How My Substack Bridged a Communication Gap With My Mother

By Tamara Cutler

“Mich, I’m working on waste this morning,” my eighty-four-year-old mother announced when I walked into her house to get our dog.

I write a weekly round-up for my Substack Zine, That Place You Love (TPYL), on Fridays. Mom wanted to make sure her flash essay on Waste posted in time.

I launched TPYL on January 2, 2023, to create community. We’d been living in a rural village in southern Spain for years, and I missed hanging out with old friends and sharing stories. I a...