It’s hot enough that if you wanted to walk down the street arm in arm with a friend — unless you enjoy the feeling of sweat in the bend of their elbow — you might reconsider skin to skin contact. But the lovely touch of a close friend isn’t the only form of contact that is popular this summer. It’s been a hot medieval combat girl summer! I interviewed 23-year-old Queens resident Eris Ayra, the reigning champion of the Armored League’s femme division about what it takes to be a champion and why, in their view, queer people love to physically fight each other.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Gwen: So first, I thought we could talk a little bit about the Armored League and just how that came about, and specifically how medieval armored combat came about in your life.

Eris: Well, it’s kind of a funny origin story. The way that I got into this is not quite by accident, but not in a very intentional way. I never expected to be competing in this kind of rigid format. Originally, a little bit more than a year ago, a friend of mine sent me an Instagram post about the Gladiators NYC All Fems class that was going on every Wednesday. It was a free class, and they sent it to me and said that they wouldn’t be coming with me, but that I should do this on my own and see how it goes. Since they know that I’m a martial artist — I’ve been doing martial arts for over half of my life — and wanted to send me something that I thought that I would enjoy. So I gave it a shot, and I loved the class that we were doing. And that class was like an intro to Buhurt. It’s the sport that we practice, and we had like foam weapons, foam armor, and all that, and we were just doing some light sparring rounds on the absolute basics of the sport. And ever since then, ever since July last year, I have been involved in the sport, involved in the community. At first, it was just like Gladiators NYC and taking the classes, and then eventually, in February of this year, I was fighting in my first Armored League event.

G: Obviously, you stuck with it. Is there a particular feeling you get with this sport, or a particular reason why you have stuck with it?

E: I’ve been doing martial arts combat sports for most of my life since I was nine years old. I’ve been doing martial arts like karate, jujitsu, muay thai. So I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a long time. When I was in college, I took a bit of a break from those kinds of things just because I had to focus on academics. But since leaving college, I’ve been really looking for that same sense of community where I could be physically active and learn like a new combat sport. I don’t know if I would call it a martial art, but it definitely is a combat sport. And seeing this and getting into this really is what drove me. It really made me feel a similar way as being in a martial arts community did when I was younger, and having that same feeling, that recurring feeling, is what kept me in. The community is beautiful and lovely. There are so many people who are really big and important parts of my life now. There are people who are so, so very important to me who I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and being able to interact and be a part of this community is really a large part of why I stuck with it and have stuck with it and continue to stick with it for as long as I have and will.

G: Speaking of community, I feel like there’s been an uptick in queer people fighting each other over the last couple years. There’s lesbian oil wrestling and mud wrestling. There’s Twinks versus Dolls. I also feel like my impression of the femme division of the Armored League is that it also tends to be queer. I’m not sure if that’s an apt assessment. As someone who’s very entrenched in these queer combat communities, I’m wondering if you feel like there’s a particular reason or thing that draws queer people to this space or desire to physically fight each other.

E: I think there are a couple of reasons that come to mind for me. Originally, when you were starting to pose the question, I immediately thought of the times that we’re in right now. I think that a lot of people feel very driven with assaults on queer and trans rights recently, especially in the United States, to learn how to physically defend themselves in case of an emergency, or if you need to be able to stand up for yourself in that way, you can. You don’t have to rely on being armed in some way because that can be very dangerous and can go very south very quickly for everyone involved. Being able to have the basics of how to block a strike or how to grapple with someone and put them on the ground and restrain them in a way that they can’t hurt you is very important to a lot of queer people right now.

But also there is a much more intimate side of it. To me, while the former is true, and I do really value self defense and being able to protect myself in a variety of different ways, fighting is very intimate. Being able to have the unspoken agreement of: I am going to put my energy and effort into something that could hurt you. You’re going to do the exact same thing to me. I consent to this, and this is something that we both want. And we trust each other so very deeply with each other’s bodies and with each other’s safety. That’s a very deeply intimate emotional thing, and being able to have that sense of intimacy not in a not explicitly sexual way is very important to a lot of queer people because you get to express that level of trust and care with each other in a societally acceptable way. I think that kind of acceptability is what a lot of people really strive to find and look for. So, being able to have a community where you can trust someone and give yourself to someone in that way is very important, especially to a lot of queer people who might not have that community or that sense of intimacy or trust in other places.

G: You’re also not only engaged in a combat sport, but in a combat sport that has an audience. How does that feel when you step into the ring?

E: On fight day, I get very nervous, and I can’t eat very much. You’re supposed to eat light, so you’re not feeling nauseous when you’re fighting. But, I feel very nervous. I have a little bit of doubt. I’m not quite sure if I’ll do well, but I have moment of well, regardless of whether or not I “win” I know that I’m going to be putting on a good show for whoever’s watching. I feel nervous and I stay nervous until I am actually walking out and stepping into the ring and then everything kind of melts away.

I know that for a lot of people, fighting is a very emotionally charged event. For me, it’s less so. It feels like everything, every emotion, just kind of falls away for a while, and it’s just me in my body. My mind and my body are fully connected and ready to do what I’ve been trained to do in practice, and I guess show off this kind of thing that I’ve been practicing for a long time with whoever I’m going to be fighting with.

Likely me and whoever I’m fighting have been training together and have sparred with each other before. And if that’s the case, then we just get to basically spar and do what we would be in class in front of other people. However, really knowing that there are people around doesn’t really scare me so much. More of these people are here to watch the thing that I’ve been doing with this person with a lot fewer people around, and that really doesn’t make much of a difference to me. I feel it’s almost something that’s been rehearsed. Of course, none of the fights are choreographed, but t takes a lot of the pressure off to know that I’ve done this before, and that I can just do this thing that I know how to do and I’m proficient in. I’m happy to do this as a way to prove to myself that what I’ve been doing has been paying off. The training that I’ve been putting in has been paying off, and I get to do that with someone who I trust and who I’m comfortable with, and who I trust with my well being, and who I know is also fighting for the exact same reasons.

G: So for the next femme division fight of the Armored League…when is the next time?

E: It’s gonna be in October. The next fight is October 30.

G: How do you feel? Are you looking forward to it? Are you excited? What do you look for when you’re looking towards your future as someone who engages in these kinds of combat sports?

E: I’m looking forward to it because as it is right now, I won the last tournament. I’m currently the champion of the Armored League femme division. I’m looking forward to being able to defend that title.

I have the list of fighters who are going to be in that tournament, so I know likely who I’ll be fighting against for the for the finals at least because I have an idea on who’s going to make it there, but I don’t know who’s going to make it first or second round because I do plan also making it to the finals.

