HeyJaredthe Dear Friend Letters by Alison L Bradley
A letter to a friend 💌 regularly sharing recent joy-bringers & beauty, book prescriptions + encouragement for the tender places in your own story.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 8
- Latest publication
- Sep 17, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 12, 2026
Latest issues
Dear friend: lament practices, granola + beginner art supplies (opens the original)
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Dear friend,I love when I get questions in response to the things I write. Writing can feel lonely, and it is a gift when it feels more like a conversation than a monologue. There’s something really precious about hearing from you and getting to find out what connected most with your heart and what you’re still wondering about. I also think back to what I remember someone telling me as a child about asking questions in class: If you’re wondering it and willing to ask, there’s probably at least o
Dear friend: surprised by helplessness (opens the original)
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Dear friend,As a naturally conflict avoidant person1, I’ve never been one to embrace tension or conflict. I’m told that even as a toddler, if another child would grab a toy from me, I’d simply find something else to play with. I don’t have memory of that happening, but even now, I can relate to the pull of finding the path that doesn’t involve conflict as being my preferred way forward.It has been one of my biggest growth points over my adult life to see conflict as often the pathway to true pea
Dear friend: the gift from our worst book club read of last year (opens the original)
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Dear friend,As it sometimes happens, one of my least favorite books we read for book club last year ended up being one of my favorite conversations. I was disappointed by Your Brain on Art1, but loved chatting about creativity while we cut pages out of magazines and picked up paintbrushes. One of the things that came out of that conversation was the surprise that all of us present had a desire to
Dear friend: 18 (mostly) unrelated summery things (opens the original)
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Dear friend,I don’t know about you, but I have found that I love reading lists. Of course, I love a good essay, but there’s something fun and engaging about a thoughtful list. Reading lists usually makes me want to write my own. I was inspired by Lore Wilbert’s recent list of 16 unrelated things she is thinking about as well as Kayla Tyson’s list of things she’d tell her 21 year old self. So today’s letter is a list of 18 summer things for you. I’m so grateful for
Dear friend: you don't need your best words (opens the original)
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Dear friend,I have had several conversations with different friends all within the same week, where they mentioned feeling like they needed to use “their best words.” Every single one of them were naming this desire because of how complicated and layered the conflict they were experiencing in relationship felt. I know I have been there.I was easily transported back to when I was in the thick of one of the worst relational conflicts I’ve ever been in the midst of. For my peacemaker heart1, to not
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