My Substack Activity Moving Forward
If you're interested in following my work, please give this a read.
There have been two major and interesting developments over the last month that are going to drastically change how I use and engage with Substack moving forward.
Firstly,
has given me an amazing opportunity to join his new fiction initiative Stardust Press.Secondly,
has been outlining an idea he had for building Substack readership in a series of articles he’s been posting through the The Literary Salon. I’ve seen a bit of cynicism around what he’s been talking about over the last week, and fair enough, there are after all a lot of Substack growth grifters. I don’t think this is that though. It’s a fairly novel approach that takes the nature of Substack as a platform into account. Thaddeus himself admits that’s a bit of an experiment, but I think it’s got real potential.
So how is my Substack activity changing?
First off, I’ve started a new non-fiction focused publication called Myth and Meaning1
A little while ago I wrote an essay called Why Fantasy? To my surprise it received a lot of attention and got me a bunch of new subscribers. I intend to write more essays in this vein and when I do, Myth and Meaning is where they’ll be rather than on my main newsletter.
Subjects I’m looking at covering include:
The interplay between literal truth, metaphorical truth, and myth.
Deep dives into various forms of mythological symbolism, such as dragons, the eye, the flood, etc.
Symbolic and thematic literary analyses. To start with, I’ve got something planned for Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, but will definitely do others. Dune and Lord of the Rings are at the top of my list.2
And who knows? Maybe you’ll also see the occasional piece of fiction, where I attempt to show a little bit of what I’ve been talking about.
Myth and Meaning is a bit of a work in progress at the moment3, but if any of that sounds appealing to you, and definitely if you’re one of the people who subscribed to Mythscape because of Why Fantasy? consider subscribing.
Next, Stardust Press.
As many of you are no doubt aware Stardust Press is a new fiction cooperative being spearheaded by Keyon Hejazi. It’s a very exciting project to be a part of and I think it’s got a lot of potential. Starting from August it is going to be featuring four new serials from Keyon, myself,
, and .Once Storm God has finished it’s probably going to be the main place I’ll be publishing Substack exclusive fiction, so if you want to be able to read that, as well as Stardust Press’ other serials, be sure to subscribe.
Finally, Mythscape.
When I first started on Substack my intention was to use it as a very typical writer newsletter/blog sort of a thing. With my nonfiction moving to Myth and Meaning, and my fiction moving to Stardust Press, that’s probably what it’s going to revert to.
I’m not sure if I’ll keep the name Mythscape, I might change it to something boring like Maximilian P Siddell.4 Here I’ll be posting publication updates, occasional blog style posts, and possibly more reprints of previously published stories. Storm God is going to continue here as it has been, every second week until it’s finished, which I’m expecting to be late August. After that posts from Mythscape will probably become fairly irregular while I work on other things, but since it’s going to function primarily as a sort of broad writer’s hub I think that’s okay.
Thank you to everyone who’s been on this journey so far with me.
Your time and attention is greatly appreciated.
This is a working title, it might end up being called something else.
Cliche I know but they’re classics for a reason.
The about page and welcome email are definitely placeholders
I do like the name Mythscape though, maybe I’ll find somewhere else to use it.
All very exciting changes, Max! I’m glad you’ll still be rounding off Storm God, and I hope your new approach to everything serves you as an author. I’ll have to read more about this readership building approach by Thaddeus. Sounds interesting!