Whether or not that sounds cocky or prideful, I’m not really quite sure. But right now, I guess what I look forward to is being able to defend my title, put on my good show, and also to give a challenge, even if I don’t win, to give a challenge to whoever I’m fighting. I very much believe in giving every fight everything that I have. When it’s showtime in class, I really engage in a lot of light sparring. I’m not trying to go too hard. Not trying to receive or cause any injury accidentally. So I pull back a little bit. I take it lightly. But when I’m in the ring and when I know that it’s showtime, I’m leaving everything out there. So I want to make sure that I adequately challenge whoever I’m fighting, regardless of who it is. And if I lose, I want it to be like a really really good loss. I want to put on a good show. If I win, then I would just want to continue that streak. And I guess then prove that I’m the champion of the league for a very good reason, and regardless of who I go up against, I’ll be able to defend that title.

This Gwendship was edited by Karissa Korman. Karissa is a journalist at The Boston Globe and Illume Magazine. She is #OpenToWork.

Where I Am Going

by Barker Thompson

The only way out is

through and we deserve

it.

The only way out is

through your clenched fist

on the crumbling wheel because

10 and 2 means nothing

when you don’t know where

you’re going.

I want to ask you for clarity

but I can’t take my eyes

off the peeling plastic and

the question starts to feel

like the material itself

as if forgiveness was a

factory.

You answer my eyes:

Polyurethane

It does not sound real.

The only way out is

through the grapevine

as in He Said that She Said

that You Said that We Said

that No One Said that I Said

that I SEE ALL YOUR HOPE

IN YOUR HURT.

It is dangerous to be certain.

The only way out is

through my sister

the one I do not have

but could have

as in I have never

met a waterfall that

did not know my name

and every time I hear

a cicada break air

into sound I Call For

You Of Course I will

keep losing you

so that finding you

can be ferocious but

It is dangerous to be certain.

The only way out is

through

threw

I hold the homonym

as air breaking into sound

The only way out is

I threw purpose as a decision

into your lap

and I am forever grateful

without a response meaning

It is dangerous to be certain.

“I Think She Knew”

by Eli Mendenhall

I looked into her eyes of mine

Knowing she is where they came from

A clock that cannot tell the time

This was the likely outcome

She had it on her mind

A name that she herself bestowed

A quiver, a nod, a grunt, a wince

A face she can’t decode

I had it on my mind

My name I’ve come to boast

I grinned, I sang, I brushed, I rinsed

a place I can’t explode

“You look just like my son”

“Do I now?”

“Oh yes, you do”

I did us both a favor,

And claimed I had no clue.

I don’t know where I went

Maybe there wasn’t any room

For a name of just three letters

Who knew it’d gone so soon?

I tucked her in and thanked her nurse

Then got all turned around.

I asked for some directions

But I couldn’t make a sound

“Looking for the exit?”

A receptionist could see

That I had lost my way

Because I knew that she lost me.

“You know you look just like her.”

“Do I now?”

“Oh yes, you do...”

...You look just like she told us,

though your eyes aren’t baby blue”.

Mosquito Wars

by Vincent Leggett

Sorry didn’t mean to kill you

Forgot how to sleep

Forgot how I used to protest their slaps

When a swat did the trick

Forgot myself but

Wish you didn’t bite

Wish you watched your earmouths

Wish for more me and less you

Wish the tent weren’t so warm

Wish the light dimmer

Forgot when I let the cat out

And she never came back

Love you get lost

Thank you for reading Gwendship!

This Gwendship was created in collaboration with and contains a poem by Barker Thompson.

This Gwendship contains a poem by Eli Mendenhall. Eli is a theatre maker and performer in Brooklyn. Knowing what he knows now he would have written more, sooner. Eli finds joy in chihuahua based media, The Simpsons, and Julia-Louis Dreyfus.

This Gwendship contains a poem by by Vincent Leggett. Leggett is a writer and a farmer in various capacities, splitting their time between digging dirt and sifting words. They are based wherever their Subaru takes them.

This Gwendship contains an illustration by Abby Kesselman. abby is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. she does not know where she is right now. nothing looks familiar. help!

This Gwendship was coordinated by Gwen Egan. Gwen is #Openforwork.

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Sam, one of my kindhearted roommates, let me bum their charger until I bought a replacement. Whether it was hubris or the stages of grief about my own charger, over the two weeks or so I put off buying a new one, I frequently left the house with my phone battery at about 30 percent. Going out into the world knowing my phone would die, sometimes with multiple locations to stop at within a day, I took to drawing out maps of where I needed to go and how to get there on pieces of scrap paper – much to the amusement of anyone who spotted them.

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My phone lying inoperable in my bag for hours and hours of the day felt like the dampeners had been taken off my senses. Statistics show it’s possible the regional accent is dying. Well, not within three blocks of my apartment. I heard New York accents aplenty!

Throughout my charger-less weeks, I was more aware than ever of how dependent I was on strangers and — without noise canceling headphones — of the expletives my neighbors shouted at me one Saturday morning. When I walked home from the train at night, I kept a brisk pace. But having a dead phone for reasons more or less out of my control was a gateway drug.

When the New York Knicks won the NBA finals, I recorded it on a camera from 2004. When my friends and I went on a bus trip to Storm King Arts Center, I couldn’t compulsively pick up my phone. I had the pleasure of getting lost! How novel!

When I bought a new charger, I wasn’t willing to give that feeling up.

When Vox writer Adam Clark Estes quit podcasts for a month, he discovered he’d never heard the sound of crickets until he forced himself to walk around his Brooklyn neighborhood without bumping Radiolab or The Daily.

“Thanks largely to smartphones, we’ve become a society of meandering multitaskers,” he wrote. “With screens constantly in our peripheral vision — or in my case, earbuds always in my head — we’re switching back and forth between the real and the virtual world.”

With noise canceling headphones that create a society of “meandering multitaskers” and an always-on phone full of distractions, how are we to absorb real life at all? The show that will never run out of episodes is other people. The album with millions of songs is listening in on other people’s conversations.

Month Offline is a popular Dry-January-esque challenge where you and a cohort use a flip phone for a month and check in with each other to see how the process is going.

Cheyenne McNeill, my friend and a fellow journalist, participated in Month Offline in March of this year.

“Using the flip phone for a month was such a challenge, but felt really gratifying and like something I really wanted/needed. Over the month, I really felt like my brain reset in a way. It sounds a bit dramatic, but I think reducing the instant gratification, the scroll, and the comparison game of social media did free up my mind in a big way…At least part of my smartphone dependency is manufactured,” she told me.

“I actually still have my flip phone and would like to return to using it full time. I pretty easily slipped back into some of my old habits (scrolling when I’m bored, constantly listening to music), but I suspect part of that is due to my own failure to be a bit more disciplined,” she said. “Some habits from that month stuck though. I rarely listen to music on the train or on walks, and I pretty much leave my phone in my purse at dinner. I do feel like those are two habits that allow me to be more aware and engaged with the world and other people.”

