#26 Quantity over quality works too
On reaching for consistency over perfection.
A quick hello from me this Friday, as I had to accept that today there won’t be any ‘compelling’ intro ahead of the weekly recommendations. For 26 weeks, I promised to myself to try and be more organised, write (more) content ahead of time etc. In some weeks I succeeded – to a certain extent – and in other weeks, like this one, not so much.
Writing this newsletter has taught me so much and continues to do so in many ways: from research, time management and community building to content value and learning how to compromise.
Every time I get a new subscriber notification email from Substack, I have a little knot in my stomach. I am excited and scared at the same time. One of the reasons why I created the Culture Worm was because I felt the newsletter I wanted to read had not been written yet. So I had to do it, knowing that, at times, I won’t be able to deliver outstanding content week by week. This was difficult to accept from someone who is a perfectionist – but I left my pride aside and decided to show myself and this small (but ever growing!) community that I care and I’m still here.
On this occasion, I chose to prioritise quantity over quality. And I’m okay with this.
One more thought before we reconnect again next Friday:
"The important thing is not to keep winning, but to keep reaching." – James Clear, 3-2-1 Thursday Newsletter
On this weeks’s menu: News on Emma Raducanu, James Bond, Shakira, and more. 👀
Happy reading, happy learning,
Teodora x
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🥁 📚 The latest in the literary world
The winner of the 2021 US Open and the first British female player to win a Grand Slam title in over 40 years, Emma Raducanu, will have her story in a book for young readers written by Sally Morgan. 🎾 “Emma Raducanu: A Life Story” will be part of a series that will explore “the lives and journeys of exceptional people who have changed the world with their talents, discoveries and achievements.” 🙌
On International Translation Day 2021 (September, 30), over 100 authors have added their names to an open letter written by Jennifer Croft (translator of Olga Tokarczuk’s International Booker Prize-winning “Flights”) and Mark Haddon (author of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”) asking for translators to be named on the covers of the books they have translated (they’ve also started a hashtag, #TranslatorsOnTheCover). 📘 ✍️
Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk alongside other high-profile authors such as Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, and Khaled Hosseini are among those who signed a letter initiated by PEN America demanding the release from prison of the Iranian writers Baktash Abtin, Keyvan Bajan, and Reza Khandan Mahabadi. ✉️ 🖊️ According to PEN, the writers stood trial in 2019 and were sentenced to prison for “propaganda” and “colluding against national security”.
Tina Brown, the bestselling author of “The Diana Chronicles,” wrote a sequel about the monarchy trying to preserve itself amidst “explosive headlines.”🤭 The book is entitled “The Palace Papers: Inside The House Of Windsor – The Truth And The Turmoil” will be published in April, just months before Prince Harry’s “tell-all memoir”. 👑
BONUS: “I have a lot of questions for you”: Elena Ferrante talks to Marina Abramović. FT Weekend Magazine invited possibly the world’s most private novelist to exchange letters with Marina Abramović, the performance artist. They discuss art, writing, bold choices, loneliness, and more. Wow. This felt so precious and intimate, I might print the letters later… 🥺 💕
🎧 📰 👀 My media diet this week
“Simone Biles chose herself” from New York Magazine. Why read this? The 24-year-old gymnast on why she should have quit ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, having the ‘twisties’ (when an athlete’s mind and body lose connection and muscle memory fails to kick in), Nassar’s longtime abuse and her statement for the Judiciary Committee hearing at the US Senate, as well as getting back on therapy, and taking the time to heal. 🤸 🏅
“I am not always very attached to being alive” – CW: it might be a difficult read for some, and it contains strong language about suicide and suicidal thoughts. Why read it? This is a first person account on how it is to live with chronic, passive suicidal ideation, the little science around suicide, extreme treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy and ketamine, and the comfort of social connectedness.💡
How a 20-Year-Old had single-use plastic banned in Bali – a short documentary from VICE Asia about Melati Wijsen, the girl who co-founded the Bye Bye Plastic Bags movement, aged only 12. Why watch this? Wijsen explains how she has managed to create change through an environmental policy, how the pandemic made her efforts to achieve a plastic-free Bali more difficult, and her new project “Youthtopia,” aimed to educate and inspire a new generation to become activists in their fields. 👏 ♻️
This podcast episode from Inside the Newsroom featuring the American journalist Glenn Greenwald. Why listen to it? Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times bestselling books on politics and law. His most recent book, “Securing Democracy” is about the grave corruption, deceit, and wrongdoing by powerful officials in the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, which subsequently attempted to prosecute him for that reporting. This is a fascinating conversation from how Greenwald stumbled upon journalism to becoming one of the greatest journalists of his generations. 🤩 🤯
No Time To Die: The Official James Bond Podcast. Why listen to this? A six-part series featuring exclusive interviews with Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, director Cary Joji Fukunaga, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, among others. Sprinkled with some Hans Zimmer magic. For the hardcore James Bond fans. (On this note, have you watched the actual film? I have and I thought it was a great goodbye from Daniel Craig!) 🕵️ 🍸 💣
📌 Random news in brief
See you later, alligator! 👋 A man from Florida was recorded capturing an alligator in a garbage bin and, of course, the video went viral. 🐊
37 new emojis have been approved to roll out later this year, but the highlight is … ‘the melting face emoji.’ You tell me in which context this is apt to use! 👀 🤔
Before we say goodbye… 🥺
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