HeyJaredKeep it in the Family by Anna Wilson
A newsletter and community for writers who want to mine their lives - either to craft memoir or to create fiction from family stories.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 5
- Latest publication
- Sep 30, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 3, 2026
Latest issues
Not a Team Player (opens the original)
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I hate teams. I have always hated teams. (I also hate Teams, but that belongs in a different post.) It’s partly because I was always picked last for teams at school. But I can’t really say that bothered me. I had no interest in chasing a ball across a muddy field in the rain. I could not see the point, frequently fell over and spent most of my time shivering on the wing. It wasn’t only the sports I didn’t like. I have never understood group dynamics. I was baffled by gaggles and gangs in the pla
Written on the Body (opens the original)
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Dying and birthing have a lot in common. I had never stopped to think about this until I sat by my father’s bed, willing him to give in, to release, to take his last breath in the same way I strained to bring my kids into the world and listened anxiously for them to take their first gulp of air.This summer I realised that grieving and loving have a lot in common too. They both start in the body, leaving the mind to catch up. They both start in a place beyond words so that we can be utterly baffl
"Life is Weather. Life is Meals." (opens the original)
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When Dad was dying I was more acutely aware of the weather than usual. Maybe it was because I had left the oven heat of Thailand to race to his side during one of England’s chillier summers. Maybe it was because I had arrived in inappropriate clothing - light cotton trousers, a T-shirt and a shawl, the nearest things to hand when I got the call from my sister. Maybe it was because I was jetlagged and grieving. Whatever the reason, the drear, grey cold got into my bones. I welcomed it, would have
Fast, Slick, Easy (opens the original)
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You would never call me an early adopter. I am always decidedly behind the curve on everything (Hello, Substack!) so it would come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that it was not until this week that I decided to use Claude months and months and months after non-writer friends had waxed lyrical about the chatbot’s usefulness.The thing that tipped me out of my resistance was a letter that I needed to write in response to a voice note containing unsolicited, very personal “feedback” from som
Beg, borrow and steal (opens the original)
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When writers are stuck, I sometimes suggest they borrow from writers they admire. I have been known to deconstruct the plot of a book I love in the hopes of learning from someone else’s narrative structure. I have also been known to copy out a couple of beautiful sentences, insert my own character’s name into them, and then carry on writing my story as though the other writer will imbue my own writing with some of their magic. (I hasten to add that I of course go back and delete the copied sente
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