No matter how disciplined you are, it’s difficult to intentionally unplug. I’ve taken to using the highly-discussed Brick to try and stop my phone habits. Everything about the phone is meant to be addictive, we know this. But in the words of my friend Adrian, the Brick works so well it makes me feel “like a dog” sometimes.

On top of that, honestly, having to buy a product to try and get offline in the first place just makes the entire analog discussion seem like another advertising gotcha!

As Tiffany Ng wrote about friction-maxxing and “intentional” decision making:

Friction-maxxing doubles down on the utilitarian characterization of intention. The notion that friction is something to be optimized implies that it doesn’t carry any inherent value. It’s a means to an end — the end being distance from the algorithm.

After selling us all these services/gadgets to make our lives “easier,” companies are now looking to sell us MORE shit to re-introduce the friction that they once removed. But making something more difficult to access may force you to make A decision. That doesn’t mean that decision will be a GOOD one.

This is why I am advocating for Dead Phone Summer. In the weeks since finally buying a new charger, I’ve remained an advocate for DPS. It’s not even really a choice. You don’t have to “go analog” ... you can just let your phone die. It’s frankly less work to not worry about finding a charger when you’re out.

I ran into Rachel Young at a coffee shop and asked her about living with a dead phone. She said it was her default way of being.

“I love having a dead phone. I feel very present in my surroundings,” she said, later voice memo-ing me from a bar in Washington, D.C., “I’m very independent so I’ll leave my house, my phone will die. Live and let live. It’s fine. I find my biggest source of anxiety when it comes to not having my phone is not the things that I myself can control. It’s more so the expectations that I feel people project onto me because of the way the phone allows us to have such immediate access to one another.”

Besides screen time, my iPhone keeps track of each and every text message I receive in a week. A few weeks ago, that number was a whopping 1,400. FOURTEEN HUNDRED? Don’t get me wrong, I feel lucky to be able to have so much to discuss, but still. Bricking Instagram isn’t enough to keep me off iMessage. When I try to avoid my phone for the sake of being “intentionally” offline, I feel the weight of the unanswered messages anyway. But when my choice is taken out of the matter — re: a dead battery — I find myself at peace.

It’s not anyone’s fault that we’ve developed these expectations of constant connection. As technology has evolved and the time it takes to access one another shortened, naturally our expectations adapted.

Once in college I took a class about Instagram (don’t worry about it, just take this information in and keep on reading) and our professor had us guess how long a digital interface had to lag before the person using it thought there was a glitch. The answer? Anything besides instantaneous.

It’s really not your fault! The phone is fun! Sometimes I catch myself giggling and kicking my feet at Instagram reels. It’s not a moral failing to be listening to music on the train. We shouldn’t have to live our lives punishing ourselves for liking things that are designed to be addictive and also fun.

What is true is that global digital advertising spending is forecasted to reach an all-time high of over 950 billion U.S. dollars in 2026, and the AI slop is only getting slopier. While the phone is certainly fun, so is eavesdropping on other people’s gossip in public places. The phone is the fun that you can expect. You know what you’re getting. But the real world around you offers so much more.

2026 is Dead Phone Summer. It doesn’t have to be a lifestyle change. It doesn’t have to mean that you’ll be completely offline forever. But let your phone die. Just take a chance on being surprised.

Rachel sent me another voice memo, this time away from the busy bar. “I love letting the phone die because who cares.”

This Gwendship was edited by Karissa Korman. Karissa is a journalist at The Boston Globe and Illume Magazine. She’s never used a vape but imagines her iPhone is sort of the same thing.

Who invited Billie Eilish to my deserted island survival competition?

by Rory O’Neill

Four years ago, just ahead of its 42nd season premiere, I wrote an essay about Survivor as the great American game show. Not because I think it’s the best game show we as a wretched nation have ever created, but because of how, at its core, Survivor is about capitalism, colonialism, and sentencing by a jury of one’s peers. And what’s more American than that!

This past Wednesday was the finale of Survivor 50, so I revisited this essay to see if I still agree with myself. Mostly, I do. The reality show’s 50th season still sends a cast of contestants to a remote island on the other side of the world. They still compete against one another and vote to eliminate each other. All of this is still for a cash prize.

But things in the world and in the show have changed over the past four years, and I think it deserves a second look. The ways we have changed and the ways Survivor has changed are perfectly complementary: Season 50’s tagline was “In The Hands of the Fans”, and while many fans would probably disagree (we’ll get into it), I think this is accurate. The season wasn’t shaped by the decisions of the fans as much as it was shaped by who the fans are, largely American in all the ways that count: online, highly opinionated consumers complaining from the comfort of their couches.

Survivor 50 brought back 24 players from the show’s 26-year history. With editors pulling on our heartstrings and producers turning the nostalgia factor up to 11, many fans were… cautiously optimistic. Because it’s so exciting seeing Ozzy and Cirie again — remember when we first met them??? Do you guys remember??? Remember how awesome that was??? Don’t you think this will feel exactly like that???

Well. Not quite.

Nostalgia is a powerful balm, but it can only do so much to distract from certain drunken antisemitic rants, domestic abuse allegations, and a notably all-white and all-conservative alliance. And not to gloss over all of this, but if we’re looking at Survivor as a microcosm for our society… it’s not looking dissimilar from the social and political landscape we all know and love these days. We live in a society, etc, etc. But strangely, these weren’t even major problems people had with the season. If anything, this gave fans — particularly the most online of us — a group of common enemies. What caused a lot of viewers to truly lose faith needs only four words:

Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol.

In simple terms, Billie Eilish “created” her own special Immunity Idol, with special rules that never played out, all communicated to players via a letter that she “wrote”. The singer never made an appearance on the show, outside of the commercials for her tour documentary that were conveniently placed in before and after the most dramatic narrative moments of the season.

Celebrity integration has never been part of the game. Sure, celebrities have played Survivor before, but they’ve never just popped in to say hello. There was no fan vote asking for our permission. Why say it’s in the hands of the fans if you’re going to go behind our backs like this?

I have a few theories about why this was so alienating. I think on one hand, it’s sort of strange to imagine celebrities being fans of anything. Most celebrities feel so removed from reality that it’s almost impossible to imagine them sitting down to watch a weekly show about mostly average, everyday people. Regular people have long staked their claim on Survivor. It’s a show representative of the shiniest parts of the American dream, with contestants who mirror a kindergarten class’s “What I Want To Be When I Grow Up” reports, save for a few princesses. So when Mr. Beast comes onto the show and talks about how he’s such a big fan it’s sort of like, this isn’t for you. You’re not a real person in the same way everyone else – the contestants, the viewers – is a real person. Mr. Beast couldn’t possibly understand why competing for $1 million is so compelling. In fact, he had an extra million lying around to add to the pot.

