Publish vs Express

Fosterverse Weekly #18

Sep 03, 2024

Hey Writers,

Earlier this year, we stopped using the word publish at Foster. Sure, we have lots of community members who publish their writing regularly. But we have many others who don’t publish publicly at all, yet they’re in regular practice with their writing.

Now we use the word express.

We finished up our latest cohort last Friday with another incredible Closing Ceremony where participants bravely expressed their words to each other. They expressed them by reading them aloud, telling us about what they wrote, or sharing a link that we could quietly read on our own. Some of them went on to publish those words on the internet, while others will keep them filed away in GDrive or their notebook.

The word express also opens up what form the words might take.

For this cohort, we witnessed expressions ranging from a 28-minute long-read essay to a tweet thread, a poignant and hilarious four-line story to a personal handwritten letter to a loved one—and everything in between.

I’ve talked to many of our writers and they’ve said that the word express feels like less of a burden since there’s no expectation of publishing something to an audience of strangers. They can simply express something to one person and that alone can feel connective and fulfilling.

It’s not about lowering the bar for our writing either. It’s more about allowing ourselves to reflect on exactly who we’re writing for and feeling into how best to express those words to them.

Consider using the word express instead of publish with your own writing and see what emerges.

Lyle