to Being a Writer
“You hear people say nothing’s worse than telling people you’re a writer. I find that adage completely backwards. When people ask me what I do, and they’re a soulless consultant or investment banker that knows their job is bullshit even though they’re getting paid a lot of money, and I tell them that I write? Their eyes light up and they want to know everything about it. So if you’re a writer in the world, tell people you write, because they’ll really be interested in it.”
This podcast is a continuation of the many letters I’ve written to various Substack writers over the past years. You can find all of those here, which include epistolary exchanges with
, & .
Finishing the Hat w/ Amran Gowani