On another hand, it doesn’t help when the celebrities involved don’t seem to care about the show that much. Why should I care about a Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol if it took nearly the entire season for Billie Eilish to even acknowledge that she’s involved, doing it mockingly on a podcast with apathetic quotes around every other word? Oh, she “wrote” a letter to the contestants? We could all tell she didn’t write it herself, but after weeks of waiting for her to say something about her involvement, it was disappointing to learn that she barely seemed to know she was part of Survivor 50 in the first place. She hardly cared. So why should we? (And for the record, her twist was bad. So what then, Billie Eilish?)

On a secret third hand, these celebrity integrations were so aggressively profit-motivated that it would be absurd to pretend they were anything else. Oh, Mr. Beast is miraculously able to give the show an extra million? Oh, Billie Eilish gets to play the commercials for her tour documentary during the prime commercial slots? How convenient. Nobody needs to pretend like this isn’t how TV gets made, but to make such a major change to the structure of the show in its 50th season and then to claim the whole production is “in the hands of the fans” feels like they’re trying to pull the wool over our eyes. What was so magical about the good old days of Charmin and Applebee’s sponsored rewards was that these corporations were providing goods and services that the contestants were lacking. Basic human needs like comfort and food were being met, and yes it was product placement, but these products actively improved the contestants’ quality of life. All Jimmy Fallon did this season was ruin Christian Hubicki’s game.

And this is where I would like to get a little bit controversial. I think that people didn’t hate Survivor 50; what they really hate is themselves. Stay with me here.

Survivor 50, like all seasons of Survivor before it, does an incredible job of speaking to the America that created it. As viewers, we can be upset about celebrity integration for the sanctity of the game, but what it really comes down to is the fact that the capitalist and consumerist world of TV production continues to turn. What’s upsetting isn’t that Mr. Beast was there, but that we are part of the system that sent Mr. Beast to Fiji. You may be disgusted by capitalism, but you’re still part of it. You may hate the America that created Survivor 50, and you may be working actively to change it. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re still here, and every week you have to see that reflected back to you, whether you like it or not. You may feel sick hearing the words “honor and integrity,” but it’s not really about what those words mean, it’s about the players who have coded them to represent white conservative values, both on and off the island.

Survivor is still the great American reality show. I wholeheartedly believe this. I also think that Survivor’s failings are perfectly mirroring America’s, which, in its own way, is sort of beautiful? And as much as we might want to fight it, we are part of the reason Survivor is the way it is, no matter if we hate it, we are undeniably there. For now, I’ll be trying to interpret what kind of omen Survivor 51 marking the beginning of “The Open Era” might be for the state of the world come this fall.

Survivor 50: The Winner Takes It All

by Isabel Abdallah

I started watching Survivor in 2020 after my brother applied to the show. Watching in just a couple of years, I got obsessed with the show’s casts, controversies, and winners who are still raved about today among fans.

Bringing back 24 icons for Survivor 50 would result in unavoidably firing up old rivalries, as well as unleashing some sore-loserish commentary from the fans. Mr. Beast (who frankly doesn’t belong on Survivor) got involved, Billie Eilish left her mark, but ultimately, the show must go on. One person will be crowned “Sole Survivor” no matter how many new idols or curveballs are thrown into play, by outlasting the other players and earning the majority jury votes, just like every other season.

This was a season where I rooted for several of my long-time favorites, as did many others, and that’s the best part of Survivor. The producers built Aubry’s narrative up with flashbacks to her early seasons. Colby, Cirie, and others, too, but Aubry’s story became louder, and I eventually realized she had the edit of a winner.

As contestants begin the unspoken communal tradition of “building their resume”, many fans still inevitably see a loud personality before they see a strategic play being made. Many fans still critique players who don’t dominate physically. I know I do, too, sometimes. Many fans still pick personal winners out of their favorite runner-ups who were more “deserving”. Charlie, without watching Survivor 49, formed a strong opinion on Rizo, despite being in a completely new cast with him, in a season with different elements.

In recent years, Survivor contestants seem to all have similar goals or personas they want to embody on the show. Trying to check as many boxes as possible to have the balance and agreeability required to win the jury over. There is also a similarity among the audience that leads us to deem a winner “undeserving,” and this can be caused by their physicality, their edit on screen, their character, or their journey to the million dollars. Different seasons have different controversies or reputations because of this.

But by the end of season 50, we had a slightly old-era dominated jury with the power to give

away 2 million dollars, and the show’s editors were doing their job and making sure the competition between Aubry and Jonathan looked like a close call.

I firmly believe every Survivor winner is the deserving winner of their season. To make it to the final tribal council and get the jury votes to walk away the Sole Survivor means that you did everything deserving of it. Gabler was a deserving winner. Natalie deserved to win Samoa. Michele deserved to win Kaôh Rōng. Aubry deserved to win Survivor 50.

Jonathan was not favored by the jury, did not pitch his case well, and displayed more than poor sportsmanship towards his close female competitors this season. I see discussions online now of people Michele-ing Aubry, as expected. And, on top of that, maybe I watch Survivor with the wrong people, but the amount of Rizo hate I’m surrounded by is egregious…But that’s a conversation for another time.

Gwendship is doing poetry!

Thanks for reading! I’ve been having a wonderful time writing reported essays and other nonfiction writing, but also wanted to provide some space for the wonderful poets in my life.

While I consider myself an avid reader and enjoyer of every medium of the written word I can get my hands on, I don’t have any particular expertise in the realm of poetry. So! I’ll be co-editing Gwendship Poetry Week (Gwoetry?? [maybe not the final name…everyone vote on your phones and send me better name options please and thank you]) with the wonderful Barker Thompson who has developed the theme for the call-out as well.

Gwendship will be accepting works for the first poetry until 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, June 3 via this form:

https://forms.gle/MBztoD7dRVc4roKg7

A note from Barker: Hi Gwends/friends of Gwen, I’m very excited to be joining (earnest and nonlinear) forces with Gwen on this special creative writing addendum to Gwendship. I’ve been writing poetry for around a decade now, and I’ve watched it grow into a core pillar of my identity. I see poetry less as form and more as practice. To me, it is the language in which we struggle through meaning. Poetry is a friend of mine, and I know I am not alone in that, so I humbly ask you to join the party and submit some of your own.

In advance, thank you sharing.

THEME: GET LOST

Write about a time you got lost.

Take this as literally or figuratively as you please. Think about a time you lost your bearings, let go of someone/something’s “hand,” slipped between the cracks. What did it feel like? Was it freeing? Were you scared? What does it mean to be lost?

This Gwendship featured an essay by Rory O’Neill. Rory is a playwright & graphic designer in Brooklyn. She has no desire to go on Survivor, but thinks her mom could win, no problem.

This Gwendship featured an essay by Isabel Abdallah. Isabel is a 26 year old artist, writer, and proofreader who graduated from Suffolk University with a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing. She spends her spare time wood carving, reading, and playing Pokémon in Boston.

