Hi, friends!

Gosh, it feels good to be back here with you just as that first hint of Fall hits the air here in Seattle!

Thanks for bearing with me. June through September was a creatively potent season for me. I pressed pause on this newsletter to write my first book (!!), lap up some sunshine, and figure out what this newsletter wanted to become in its “sophomore year.”

I am happy to report that Seattle gave us an especially gorgeous summer, and we relished it. A few highlights: seeing the Ai Weiwei Rebel exhibit, a spontaneous day trip to Whidbey Island with my mother-in-law, and standing on the beaches at Deception Pass Park watching salmon fishermen catch and release. Absolute magic.

A New Shape for This Space

If you’re new to this community and newsletter, welcome!

And for those who have been with me from the beginning, you’ve born witness to the growing pains of a writer finding her stride. You may have even noticed me publishing newsletter content in two places at once: here on Beehiiv and, on occasion, over on Substack. My friend Anna Mackenzie, in a moment of good humor during our podcast interview last season, called it “dabbling.” And she was right. It was dabbling. It carried its own awkwardness, and its own earnest search.

But by the start of the Summer, my habit of dabbling had caught up with me. I felt what can only be described as an intense creative itch to publish my meatier essays in a more publicly discoverable corner of the internet as my confidence grew. Frankly, I was tired of gating my bigger ideas here.

And so, I gave myself three months to experiment with publishing my longer essays over on Substack, while temporarily suspending judgment about the purpose of this particular newsletter.

The results shocked me. My audience on Substack doubled in under a month, my cold inbound inquiries jumped 30%, and—perhaps most importantly—that discipline of long-form writing gave me both the practice and raw material I needed to write my book.

But by the end of summer, I’ll admit—I panicked. Because what we have here feels more like a cozy, coffee chat with a friend, and I wasn’t ready to give that up!

So, true to portfolio-careerist form, I’ve decided not to choose. Instead, I’ll be weaving the best of both worlds together from here on out:

Substack → Essays + Think Pieces
If you’re in the mood to get philosophical and deep with me, Substack is where you’ll find my longer essays which are meant to be read and metabolized more slowly. They will by published to Substack via the Notes feature only (so you don’t get two emails from me at a time), and the more widely read amongst them will be linked here on Beehiiv, so you will never need to go digging for my content in two places.

Beehiiv → Curated Notes for the Portfolio Career Curious
Think of this newsletter as a weekly chronicle or highlight reel. Each weekish, I’ll deliver a bit of variety to your inbox. Sometimes this will consist of a behind-the-scenes peek into my own business and portfolio; other times it’ll spotlight you—this incredible community!—in the spirit of cultivating a sense of mutual aid. And every so often, I’ll even round up essays, podcasts, events, and announcements that have caught my eye, to help keep that portfolio career of yours simmering.

At its heart, this newsletter has always carried the promise of offering you a small, steady measure of inspiration for building a portfolio career on your own terms. That promise remains. What changes now is only the form: shaped to fulfill more fully what was always there from the very beginning.

All of that is to say, this new chapter has me incredibly lit up! I cannot WAIT to see how this community grows and takes shape—and what we dream up as a collective.

As always, building with you,

Brie