Reflections and an Important Announcement after a Year of PeaceLinks

New posts and new plans

An Announcement

PeaceLinks turns one year old this month, and change is in the air.

I launched PeaceLinks in May 2023 to keep track of inspiring posts I found on themes of peace, cooperation, and common ground. What started as a virtual file cabinet became a gathering place for mutual affirmation and appreciation. It became a place for finding kindred souls.

Despite these pleasures, my energies are moving in different directions.

I’d like to consolidate my reading community into one place rather than divide in two.

Along with me, some of the people featured early here have their own flourishing communities. I’d like to make time to meet them more often on their own ground

I’d like to make room this summer to work on a book — a goal I set aside in 2020 when COVID arrived.

For these reasons and more, I plan just one more monthly issue of PeaceLinks in June. The subject will be the celebrated Canadian short story writer Alice Munro, who passed away on Monday of this week.

The Munro Memorial

As I announced Wednesday in Notes, I’m organizing a Substack writers’ memorial to Munro. If Munro’s work means something to you, I hope you’ll consider contributing any post in her honor on June 13 (one month after her death) and tagging me to be included in the collated memorial page. Guidelines and Q&A are here:

Join a June 13 Virtual Memorial for Alice Munro

For the June issue of PeaceLinks, I plan to cross-post the memorial page. After that, I hope you’ll decide to stick around at my primary Stack, Quiet Reading, for original posts that tap the wisdom of authors, books, and literary history to boost our confidence amid this human struggle. You can view the most recent and most popular posts on the home page. Dip into the comments on any posts to get a sense of whether the “vibe” over there is for you. I think anyone with an interest in PeaceLinks will appreciate Quiet Reading, too.

For the foreseeable future, PeaceLinks will remain an open, free, accessible archive for anyone who’d like to browse the thematic posts. I do not at present plan to add new posts after June. If you have a paid subscription to PeaceLinks after June, you will receive a complimentary subscription to Quiet Reading at the same level.

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But change is not somber. There’s plenty of peace-work continuing on Substack. Here’s a sample, in our usual PeaceLinks format:

1. A Library of Small Stacks

Robin Taylor (he/him)

of

That Trans Friend You Didn't Know You Needed

has launched a SmallStack library, a service long needed on Substack. The goal is to create a library of publications with fewer than 1,000 subscribers and to publish featured articles, especially by those with under 500 subscribers. If that describes you, check out the simple form linked at the top of Robin’s home page:

2. Serenity in Chaos

A couple of weeks ago, writer, editor, and intrepid traveler

Holly Starley

shared a medical diagnosis with her readers and posted a cluster of poems expressing her gratitude for “serenity amid chaos” and other wonders viewed through the prism of pain. Her post is wise, tender, and wryly titled. Is it a toast to pain? Or an allusion to Cary Elwes’ line in The Princess Bride when his character Westley needs to buy time in a duel? Maybe she’ll tell. (“To the death!” cries Prince Humperdinck. “No. To the pain,” responds Westley from the bed where he is gambling that he can distract Humperdinck with threatening banter until the muscles in his legs work.) Like Westley, Holly displays the courage to face whatever must be faced:

To the Pain

3. Touching the Earth

A pair of posts that spoke to each other recently were a walking prayer by

Antonia Malchik

of

On the Commons

and a reconciliation with the earth by

Emily Conway

of

A Thin Space

. It was Emily who drew my attention to the connection between the two posts in her comment on Antonia’s April essay, read aloud before sunrise with a background of birdsong.

A critic of privatization and champion of the commons, Antonia halted at a No Trespassing sign, though her “feet ached to wander into that field, wiggle toes into the soil that could draw so many bluebirds.” Emily expressed inward rather than outward hesitation at getting close to nature. The earth, she realized, is “suffering so much. I’m afraid to grow closer to it because then I would have to be with all of that suffering; I would have to feel it.” After such an insightful revelation, she receives a suggestion that might help.

To walk a prayer to the world

Between the Earth and Me

4. Connected to Strangers

Just in time for today’s post, I discovered

Patti Digh

and the encouragements issuing from her orange desk. In the post below, I second her recommendation (let’s upgrade that to insistence - just don’t miss it) to watch the video at the top of her post. Expect nothing. Just watch.

Elsewhere in the post, Patti offers an inclusive and affirming alternative to the common greeting, “What do you do?” And she helps us honor other people’s stories.

I am grateful for this year of PeaceLinks that has trained my eye on posts with a spirit like this one:

Curiosity is a kind of love

With so many encouraging impressions lingering from this month’s featured posts, I thank the regulars for this year of community and newcomers for your curiosity. I look forward to seeing you at Quiet Reading when we are no longer gathering regularly here at PeaceLinks.

Keep the peace, friends.

Tara