This Gwendship was edited by Karissa Korman. Karissa is a journalist at The Boston Globe and Illume Magazine.

This Gwendship was edited by Gwen Egan. Gwen is currently looking for a sword on Facebook Marketplace and a rent controlled apartment.

Our continuous search to find an inside-ish, outside-ish place for 10 people to meet after work to hang out (something you wouldn’t think is a crazy ask) reignited my thinking about everyone’s favorite space-related topic: Third Places. If we’re unable to find or create the third space, it’s our responsibility to turn everywhere into one.

At its core, the idea of a third place is about creating a place for civic engagement. The original requirements as listed in Oldenburg’s 1989 book were as follows:

Open and inviting.

You don’t need an invitation or appointment, and you can come and go as you please.

Comfortable and informal.

You feel that you belong there.

Convenient.

It’s close enough to visit often, ideally right in your own neighborhood.

Unpretentious.

Everyone is on the same level, there’s nothing fancy or fragile, and it’s not expensive.

There are regulars.

And often there’s a host who greets people as they arrive.

Conversation is the main activity.

Discussion, debate, and gossip are part of the mix.

Laughter is frequent.

The mood is light-hearted and playful. Joking and witty banter are encouraged.

The idea here is frankly beautiful. I’m imagining a candlelit bar back patio a 10 minute walk from your house with tall, lush trees swaying in a summer breeze. Suddenly the people at the table next to yours (who are, by the way, extremely warm and inviting and interesting and you’ve seen them here a few times) are joining in on your card game that turns into a friendly discussion about hometown climates or astrology. On its face, this doesn’t sound like such a difficult ask.

But herein lies a problem. The glass of wine you got to sit at that gorgeous back patio? It was $15 and it was the cheapest glass of wine they had. Coming back to the same bar four days a week to establish yourself as a “regular” is getting expensive, and even when you swap out that glass of wine for a crisp DC (Diet Coke), you feel bad staying somewhere for three hours and only buying one drink. Coffee shops are meccas of work-from-home warriors and even when they do have no laptop policies or refuse to have WiFi for some reason…they too are running a business.

The rise and fall of third spaces has unfolded before our very eyes. In 2022, Allie Conti argued in The Atlantic that Third Places represented a space for “serendipitous, productivity-free conversation” that Americans so sorely needed. In 2024, Allie Volpe also advocated for the cause of finding a third space to foster belonging and community. By 2025, in Dazed Middle East, Dee Sharma wrote about the commodification and curation of nightclubs and their associated popup events that can act as “third spaces.” Sharma posits that the curated and pay-to-play nature of social-media-forward nightclub culture is having a corrosive effect on the nightlife industry’s ability to create a safe spaces for queer expression. “A safe space cannot be sold,” she wrote, advocating for the maintenance of DIY spaces — day or night. And in Eater, during that same year Jaya Saxena aptly declared: “There Is No True Third Place.”

In spaces like public parks that feel like the perfect third space because they’re mostly free and available to the public, there are issues of access and equity in “belonging” in those spaces. In Volpe’s piece for Vox.com she interviewed Danielle Littman, a researcher studying young people with histories of housing instability and homelessness, who found that people who don’t appear as if they “belong” will be questioned on if they should be in places like parks.

“Even worse,” she said, is “criminalization of just existing in a space. I see some of those practices and policies as inequitable enforcement of third places.”

Wallient internet slop pop up events have tried to bridge the gap. But they don’t really feel like a third space. Pop-up events feel like fodder for internet kudos or branded, curated photo dumps. If an event falls in a forest and there’s no photographs to maximize shareholder value…did they ever make a sound? There’s also nothing wrong with documenting these events! Wading through the murky, frankly radioactive, waters of the current job market with my cranberry-bogging plastic trousers on, I’ve also noticed myself yearning for visibility. What am I doing on Substack if not to make myself visible?

The entire discourse reminds me of that scene in The Good Place where two of our protagonists (Michael and Janet) realize that the points system used by the powers that be (afterline accountants) to determine who goes to the Good Place or the Bad Place is completely ill-suited to modern life. In fact, no one has gone to the Good Place in hundreds of years.

“Life now is so complicated,” Michael says while explaining that he’s figured out the fault in the system. “It’s impossible for anyone to be good enough for the good place…These days just buying a tomato at a grocery store means that you are unwittingly supporting toxic pesticides, exploiting labor, contributing to global warming. Humans think that they’re making one, but they’re actually making dozens of choices they don’t even know they’re making.”

It’s highly possible that this fabled Third Place just can’t exist in 2026. And that’s why it’s incumbent upon you and me to create them. The Survey Center on American Life found that Americans are talking to their neighbors less than they did a decade ago across the board. However, the more precipitous drop was amongst young people aged 18 to 29, who reported talking to their neighbors only 25% of the time in 2025, down from 51% in 2012.

As soon as you step outside of your front door, you are neither at home nor at work. Every space you go to offers an invitation to be warm and inviting to the people you find yourself interacting with on a daily basis. When was the last time you asked your cashier how their day was going? I recently overheard two businessmen discussing the college that I attended and I asked “Did you go to Northeastern?” I came to find out that one of the two men had graduated 15 years before me and the other had a son who was currently applying. We had a grand, quick conversation in the Walgreens line and I haven’t seen them since. How beautiful!

I know that talking to strangers can be intimidating. After all, you’re putting yourself in a situation to be rejected. And if you can find bravery sitting next to someone at a bar or a themed pop-up event easier than you can on a sidewalk corner, that’s okay. But there’s a lot of life left to live and wouldn’t you feel better developing the skills to take full advantage of it and be a true member of the community in which you live?

This Gwendship post was edited by Madeleine Aitken. Maddie is a former journalist now working in architecture & design PR and spending as much time writing in her journal as she possibly can. She lives in Brooklyn and loves long walks in the sunshine.

This Gwendship has a photo illustration by Gwen Egan. She would like to read your birth chart.

Whatever the cause, when I’m feeling out of sorts, I often turn to a life-affirming rewatch of one of my favorite pieces of media. This week that list included the following:

• The Matrix: to me, a near perfect movie about chosen family and humanity’s endless pursuit to beat back that which seeks to oppress us.

• The Making of ‘The Matrix’: The process behind making The Matrix (and specifically popularizing Bullet Time) reminds me about the power of creative collaboration! Love that kinda stuff!

• Veronica Mars (but NOT the reboot season…that is NOT canon to me): Miss Mars reinforces my belief that young women with a penchant for information-seeking are the backbone of their communities — including the fictional town of Neptune where the show is set.

  What does life-affirming media mean?

  This week’s very late Gwendship (Happy Mother’s Day btw) is dedicated to the media that we choose when the forces of change come down on our heads unexpectedly. If something is going to change, life-affirming media can act as a framing device — a conduit of positivity for what is to come.

