The Substack Podcast

Hunter Harris is the creator of Hung Up , the twice-weekly Substack newsletter where she takes a forensic lens to our culture’s obsessions and her own. She says she and her audience of nearly 200,000 subscribers share the same “disease”—insatiability—and that they’re bonded by a specific tunnel vision: her willingness to write a dozen pieces about A Star Is Born or spend time tracking down the mar...

In this week’s Open Tab, Australian-born, New York–based muckraker Lachlan Cartwright sat down with Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie to walk through two decades covering media, money, and power—from The Sun and the New York Post to executive editor of the National Enquirer, where he went from breaking news to becoming an anonymous source in one of the biggest political scandals of the decade. H...

Joanna Coles has spent her formidable career at the center of media: London’s Fleet Street in the ’80s, New York magazine, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and eventually the chief content officer role overseeing Hearst’s entire global magazine portfolio. She knows intimately what legacy media organizations have looked like at every stage of their life cycle and spent years “managing decline” from the...

We sat down with writer, editor, photographer, and futurist Kevin Kelly at the Interval at Long Now in San Francisco’s Fort Mason. Part cocktail bar, part science-centric museum to the future, the Interval houses an eight-foot-tall model of the solar system, artwork by the musician Brian Eno, and prototypes for the Long Now Foundation’s most ambitious project: a clock being built inside a West Tex...

In episode 3 of Open Tab, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie shared a few rounds with filmmaker and tech journalist Ashlee Vance at Fred’s Place, a longtime neighborhood dive in Mountain View just minutes from where the technology that gave Silicon Valley its name was born. After two decades covering tech for major publications, Ashlee circled the globe for Hello World, Bloomberg’s travel-tech do...

The psychotherapy room is, by design, one of the most private spaces in human life, but Esther Perel has devoted much of her career to opening the door. Addressing relationships, cross-cultural psychology, and the contours of belonging, she brought therapeutic ideas out into the world through a body of work that spans talks, books, and her hit podcast Where Should We Begin? , which has reached mil...

For our inaugural episode of Open Tab, we knew we wanted to speak with Emily Sundberg . Emily’s the founder and daily writer of Feed Me , a business, tech, and culture newsletter that’s been described as “ must-read (and much-read) .” She publishes almost every weekday— something like 250 sends a year—covering everything from DTC darlings and media industry churn to New York hospitality and new wo...

Most of what we hear from media insiders is a story of decline: collapsing economics, algorithmic chaos, layoffs, and LLMs nipping at journalists’ heels. But a new class of independent media founders is creating powerful businesses around their own work and direct relationships with readers, listeners, and viewers—highly-profitable, multi-format, and built without first raising millions of dollars...

Starting today, writers and creators can publish video posts directly from the Substack app, making it easier than ever to share videos, connect with subscribers, and earn money—all from the palm of your hand. Since launching the Substack app, we've prioritized making it a seamless tool for creators. First we introduced mobile text publishing , allowing writers to share their work from anywhere. N...

Ahead of a big weekend for football, Substack’s Austin Tedesco went live with Peter Moses to discuss Browns Film Breakdown , a multimedia publication that covers the Cleveland Browns in depth. Here are a few highlights from their conversation, including insights on providing value across multiple mediums, determining the right publishing cadence, and finding your niche. On the decision to start a...

Aaron Parnas is an independent journalist and attorney who built a following on TikTok by providing a Gen Z perspective on the news. After winning Substack’s TikTok Liberation Prize , Aaron went live with Substack CEO Chris Best to talk about bringing his community to the app, why Substack is different from the other guys, and how to build a multiplatform content strategy. Here are a few highlight...

Dan Harris is a bestselling author, the host of the 10% Happier podcast, and a former ABC news anchor. He went live with Substack CEO Chris Best yesterday to share the creative ways he’s been using live video in the Substack app, and offered recommendations for others hoping to take advantage of the feature. Here, we’re sharing a few highlights from their conversation. Learn more about going live...

