Welcome! I'm Sara Ramsey, a novelist and former tech worker. I recently moved back to my 430-person town in rural Iowa after two decades in San Francisco. I write about the wild and weird magic of my rural life, as well as anything else that strikes my fancy. Thank you for joining me!
Happy new year from southern Iowa!
The sky is its usual dull January gray. Last week’s mud has frozen into whorls and ruts rimmed with patches of ice, and we’re expecting our first major snowfall next week. I am attempting to set goals for the year, but that feels like folly when the deepest part of winter hibernation still lies ahead. Why work toward some distant future when my body feels like it should be burrowed in and dreaming?
But time and late stage capitalism wait for no one. So I’m utilizing all my mud season tricks (sunrise alarm clocks, invigorating candles, girl dinners with cheese and charcuterie and this perfect absinthe orange marmalade, ginger beer/lime/mint mocktails, and my Day Designer planner) to awaken my mind and focus on the year ahead.
One of my goals is to continue building this newsletter. The novel I’m (still) working on is moving at its own pace — mostly slow burn, with the occasional surprising burst of momentum as another piece of the story unlocks. In contrast, this newsletter is a refreshing break from the long slog of novel-writing.
I want to keep it refreshing, but I also want to do more with it. I intend to keep exploring the unique bits of this place. I’ll keep digging into what makes this community tick and what threatens to destroy it. But I’m also interested in thinking more broadly about community and creativity, and how to build communities and individual lives in more sustaining and sustainable ways.
As I’m framing out how to approach these ideas, a few top contenders are emerging. But I want to hear what you want to hear — because it would be tragically hilarious if I invest a lot of time in thinking more deeply about community and connection if you’re only here for the jello posts.
Possible new or expanded topics for 2024:
A deeper exploration of how to build community. This could involve occasional interviews or conversations with locals in my small town about how they’re keeping this community going against all the demographic odds. I’m also interested in exploring other communities to see what lessons can be learned — and how we can apply them to our own lives and communities.
A deeper exploration of how to change your life. I happen to believe that life changes are intertwined with the communities we choose to live in and build (or ignore/opt out of), so this topic isn’t entirely individualistic. But I’m interested in talking to people who have made life-changing moves in search of a more creative and connected life, and how to make those changes more feasible for more people.
Skip the depths and have some fun. There are days when I would rather write something absurd and send you some links for things to read / do / try. Do you want your stories of small town life to be leavened with some lighter posts instead of going deeper into other topics?
Stay in my lane and keep excavating the current vein. I have approximately one million stories to tell you about the 430 people who live in my small town, and I can mine this vein indefinitely (or at least for another year). I could stay hyperfocused on this small town without adding other voices, places, experiences, etc.
I’ve never used Substack’s polling feature, so let’s give it a go. If I branch out into other topics, what are you most interested in? Or do you just want more memoir-ish posts from my strange and surreal small town life?
If there are other topics you want to explore, or if this poll doesn’t work / is too constraining, please leave a comment or send me an email at dearsara@sararamsey.com.
And finally - thank you for being here. I have loved talking with so many of you about topics raised in previous posts, and I can’t wait to keep exploring / connecting / growing in 2024 (so long as the sunrise alarm clock and ginger beer can get me through mud season unscathed).
Cheers,
Sara
Thanks for reading! If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do - it’s a free and easy way to support my work.
If you missed last week’s post, you can catch up on how I spent Christmas Eve in a ghost town. Or, go deep in the archives to the first post of 2023, where I explored the strange joys of mud season.
Yeah, a survey!! I voted for "change your life" because that's so personally relevant but ideally I would have also voted for "more of the same"- I love your local updates and reflections!
I love the explorations of place and contrast, but really, I just love the newsletter and will read whatever you write.