It Takes A Village

a Substack newsletter about reading, writing, and community-building

It’s been a while.

More than two years ago —has it really been that long?— I quit blogging about newbie farm life on my website, www.jillianbarnetwrites.com to devote more time to writing my book, a memoir about how I lost and found myself while searching for love and the family who gave me up. Well, the memoir is done! It’s currently making the rounds, searching for a publishing home.

While that search proceeds in the background, I decided to start a newsletter. But as I began to write, the communication felt flat. While a newsletter is more personal than a blog, it misses the true sense of community I was looking to build. In fact, I wanted a publication that was ABOUT community-building, because in the past three years, I’ve learned a huge lesson: It Takes a Village.

What’s so important about a village?

It takes a village to find good books, hone your writing craft, learn to farm, become an advocate for a cause—all the things I’ve been doing since I last blogged. I could succeed at none of it without the various villages I’ve found—neighbors, podcasters, Instagrammers, Facebook subgroups, writing retreat participants, online teachers, beta readers, editors, and what seems like my own personal team of Agway sales people.

As an almost pathological introvert, being part of a group or asking for help didn’t come naturally to me. I’m sure some of you can relate. But, when we moved to central New York’s Finger Lakes, to a small village of just over 600 people, far from even a small town, to do something wholly unfamiliar—farming and living in a 200-year-old house— I quickly learned the need for advice from those more experienced. You Tube, the folks at Tractor Supply and Agway, and neighbors kept us from making costly mistakes, or rescued us after we had. We bought three different tractors before we sought advice and got it right!

Similarly, I’d struggled to get work published in popular outlets, my publishing credentials limited to obscure literary magazines read only by other writers. That was until I went to a writing retreat with the fabulous Allison K. Williams and Dinty Moore. (I cannot recommend them enough!) One of the participants there had an essay go viral in Washington Post before the retreat and she helped another participant edit a piece that was picked up by Newsweek while our retreat was in progress. Then both of them and Allison gave me advice on an essay I had in mind and BLAM! —it was accepted within days by HuffPost. You can read my essay, “I Could Have Gone to Prison for What I Did to Find My Birth Parents” here. Such is the power of The Village.

What kind of village will this be?

Of course, once The Village has bestowed its largess upon you, you are a member. It’s then your obligation to give back, to take your chickens’ eggs to the food pantry, contribute what you know to the online conversation, offer to help a friend catch the snapping turtle that threatens her ducks. Well, okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the picture. Consequently, here I am on Substack with my monthly newsletter, It Takes a Village, where I’ll offer insights and thoughts on books and reading, writing craft, publishing, and community-building, along with some crazy misadventures in fledgling farming. Don’t worry, I’m not charging. I chose Substack because it’s more visible and discoverable than a traditional newsletter, and best of all, you can easily comment and share, and help each other—because we all possess useful knowledge!

Get ready for the magic!

The villages I’ve found in the past three years haven’t just educated me, they’ve transformed me, my work, and my belief in what’s possible. Are you ready for the magic of The Village? I can’t wait to share my first full edition in August!

~Jillian

---