Leaving behind the Valley of Unrest

A departure announcement.

Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

You may have notice a phase of irregularity in our posting schedule recently. There’s been a lot of stuff going on recently, so please forgive us for that. When we’re able to, we’ll try to get back up to our normal frequency.

On a different note— which has been playing into my own ability to focus on creating posts as of late— I have an announcement to make.

I’m crawling out of my gravestone and departing this valley of unrest. It’s time for me to heed the raven’s caws, and step down from my position in the Collective. Well… soon. August 15th will be my last day here in the collective.

This publication isn’t shutting down though. While plans for how it’ll be run after I’m gone are still being figured out,

V. Walker | Poet

will be taking the reins.

She’s actually was there since I first started this Collective. And through every single change we’ve made, she’s done a great job at adapting and moving forward. I have no doubt in her ability to keep this place in good shape after my departure. And I hope you’ll feel the same way, too.

But why am I leaving? The short answer is well… School. I’m starting College in September and I also work a full-time job. So I just don’t have time for managing all that, and this Substack as well.

The more in-depth explanation is I never intended to be in the Collective long-term. The idea of this publication existing was an experiment, and back when I started I wanted to be as hands-off as possible. Basically setting up the foundation and handling communication needs.

Then from there allowing others to make the features— only stepping in and making them too if we were falling behind.

Naturally things didn’t turn out that way. I ended up creating a ton of features as well. And while they’re a lot of fun to make, I just don’t have a huge amount of time.

And even now, while we’ve been experimenting with more post types (like discussions and prompts), the issue of time has never been more prevalent. So it only makes sense to allow others to now takeover, and present them the opportunity to grow the Collective in ways which works for them.

The Collective has always been bigger than me. It’s a community, and every person whose been featured is a part of this community. And I’m grateful I was able to help play a part in building that.

Thank you to everyone for allowing me opportunity, it really has been a pleasure. Don’t be mistaken though, this post is not a goodbye— at least not yet— just the precursor.

Behind the scenes we’ll be working on discussing changes, but here upfront I’ll be doing my best to resume posting new features and prompts. I think for now the Discussion post’s may be on the back burner, but we’ll see. And since I’m leaving, a new spot in our writing is opening up.

More on that when we have stuff figured out, haha. It’s time for me to close out this post, but thanks once again everyone. I’ll see you in the next post.