  I asked for life affirming media on my Instagram story and my lovely Gwends provided. Life affirming, by my definition, is something you watch or otherwise consume to remind yourself about the indomitable human spirit. Something that presses Y to affirm human life.

  For anyone who wants to kick back and take in Gwendship-reader-approved media this weekend, here are some recommendations:

Some of the responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

the album: oh, merge and the Chicago Neo-Futurists pen of the month club

“[oh, merge] makes me see brighter colors. reminds me that if i have truly no faith in anything in this world, we will always have invented music and that’s worth the whole human race. if it was all for music that’s enough for me…the neos and oh, merge have so much in common it’s that kind of distinctly 90s everything hurts but we still have our bodies let’s at least be together thing

love it! can’t get enough! speaks to me so much! allows me to wake up in the morning! at the neos we have a pen of the month club and we all get the same pen and then review the pen and then our reviews go on a website and THAT is life affirming…simplicity mama simplicity” — Amina Gilbert

Kind of Girl by MUNA

“It just reminds me that I can change at any time and I get to decide what my life looks like!” — Holly Lewis

The Bear

“It is never too late to start over and never too late to find your purpose. life is forgiveness, life is found family, life is an italian beef sandwich. best show ever” — Emery Lawrence

Anne Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet (essay/book)

“Over 200 pages of breaking down desire-its paradox, its relationship to language and metaphor, and its resounding depictions by poets and philosophers of other centuries. affirms my experience of desire, not just in love.” — anonymous

Sense8

“One of my fav tv shows, you definitely have to push through the first 2-3 episodes but it’s such a beautiful portrayal of unconditional love and found family across 8 different cultures/countries/languages and has some of the best representation i’ve seen like literally whether it be culture, sexuality, gender, background etc etc. it got suddenly cancelled after season 2 and people rioted so hard that netflix greenlit them for a feature length last episode to tie up all the loose ends and give it a proper ending” — Lina Lahlou-Bradley

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything

“I always watch To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything whenever I go through a heartbreak. I like it cause it’s centered around friendship, not love, and portrays queer joy so well. It makes me feel less alone!” — Tia Ziady

The Ramona and Beezus movie

“What is a good life if not having fun and hosting a backyard wedding with your loved ones.” — Brenna Thornton

The Prince of Egypt

“I’ve watched it hundreds of times it is a perfect movie, it makes me feel connected to childhood and god BH” — Grace Gilson

About Time

“About Time makes me believe in a love that’s bigger than romantic— a love for life itself!! in all its mundanity and more!! i don’t want to spoil the movie if you haven’t seen it, but nothing makes me sob and giggle and sigh more than that film— it’s my #1 on letterboxed and never gets old the final monologue like sums up how we should live life in a way that I have never had presented to me— every time I need a reminder that everything is going to be okay, even the bad days, I watch About Time.” — Merry Marshall

Guestbook: Ghost Stories by Leanne Shapton.

“Relates death with not a [missing] but rather a presence of an absence. Read it right before a close friend died this summer, really made me rethink the way we feel grief and loss, as something that’s added rather than taken away.” — Grace Stewart

Worlds Beyond Number: The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One

“With so much of our media and culture being consolidated within the hands of a few mega-corporations, nothing has felt like such a breath of fresh air as Worlds Beyond Number: The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One (WWW). It exudes the sort of authenticity, warmth, and intimacy you’d expect from a group of four friends with a love for storytelling sitting around a table and playing Dungeons and Dragons. Supported entirely by a thriving Patreon community, WWW invites listeners to join our players by the fireside and venture into Umora, a Miyazaki-inspired world ruled by empire and brimming with magic, spirits, and wonder. Our protagonists—who loosely represent the mind, the heart, and the spirit—grapple with finding community, fighting injustice, and crafting identity. It’s a beautiful dance watching players uncover and develop their characters in real time, and the players and DM put in a masterful performance. I have a notes app note filled with quotes from the show whose insight and beauty have stopped me dead in my tracks. While there are many rich, life-affirming themes throughout, the one that has nestled its way deep into my heart is put best by Brennan Lee Mulligan, the DM: ‘There is a brighter tomorrow, and if you are kind and cunning, and you work great magic upon the world, you too might bring it to bear.’” — Max Rizzuto

Game of Thrones

“It’s a perfect show until it isn’t… It’s a perfect book series and probably will stay that way forever because there’s no way books 6 or 7 are ever coming… Ultimately Game of Thrones is not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” — Rory O’Neill

Gattacca

“The film is about Vincent (played by Ethan hawke my goat), a genetically ‘invalid’ man in a society where genetically-engineered ‘valid’ people are the superior class. He fakes his identity as a ‘valid’ person to pursue his dream of going to space by assuming the identity of the now-paralyzed ‘valid’ Jerome (played by my goat Jude Law). The ending is especially life affirming to me when Vincent finally makes it, after almost being exposed, and expresses that despite the fact he was never meant for this world, he’s now having a hard time leaving it. He was rejected by society his whole life, yet never stopped pursuing his dream, ambitions, and love (played by my goat Uma Thurman). To me, the whole shtick of it all is how precious life is, finding strength in hardship, and never giving up.” — Leila Garnier

Empathogen by WILLOW

“This album is incredibly life-affirming to me!! a lot of willow’s music has also served as confirmation that life is worth living (because someone else Gets It) over the years tbh. We’re similar in age so her music feels like it’s developed as i have. This one is just the most recent and also one i’ve been coming back to over and over and over again for two years now.” — Elana Lane

Heavyweight / Free Food For Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

“(Heavyweight is) endearing and literally just stories about investigations he does into peoples mundane questions or thoughts and so so sweet I can’t recommend enough.”

“Just finished [Free Food for Millionaires] and it’s about korean American women in nyc making her life etc and it’s so tender and made me cry multiple times and touches so well on immigrant child experience + nyc grind + understanding people + their nuances and complications and questions about existence and purpose sooo.” — Leah Yonemoto-Weston

Good Hang with Amy Poehler

“I’ve finally started listening to Good Hang. I love to hear people reflect on their lives, the beliefs they carry with them, how they got to where they are today, and what they still hope to experience tomorrow. The big life questions feel less daunting when you see how much fun these folks are having discussing them.” — Liliana Godmintz

Editor’s note:

My pick is Joe Pera Talks With You!!!!

In Joe Pera’s world, everyone is trying their best to be good neighbors and kind people. And even when they falter, you see them through Joe’s loving and forgiving eyes, and you love and forgive them too.

This Gwendship post was edited by Vincent Leggett. Leggett is a writer and a farmer in various capacities, splitting their time between digging dirt and sifting words. They are based wherever their Subaru takes them.

This Gwendship post features a digital collage by Gwen Egan. Photoshop is her passion.

