How did I get here?

a short origin story of "From Somewhere"

I came up for the name of this newsletter months and months ago. At the time, I was fretting about the state of journalism and my own consumption of news stories. So much of my habitual reading comes from big international outlets that are narrating what’s happening all over the world but often without the texture that comes from a point of view grounded in place.

Being rooted in place also is a critical part of self-awareness. I see things this way because this is the social and economic landscape I inhabit. When news and storytelling doesn’t begin that spirit, you can skip over the critical gut check that asks: would I would see things differently if I were from somewhere else?

It’s why I love podcasts like Southbound or Rumble Strip Vermont. (Or this conversation on The Ezra Klein Show, which Ezra and I picked up on from a personal angle in this episode of Death, Sex & Money.) And it’s why I love television shows like Reservation Dogs, Somebody Somewhere, The Bear, Slow Horses or even The Great British Baking Show. I like my tv to have place as a prominent character.

So one of my original ideas for what I might do here is to collect and highlight writing, audio storytelling, movies and tv that made me feel transported to a particular place, and in particular, from places where residents don’t often get to be the authors of their own stories.

I think paying attention to place — and the community-making that happens when you gather in real life — become more urgent for me because I’ve felt particularly unrooted physically, in the last several years. Between working remotely, moving across the country as a new mom, and then migrating during the year from Berkeley to Wyoming and back to Berkeley with my wildlife ecologist husband Arthur and our kids, my sense of identity in regards to place has felt scattered and straddled and tenuous. Which feels weird for me, a kid who grew up in West Virginia who would link arm in arm with strangers and sing “Country Roads” whenever we heard the first notes of the John Denver song ring out.

And then….

I learned I might also lose the digital community where I’ve also put down real roots. As I’ve absorbed that Death, Sex & Money is ending its run at WNYC — and with that, potentially ending my ability to immediately connect with these community of listeners who’ve gathered around the podcast feed and our newsletter — the idea of writing “From Somewhere” took on a different meaning. I needed to be SOMEWHERE to keep us from losing each other! It would be so easy for us to fall out of touch in the current moment of receding social media and shifting digital landscapes.

Charlie Warzel wrote about this in The Atlantic earlier this month, in a piece about how there is both more consumption and creation than ever online, and also, fewer ways for us to gather coherently around it. His piece is called “Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore.” In other words, we’re all in outer space and confused about where other people are and what they’re paying attention to.

This confusion is a feature of a fragmented internet, which can give the impression that two opposing phenomena are happening simultaneously: Popular content is being consumed at an astounding scale, yet popularity and even celebrity feel miniaturized, siloed. We live in a world where it’s easier than ever to be blissfully unaware of things that other people are consuming. It’s also easier than ever to assign outsize importance to information or trends that may feel popular but are actually contained.

So, think of this humble, just-starting-out newsletter as my attempt to build a clubhouse where you’ll know where to find me. I’ll keep the door open and try to regularly put out fresh bowls of snacks to keep you visiting. I also eventually want us to have a sense of who else is hanging out here, so if you want to, please feel free to introduce yourself and tell us all a little bit about the somewhere you’re coming from.

Now, an assignment: please send novel recommendations where PLACE matters. I need to get my imagination out of work mode. Please help transport me places, and I’ll share the recommendations back with you.

Thanks again for finding me here.

Anna

Latest Death, Sex & Money Episodes:

12/27 Four Interviews and a Funeral

12/20 Your Inheritance Stories: When Death and Family Mix

12/13 Meshell Ndegeocello Thinks Authenticity is Unsustainable

12/6 Productive Discomfort: A Job Training Program for Single Moms That Centers Mental Health