We asked , who writes on Substack, for advice on making her new Substack sustainable, slowly and steadily cultivating a sacred space for exploring writing and ideas, and building her community. Jamie is an author, designer, digital course creator, and creative consultant living in Los Angeles. Her debut novel, Main Character Energy , was published in September 2023 by the HarperCollins imprint Par...

In early August, Doomberg, the leading publication in the finance category on Substack, announced that they were opting out of X (fka Twitter) and putting all their focus on Substack. The Doomberg team had built much of their brand and reach on Twitter through a strategy that leaned on getting their goggle-eyed green chicken avatar in front of as many people as possible through timely tweets, thre...

We’ve just shipped some new features that make podcasting on Substack even better. You can now use a special AI tool to create a clean transcript of your podcast episode or narration without having to do anything more than click a button. The whole transcription process usually takes about a minute. Once you’ve created the transcript, you can go in and edit it to make it just how you like it, and...

We asked , who writes on Substack, for advice on finding great ideas. Brian is a social scientist and professor of global politics at University College London. He is the author of four books, including Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, which includes interviews with torture victims, CEOs, cult leaders, and more. Brian’s Substack explores the mystery and marvel of the world we liv...

We asked for advice on thriving as an independent writer, even when your competitors loom large and attempt to swallow you whole. Kristen’s first newsletter—covering how technology was changing the restaurant industry—launched in 2013, was sold to a media company in 2016, and was killed in 2019. Five months later, she launched on Substack, where she writes about the future of hospitality.  Kristen...

We asked the cartoonist, comedian, and author Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell  for her advice on prioritizing growing to-do lists.  Hilary is the author of Murder Book , and her forthcoming book What Did I Do Today? is a guided journal for daily accomplishments. On her Substack, Cartoons by Hilary , she publishes illustrated advice columns, sketchbook dumps, and a podcast with Derek Boeckelmann to ask...

We asked for her advice on tackling heavy subject matter while keeping her audience engaged. Lauren is an award-winning journalist and photographer of more than 20 years. She spent more than a decade reporting from war zones in which women and girls are violated and, before that, five years documenting violence and the suppression of journalists globally.  She has written for The Atlantic and The...

We asked Holly Whitaker to share advice on her writing practice. Holly writes Recovering , a newsletter that looks at recovery as a way of living that is accessible to everyone. Holly started blogging in 2013 after going sober, which turned into a sobriety school, a digital recovery startup, and New York Times bestseller Quit Like a Woman . She is also working on her second book and a podcast . Re...

Welcome to our new podcast, The Active Voice. It's about how great writers are reckoning with the challenges of the social media moment, how they find the space for themselves to create great literature and journalism despite the noise, and how to make a living amid the economic volatility of the 2020s. In the first episode, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie talks to George Saunders , one of Ame...

We asked Robert Reich to share his advice on learning to use his writing and drawing skills to illustrate his Substack. Read on for Robert’s advice, or listen to him read it aloud above. This is the fifth in a recurring series of longform writer advice, following Alicia Kennedy’s advise on learning to listen , Embedded ’s Kate Lindsay ’s advice on creating trust with your readers , Lance’s Anna Co...

We asked Helena Fitzgerald to share her advice on navigating isolation as a writer. Helena writes Griefbacon —a newsletter on the weirdness of relationships for “the last people at the party after everyone else has gone home .” Listen on for her experience of solitude in writing, or listen to her read it aloud above. Dear writer, how does isolation play into your writing experience? When do you cr...

Are you a podcaster, audio creator, or author of a sound-focused publication? Next month, Substack will open applications for our  next intensive : the Summer of Sound.  In this month-long immersive workshop, we will invite a select group of writers and audio creators to deepen their focus, build a strategy, test techniques, and grow their publications into sustainable projects.  Applications will...

One year ago this week , writers and the Substack team started gathering in weekly Office Hours discussion threads together for the first time. In 38 threads with tens of thousands of comments, writers shared bold ambitions for publishing on Substack, swapped sharp insights on growing an engaged email list , and celebrated milestones like going paid . A year in and the discussion threads continue,...