Substack's Founders Dive Headfirst Into the Culture Wars

Smith began using the rapidly expanding, increasingly influential, and sometimes controversial email publishing platform in March 2021. Coronavirus had put touring on hold, and Smith was working on The Melting, a sort of diary about life in the COVID era, when someone at Substack reached out. Smith was intrigued. Rather than pursuing a printed work that wouldn’t see the light of day for another year or two, she decided to publish The Melting on Substack in real time. She signed one of the company’s “pro” deals—the Substack equivalent of a book advance—and on March 31 sent out her first newsletter, offering readers a “journal of my private pandemic,” as well as “weekly ruminations, shards of poetry, music, and musings on whatever subject finds its way from thought to pen.”