Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of 19th century history at Boston College. She has the most popular newsletter by an individual on Substack called “Letters from an American”. There’s around 350,000 subscribers, and I’m happily one of them.
Her writing, especially during these last few weeks, have helped ground me in reality and history. They are beautifully written 1000+ words essays on the news of the day, and wherever needed historical context.
A few days ago though, she sent a question that floored me:
Another question for you all that would be very helpful for me in light of a new project….
If you have one or two favorite letters from this series, which are they? And if you have an idea of it, can you say why you liked them? (My favorites are never the popular ones!)
That last sentence tells me she doesn’t know what makes her work, work. All she can do is write everyday and occasionally ask her readers for some help.
She is a millionaire from her newsletter and is still just figuring it out.