Alexandra Tey has been bird watching — with a brief break in high school — since she was five. She’s a New York City-based writer, fact-checker, and birdwatcher whose work can be found in Slate, Curbed, and The New York Times, and she writes about birds here on Substack at Rare Bird. She also kindly set me on the path of pigeon truth.

The idea of pigeons as cruelly cast aside victims of human cruelty who yearn to return to us is sort of, kind of true.But it’s just not that emotional, according to Tey.

“Humans have been domesticating pigeons for thousands of years,” she said. “It’s not so much that they were like dogs and are looking up at us with watery eyes and pleading emoji being like we love you, and we’re like ‘no we hate you, you’re dirty’ and they long to return to us.”

We domesticated pigeons for various purposes: to eat them, to race them, to carry letters, to look cool, and so on, Tey told me. So while it’s true they were released or dumped or escaped as they were brought to what would become the United States by European colonizers, they’re not (as I had been telling anyone who would listen) maligned pets, they’re feral animals.

I promise, from now on, to not project teary eyed rejection onto pigeons because frankly — their eyes are dry! I still hold them in my heart, however.

The birds aren’t different. You are!

I told Tey the origin story of my interest in the birds flying over Bushwick. I moved from Boston to Brooklyn (somewhere on LinkedIn someone is making this an intro to something about B2B sales…) and when I found myself in this new environment I also found a new fixation on birds.

I thought there must have been a great number more birds in Brooklyn, for the amount that I was noticing them. Tey offered a new perspective. It wasn’t that New York is “orders of magnitude” birdier than Boston, it’s that my perspective of them had changed.

“I think what happened is that you moved to a new place and something changed in your life, and you started seeing things that you weren’t seeing before,” she said. “I think that’s something that’s beautiful about birding is that you know something changes in someone’s life and they see things that weren’t there before, or like birds are a catalyst for them to change the way that they relate to their surroundings.”

There are many reasons why Generation Z has been getting more into birding — a hobby which is stereotypically reserved mostly for retirees. The Dazed article “‘I love my brain on birds’: Why is everyone so obsessed with birdwatching?”, written by Hatti Rex explores why. For some, it was about joining an already robust group of hobbyists; for others, it was about the soothing sensation of listening for bird calls and avoiding modern-day overstimulation. When I talked to Tey I asked her about the birding walks she leads for Queer Birders and the Feminist Bird Club… did people consistently give similar answers for what sparked their interest in the flying feathered creatures?

“I would love to, like, press people — what gets you into birding?” she said. “I don’t know if people really understand why they do things because they think about it too much. What about [birding] speaks to you? Not just why your interest was piqued, because people’s

interests are piqued all the time by things that they don’t integrate into their lives — why did you feel compelled to pursue it?”

I was recently talking with Mary Anne Porto, my lovely coworker and senior editor at Punch about birding, and she told me she and her two older brothers identify birds together and send pictures in a shared Discord. The ties between that electronic scaffolding for communication and means of connection and in-person experience stuck with me after our morning coffee, so I asked her yesterday to tell me a little more.

“I’m on eBird and Merlin, and I’m a little weary of the Letterboxd/list-ification of everything, but I do find them helpful,” she said. “Recently, I was at The Pool in Central Park trying to ID a bunch of tiny birds by squinting and zooming in on my phone, with no luck. But a group of older birders, who were sitting in the trees, pointed out the kinglets from the warblers, the swamp sparrows from the house ones. Birding can be solitary, which is nice sometimes, but especially being in the city, I appreciate having a hobby that still feels prosocial and intergenerational.”

Tey told me about Rosemary Mosco, author of A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching: Getting to Know the World’s Most Misunderstood Bird.

”[Pigeons’] behaviors are amazing, their biology is amazing, their link to human history is incredible and every time I tell this to people they said, ‘Really? Those weird, gross birds I see all the time?’” said Mosco in an interview with CUNY TV about her book “I’m kind of trying to raise the esteem of pigeons in more people’s eyes.”

Pigeons ride the subway all over the world, according to Mosco. I hope they know the G will be down on weekends this summer.

Hearing from Porto and from Tey, and from a packed artist lecture I went to with my friend Max at Center for Brooklyn History by Argentine-Australian artist and researcher Dr. Fernando do Campo about the house sparrow, here’s why I think my attention was caught on birds:

Growing up in Colorado, I greatly benefited from an education contextualized by the natural world. New York City is different from my hometown for many reasons. (For one, all of the bus lines in Boulder Valley are named fun things unlike here…I could take the Dash or the Skip to school. The Hop didn’t run where I needed it to…but that’s not the point.) I moved here to follow my dreams, as many people do, and when I arrived, more than noticing birds on an individual level, I became fascinated by how they spiral around the sky in large groups. My interest in birds was generally flock-based.

And from Tey I learned something. Those pigeons that fly around in huge groups that I love to take videos of on my phone? They’re actually in an “evolutionary arms race” with their local predators, and lying in those complex group patterns makes it harder for those predators to spot a single individual.

I think there’s an idea floating around in the Hudson River that the people who make their big apple dreams come true must be special in some meaningful way. Because everyone is trying to make their own way, the people that achieve must be smarter, or luckier, or better, or more unique by some measurable quality that therefore makes them worthy of traditional success.

Becoming emotionally attached to a flock of pigeons has allowed me to renegotiate that idea within myself. First, success isn’t always defined by traditional metrics. How many grams of protein / how many salary increases can be found in a beautiful summer night spent with friends laughing until your face hurts?

There’s a dangerous line of thinking in equating success to something that can only be achieved through individual shimmer. Human beings, enmeshed in our own evolutionary battle, have always depended on each other against our predators: disease, hatred, violence, and so on. While it’s not as traditional as predator-evading flight tactics, I feel the most special when I think about the richness I’ve been able to find within my flock. We do not have to be special to the point of alienation to be successful –– even if there’s an undercurrent of it.

I’d like to thank the birds flying over Bushwick for helping me learn that.

Media Diet highlights

Watching

• I watched an awesome Youtube video about the Battle of Hastings this week. Spoiler alert for the Battle of Hastings (1066) but one of the classic battle tactics used by Harold Godwinson (who would ultimately lose this battle) was a “shield wall” where a bunch of soldiers (as the name implies) stand really close together and use their shields as a wall. Kinda reminds me of pigeons, but then again everything does this week. #everythingremindsmeofher

Reading

Read a bunch of Olga Ravn’s Wax Child in a doctor’s office waiting room – it’s really the perfect size for a book to be.

Gwedits

This Gwendship post was edited by Madeleine Aitken. This Gwendship post was edited by Madeleine Aitken. Maddie is a former journalist now working in architecture & design PR and spending as much time writing in her journal as she possibly can. She lives in Brooklyn and loves long walks in the sunshine. (And the Buswick birds too.)

