8 Questions for... Tara Penry

Quiet Reading with Tara Penry

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Dr.

Tara Penry

is an American Lit professor, former editor, and mom. She writes "Quiet Reading with Tara Penry," a refuge for our shared humanity inspired by authors, books, and this world of marvels. 

1. Why Substack?

I started reading a friend’s newsletter in 2021 or 2022 and was impressed with the polished appearance of the platform. The period of 2020-2022 was full of changes for me at home and work, aside from the universal COVID disruptions, so the idea of writing for myself in a space new to me began to feel very attractive. In academic work, we plan most things at least a year (or three or five) in advance – writing projects, classes, travels, and even breaks. Substack happened into my life at a time when I felt like an area rug taken outside and shaken, so I was willing to try something new. I came for the fresh, clean page, and I stay for reasons I didn’t anticipate – like the sense of finding the right house for a party I was invited to a long time ago. 

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

Dear Groove, I am looking for you. Where are you hiding? Mom called you for dinner forever ago. Tag, you’re it for cleaning the dishes. If you wake me up when you come in, I am so putting water balloons in your bed the next time you go off like this. XOXO, Your sis. P.S. The treefort is disgusting. Clean up your candy wrappers. I know you were there.

While we wait for Groove to show up, I’ll tell you I’ve been writing on Substack for a little over two years, trying this and that and finding out what sort of length, frequency, and subjects interested me. For most of 2023, I thought I wanted to write about the power of books and words to enchant people into common ground. This subject was directly related to an academic book project that I “paused” in 2020 during COVID shutdowns until “pause” became a full stop. The cross between literature, enchantment, and the elusiveness of a common public life seemed to be a topic I could run with for a long time.

A few months in to regular posts, I didn’t feel like I was settling into Plan A the way I expected. My posts had my ideas in them but not my personality – especially not my humor. I felt an ongoing need to explain what my title meant. (At that time, it was “Enchanted in America.”) One person thought I was writing fantasy fiction. Others on Substack were writing about enchantment in ways that were already audience-tested and accessible. So I started scribbling new names and missions in a spiral notebook. Literature and enchantment had been such a part of my academic thinking for about seven years that it took me months to get out of that groove and into one that felt less idea-driven and more personal and flexible.

I chose the name “Quiet Reading” because it has more of a vibe than a thesis, and the vibe is spacious enough for comfort, humor, camaraderie, intellectual rigor (sometimes), spiritual depth (sometimes), and light whimsy (any time). It lets me get bookish and scholarly, or to snap a photo in good light and write a poem. I feel like I could spend a long time in a “refuge for our shared humanity,” which is what books mean to me, but I’m not limited to bookish posts. 

3. How has it changed you?

My Substack community has opened up a source of joy and playfulness that I did not see coming. If you’ve been to a beach in all kinds of weather, you know how a storm tide can sweep away sand dunes and rearrange the rocks so that you hardly recognize the place afterward. But a week later, under a blue sky, you are greeted by thousands and millions of frothy bubbles laughing in the surf. I live inland now, so I don’t visit many beaches, but my Substack community reminds me of sparkling water flung up from the deep. What a joy to walk that water line almost every day.

Thanks to the newsletter, I am keeping up with people from my past who are interested in this side of my life, like my sixth-grade teacher and his wife, and my favorite next-door neighbor from 24 years ago, and some old friends that I hold in permanent affection. I guess you could say my days are more heart-centered with the Quiet Reading and other Substack communities present. “The Friendship Melon” is a post I wrote with that next-door neighbor in mind and heart:

The Friendship Melon

4. What mistakes have you made?

I don’t feel anything has been a mistake, but I’ve learned a great deal. One of my favorite a-ha’s was the realization that an inbox newsletter needs to be about people more than ideas. Any people will do: you, me, perfect strangers, fictional characters, insects under a camera lens, trees bending in the wind, microbes, books. You get the idea: people.

Before Quiet Reading, my newsletter name was hard to understand. That earlier name was “Enchanted in America.” I hear you asking: What on earth does that mean? Exactly. If you missed the Day 1 lecture, you might have an open mind about enchantment, but otherwise, it was a little abstruse. Lesson 1 for my academic self: Do not start a newsletter with a thesis.

I started getting much stronger feedback when my posts centered on people, like “She Persisted”:

She Persisted

I also learned by turning on paid subscriptions, but that has its own question ….

5. To pay or not to pay?

I started writing without a paid option because I didn’t want to make promises until I knew what I could deliver. When I did turn on paid subscriptions, I offered extra posts and perks for financial supporters of my little laboratory of words, but two things happened. 1. My growth line plateaued when I put half my posts behind a paywall, and 2. I felt strongly that my mission on Substack was to write, not to extend my reach as a teacher, book-club leader, etc. I backed off of differential offerings for free and paid subscribers and wrote down the first goal that I think I was aware of: to find the readers interested in what I could write. All my choices now support that goal. It’s comforting to have a goal after so much freedom.

For now, the paid supporter option is still available, but I am not running Quiet Reading as a business. As a working parent, I don’t feel I have the bandwidth to deliver on promises to anyone else. Writing for joy – that I can do. I am grateful for those who choose the paid option. They help me to pay a little something to Substack, to maintain a budget for other newsletters, and to keep the kids in pizza when I’m writing instead of making dinner. Down the line, maybe I will make a different choice, but this is what works for me right now.

6. What artistic and technical choices have you made?

My most fundamental artistic choice so far has been to allow any true voice of my writing into the Quiet Reading letter. Some weeks I’ll make a respectable academic argument. The next week I’ll devote to a reverent or irreverent verbal frolic. I’m certain this variety has contributed to my relatively slow growth compared to some peers who are more consistent from post to post. It’s part of the long game of experimentation in style, voice, and form that I want to play. I’m curious about what’s possible for me as a writer in this newsletter form. What my readers know they can count on is a ringing, affirmative conclusion that makes us all cheer with hope for humanity. At least, that’s what I try to do. The rest is subject to change.

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

I’d say I’m collaborating more and experimenting with genres and forms. But the most important thing may be that I feel I’m writing in a more holistic way than ever. The academic humanities ask some but not all of the questions that interest me. At Quiet Reading, I can ask, Does this approach to a book or topic spread love and understanding in the world? and How does this post or series or collaboration shed light on the best of human nature?

You might say that by sidestepping academic decorum, I’m figuring out how to be a better ambassador for the humanities. The point is not just the survival of an academic discipline. I believe there is hope for our human species and the planet in our care if every one of us devotes our talent and energy to cultivating what’s best in our nature. It’s a long game, and happily much in evidence on Substack. I feel surrounded on all sides here by other hopefuls, picking up our tools and doing what we can.

8. In it for the long haul?

Decidedly.

Subscribe to

Tara Penry

: