If you’ve been following my work here on WordPress for a while, you’ve probably watched me move things around more than once. I’ve changed names, projects, websites, directions, and probably a few other things along the way. That tends to happen when you’re a writer who keeps growing into the work instead of deciding at twenty years old exactly who you’re going to be forever. My Substack has gone through that same process. For a while, it was called Sulfur & Silk, and I liked the name when I chose it, but the writing grew, my interests shifted, and eventually I realized the name no longer felt like the place I was actually building. So I changed it, and it is now Epitaph Ink.
Epitaph Ink has been sitting in the back of my mind for years as a possible publishing imprint, and it felt right for where my work is going. There’s a little darkness in the name, which is probably inevitable with me. Crows and ravens, dark academia, horror, dark fantasy, strange things, uncomfortable questions, memory, religion, human behavior, and all the other places my brain likes to wander when I’m left unsupervised. But Epitaph Ink isn’t just about dark things. It’s becoming a home for the different parts of my writing life, and that’s really what I wanted. I don’t want to spend the next ten years forcing myself into one subject because somebody decided writers are supposed to have a niche. I write about the things I’m curious about, whether that’s psychology, history, religion, spirituality, sociology, music, memory, writing, publishing, or the strange ways people make sense of themselves and each other. Sometimes it’s personal, sometimes it’s research, and sometimes it’s a little bit of everything at once.
That’s why I’ve been building different spaces within Epitaph Ink. Questions We Should Be Asking is where I take a question and dig into it instead of settling for the first answer that comes along. Dear Indie is where I talk about writing, publishing, readers, creativity, and the realities of trying to make a life around independent work. Dysfunction Junction is where some of the more personal writing lives, including pieces connected to the memories and experiences that are finding their way into My Demons Have Demons and Tapestry of Me. There’s also everything that doesn’t fit neatly into one of those categories, because apparently my brain did not agree to a filing system. That’s part of what I like about Epitaph Ink. I can let the work be what it is instead of trying to make every piece prove that it belongs in the same little box.
So I want to invite you over. Not because I’m trying to drag everyone from one platform to another, but because Epitaph Ink is where the work is happening now. It’s where I’m publishing the ongoing essays, research, questions, personal writing, writing advice, behind-the-scenes pieces, and the things I’m still figuring out as I go. If you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written here, there’s more waiting for you there, and I’d genuinely love to have you with me for it.
You can subscribe for free, and there will always be more free writing than paid writing because I don’t want Epitaph Ink to become a giant paywall where you have to hand over your credit card before I’ll let you through the door. That isn’t what I’m building. The paid subscription is simply another way for readers and supporters to support my work. Writing takes time, research takes time, and books take an unreasonable amount of time, honestly. There are also plenty of less romantic parts of being an independent writer that still have to be paid for even when nobody sees them. A subscription helps me keep making the work, researching the things I want to research, working on the books, and keeping this little corner of the internet alive. Some of the more personal or behind-the-scenes material will be paid, especially when it requires a little more privacy or belongs to the deeper work I’m building toward, but most of what you’ll find at Epitaph Ink will remain free. Paying isn’t the price of admission. It’s simply a way of saying, “I want to help you keep doing this.”
There are plenty of other ways to support my work, too. Read something, share something, leave a comment, tell somebody about it, buy a book when one comes out, subscribe for free, or become a paid subscriber if you’re able and want to. Writers are still, despite all evidence to the contrary, people who need other people to read what they write. WordPress has been part of my writing life for a long time, and I’m not pretending this place never existed, but Epitaph Ink is becoming the place where the newer work is going to live. I’d rather invite you along than quietly disappear and assume you’ll figure out where I went.
I’ve spent a lot of years writing about what happened, what I believe, what I don’t believe anymore, what I’m learning, what I’m questioning, and what it means to be a person who is still trying to make sense of herself and the world around her. That hasn’t changed. I’ve just finally given the place where I’m doing it a name, and I’d love for you to come find me there.
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