This Gwenship post includes an illustration by Daphne Wilson. Daphne is a multidisciplinary artist living in Queens. She’s a lover of old things, ducks, and chocolate milk in addition to being a certified paper nerd.

Welcome to Gwendship, my weekly dedicated corner of the internet and your inbox where I will make myself and my friends visible. Every Thursday you’ll get a piece of writing from me or one of my friends – sometimes a reported piece, sometimes an interview, sometimes an essay – possibly even fiction!

My central concern with starting a Substack was that I’ve never written without an editor — and I don’t intend to start. The work of editors and fact checkers is an essential part of the media business that, in my opinion, needs to be more visible.

There’s a certain jumbo shrimpism to Substack journalism. Writing is presented to readers as journalistic and credible without the presence of the essential editing that underpins the media industry. To put it simply, I trust my own mind, but I know I’m a human being capable of error. If I was a Substacker, I would want to present reported pieces to whoever is on the receiving end of my emails. So, for a long while, I put it off.

But hey! Guess what? There aren’t any rules! If you want to go vegan but think giving up eggs would be too hard, you can (as girls I trust on Instagram reels have told me) just go vegan but also eat eggs. Gwendship will be similar to me going vegan but adding eggs. I don’t want to write independently if that means I don’t have an editor so – I will have one!

I’ve been lucky enough to forge connections with some amazing journalism and media industry folks that I will be tapping (begging and pleading) to edit my writing. I will also showcase the art and design talents of my friends.

Why journalism?

A little more about me besides my yolk-focused metaphor and opining on the journalistic ecosystem: My name is Gwen Egan. I’m a 23-year-old virgo (sun and moon and mars – yeowza!) and the eldest of three girls. I’ve written culture, ideas articles and essays for the likes of Gothamist, The Boston Globe, Boston.com, Pinky, and now Gwendship!

Like most early career journalists, I’ve languished trying to figure out what my exact reporting interests are. If you could see me in person, I’d mime a blacksmith heaving a heavy mallet onto a red-hot piece of molten steel that will at some point in the future become a sword to exemplify this process.

Whenever I talk about having a righteous purpose in pursuing a career in journalism/media or open up a fellowship application portal, I often answer the same question: why journalism?

To this question, I always give the same answer, which I’ll tell to you now:

My first piece of professionally published writing was an obituary in The Boston Globe.

In 2020, I was a freshman in college taking Journalism 1000 at Northeastern in Boston. By December of 2020, there had been 11,717 confirmed deaths of people diagnosed with COVID-19 in Massachusetts. In the Boston area alone, the number of confirmed deaths was around 1,291.

To my understanding of the editorial motivation at the time, The Boston Globe asked journalism students at Boston-area schools to write obituaries to aid in documenting the sheer amount of Bostonians who were lost to the virus.

A spreadsheet was shared with us. Each cell held a deceased person’s name and one detail about them. I typed my name next to “Eleanor – kept a notebook of every Red Sox game score.”

Throughout the reporting process, I learned the shape of Eleanor’s life. Mostly, I spoke to her son on Zoom in my dorm room. I remember feeling wildly out of my depth to write about something as meaningful as a stranger’s whole life. The broad outline of Eleanor’s long life included being exceedingly caring, sometimes exceedingly difficult, in classic Bostonian fashion, and using Red Sox games as an escape from her late stage arthritis symptoms.

At the end of our last Zoom call, her son asked me why I had chosen his mother as my subject. Her name was on a list, I replied, and she reminded me a lot of my own New England extended family – always kind, not always nice, and emotionally tied to the home team.

“Oh,” he said back. “We didn’t know she was important to anyone but us.”

That was it. It was then I knew I would be committing to journalism as my career. Writing about anything – it could be a song or a movement or a person or a place – communicates that hey, this thing is important.

Broadly speaking, my reporting interests are grounded in how people gather and what they gather for. People are people are people! I love writing, talking to people and being curious, so, really, I’m always learning what my reporting interests are. I’d say at this moment I’m specifically following stories in local arts and culture in spaces that highlight Queer people, the Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement, and undercovered areas in women’s health. I’m looking to learn more about tech reporting!

I recently found that if you’re a woman and you’re not on birth control and you don’t get your period for more than three months you should REALLY go get it induced by a medical professional because it puts you at a higher risk for uterine cancer – WHO KNEW!

Authenticity mentioned

I was recently served Paula Mellibosky’s masters thesis at Macromedia University of Applied Sciences titled “The Instagrammed DJ: Platform Labor and the Shifting Criteria of Visibility, Value, and Bookings in Berlin’s Club Culture and Electronic Music Scene” via social media algorithm.

What I’d really like to talk about from this thesis is the idea of the “visibility paradox.”

“Being a ‘bookable’ DJ in Berlin is a hybrid metric,” writes Mellibosky. “It requires the DJ to be

visible enough, but also underground enough to be respected.”

I’d argue this is a line that most, if not all, artists across mediums and across cities walk. How do I maintain my individual voice, reach the largest audience, and hopefully make a living off of this the thing that I love doing?

I surely don’t have a definitive answer. What I do know for sure is that the best we can do is keep the veil between who we are in-person and who we are online as thin as possible. You try your best to be authentically you as you try to navigate how to make a living in a creative field, and I’ll do the same, and we’ll all think positive thoughts about each other…ok?

Finally: highlights from my media diet

I don’t believe in here’s-what-i-eat-in-a-day videos, but I do believe in discussing my media diet.

Watching

• I saw a screening of Steal This Story, Please! (a documentary on the excellent and legendary independent journalism of Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!) on Tuesday. If you have any love in your heart for journalism go see it!

Listening

• I’ve been listening to Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica as an audiobook for months at this point. It’s a novel set in a dystopian world where a virus makes all animal meat inedible and poisonous to human beings, leading to legalized, industrialized cannibalism. The language is highly evocative and I can only listen to it in short doses…but it’s excellent!

Reading

• I’m currently in the middle of Olga Ravn’s Wax Child, still working through The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, and just got my copy of Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa in the mail.

• I cleaned out my purse for the first time in … since I got it … last Sunday. But before the Great Clean Out I had the edition of New York Magazine that had this truly stunning story about the girls of Camp Mystic on the cover. On long train rides around town I frequently found myself rooting around in my bag to pull the magazine out to read the story again. The story’s description reads, “Dozens died in a Texas flood, dividing families over whether it was an act of God or adult failure.”

Thank you for reading Gwendship.

This Gwenship post was edited by Grace Gilson. Grace Gilson is my fellow J-school alum and a reporter at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, where she covers Jewish news, broadly defined.

The Gwenship wordmark was designed by Rory O’Neill. Rory O’Neill is a graphic designer & playwright living in Brooklyn. Rory is a Virgo, a converted audiobook fanatic, and a real freak about words, letters, and colors.