8 Questions for... Alisa Kennedy Jones

Gotham Girl, The Empress

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Bespoke brand consultant, screenwriter, and bestselling author

Alisa Kennedy Jones

is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on brand intelligence. Fluent in five languages, her celebrated TEDx talk on epilepsy changed the way we think about creativity, electricity, and the brain, and her debut bestseller Gotham Girl, Interrupted became a global phenomenon in the field of comedy and narrative medicine. When not writing her next book, Alisa is having the best time ever on Substack with gotham girl and The Empress.

1.     Why Substack?

I had been blogging on WordPress since 2015 as gotham girl and found the discoverability and engagement tools to be sorely lacking. Suddenly, there I was at the end of the book tour with Gotham Girl, Interrupted optioned for a series by Cary Brokaw, the Executive Producer of HBO’s Angels in America; I saw all these authors, screenwriters, scholars, and even witches (yes, Amanda Yates Garcia I see you) on Substack using the platform in such novel ways. They were serializing memoirs and mysteries, hosting virtual retreats, and, in some cases, even teaching filmmaking. When I wasn't working on the series adaptation of my book, Substack seemed the ideal environment to play with different varieties of short-form and serialized comedy—something I get a great deal of joy out of writing. There also seemed an opportunity to engage the community to do table reads—because you never know how terrible your work truly is until you hear someone else try to stumble through it in front of a live audience. I also thought creative ideation sessions to get people "unstuck" (myself included) or to help them reframe their narrative might prove useful. So, I moved gotham girl over and began to play.

Mine is a very niche-voice newsletter, but what it’s great at generating is meaningful, intimate interactions with readers, and I’ve just loved the connections it has fostered. I can't help but feel a deep sense of gratitude for the creative and literary companionship it has given me. It feels like the internet of yore—back when we were all still dialing into the wall—except now things actually work.

In the meantime, I started another stack that has grown well beyond what I could have ever expected; The Empress is dedicated to the science of midlife women thriving - all while making peri/menopause a little less hellish one idea at a time. In this way, Substack remains a place for meaningful thought experiments and connecting ideas in ways that you might not have expected before.

2.     How long did it take you to find your groove?

It took about a year and a conscious decision to show up for readers every Sunday and declare that I was committing to them to be present and that I cared for them, which I know may sound hokey, but it was like, “Here I go! I'm doing this! I double-dog swear it out loud to all of you and I promise I'm going to make it funny.” Slowly, I started to build a body of work and began to discover other people's work and engage with them through recommendations and comments and the whole community and quality of work fueled me.

3.     How has it changed you?

It’s like Mary said, it’s made me believe again in the power of the online literary community and companionship. I now know that I'm not writing in a vacuum. I never have to write alone again if I don't want to... that's incredibly empowering.

4.     What mistakes have you made?

Having two stacks instead of one. It's incredibly hard to keep up with—the second was more a community experiment, but eventually, if there were a way to consolidate them and focus the messaging, gotham girl and The Empress—it might be smarter time management. But we’ll see... having too many ideas and not enough focus often feels like a mistake to me.

5.     To pay or not to pay?

I had such fear about turning on payments. Even though I’d worked in film & TV and just sold a film, I still felt such guilt about whether the work had met the threshold of “good enough”? And then I thought... I'm going to look at the other writers I love here... where I'd gladly pay to be part of what they're doing and see if I can create an offering that would make sense, given the kind of writing that I do and topics I cover. They were... you,

<Mary L. Tabor>

,

Nick Hornby

,

Heather Havrilesky

,

Katherine May

,

Emma Gannon

,

Kimberly Warner

, and a host of other women who merit mentions.

6.     What artistic and technical choices have you made?

Instead of doing podcasts or voiceovers like a number of the other stacks, I've opted for topic-based hangouts, salons, writing sessions, and pilot table reads. Because a lot of the work that I do is dependent on performance by not just me but a whole room full of voices. So, in that regard, I have made slightly different technical choices on gotham girl than other writers might make. I am a big fan of building in public even if it means failing in public, hence The Secret Society for Sh*tty First Drafts. This is something I want to open up for other people as well to contribute pieces.

With The Empress, we've tried to host structured sessions where women have the space to ask questions and talk about their issues under this protective spell of radical self-acceptance and zero judgment. This goes for the book club as well, so in that way, I've tried to emulate some of the other writers I admire on the platform like

Katherine May

,

Good Humor by CK Steefel

, and

Amanda Montei

. We were so lucky to have Kirsten Miller, author of The Change, join us live for our book club. She’s had a huge impact on the trajectory of The Empress.

7.     What’s been the effect on your writing?

It's made it a much less fraught experience. I have much less fear of the blank screen, of spitting out the first words each morning. I’m far less timid about engaging in commentary and that, in and of itself, is a huge blessing for an introvert—who has broken her face twice now... lol.

8.     In it for the long haul?

Most definitely. There may be some consolidation to keep the workload reasonable and to keep readers from being overwhelmed by too much content, but the reason for the long haul is completely about the people with whom I've met and connected... they're the real reason to stay. I’m so invested in them.

Subscribe to

Alisa Kennedy Jones

: