Introducing... The Unexpected Shape Newsletter

What is The Unexpected Shape™ Newsletter? ✏️

The Unexpected Shape Newsletter is a Substack Featured newsletter and community for thoughtful softies, hosted by New York Times-bestselling and award-winning author Esmé Weijun Wang. Every week, I send inspiration for ambitious people living with limitations such as chronic illness, caretaking responsibilities, and/or disability.

“This Substack is like a safe space full of grace and gentleness. Esmé provides so many wonderful resources for writers. She focuses on supporting those living with limitations and chronic conditions, which can easily become discouraging and overwhelming in a fast-paced world. Esmé advises and guides with a nurturing hand that also challenges (see You Don’t Have to Write Everyday to Be a Writer and Everyday Creativity: Small Actions with Big Impact). She also writes poignant essays that make my heart twinge.” —Tiffany Chu, Fellowship of the Inklings

You might be wondering—what are my options?

❤️ You can be a free subscriber.

Free subscribers get newsletters every other week. Those missives share stories about living as a working writer while living with limitations, as well as special features such as Conversations with Friends, Tips & Tricks, and What Sustains Us.

❤️ You can be a paid subscriber.

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll receive access to subscriber-only posts every other week in addition to the newsletters that free subscribers get. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in our Fireside Chats (online chats about things like matters of being a working writer, creativity, and living with limitations, including the occasional special guest) and the comments section. Finally, you’ll get access to our ever-growing home of freebies, which includes:

• Journal Prompts for Every Journal-Keeper e-book 📝

• The Chloe Benjamin desktop wallpaper 🖥️

• The Keep Going, You're Doing Great desktop 🖥️

• Journal Prompts Through the Storm: Prompts for Your Journaling Practice Through Difficult Times e-book📓

• The Very Best Notion Hub for Writers 🔥

• Journal-Keeping for Memoir Writers Guide 📚

• You've Hit a Chronic Illness Flare. Here's What to Do About Your Writing Practice Guide 📚

• 5-Minute Journaling: Some Creative Journal Prompts for Reflection and Exploration e-book 📋

It’s a steal for $7/month, and by subscribing, you’ll be supporting my work as a writer.

Whether you’re a free subscriber or a paid subscriber, sign up to get access to the newsletter via email and the Substack app. Never miss an update. 💌

You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of The Unexpected Shape goes directly to your inbox. Don’t want to miss out on our conversations and resources? Make sure to upgrade to a paid subscription. And if you can afford to sponsor a paid subscription for someone else, please consider doing so.

About Me ❤️

I’m a writer, teacher, and speaker. My first book, The Border of Paradise, is a novel that garnered me a spot in Granta’s one-a-decade list of twenty Best of Young American Novelists. My second book, The Collected Schizophrenias, is a New York Times-bestselling essay collection, as well as an award-winner of accolades such as the Whiting Award, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, and the Northern California Book Award for Nonfiction. I’m currently working on an epic novel about a queer, chronically ill woman who inherits a haunted luxury hotel. I’m the founder of The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy, an online writing school that includes a full curriculum and guest lectures by brilliant folks such as Leslie Jamison, Eula Biss, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Suleika Jaouad. I live with multiple chronic illnesses, my husband (who is recovering from cancer), and a small dog named Daphne. I’m also on Instagram @esmewwang.

Readers say this about me… ✏️

“[Wang’s] elegant essays are strongest at their most personal — when she writes, with clinical precision, about what it feels like to believe that she’s dead, or to slip the boundary between our world and a sci-fi movie on TV — but they also confront major questions about psychiatric care with meticulous even-handedness.”

THE WASHINGTON POST

“[The Collected Schizophrenias is] resoundingly intelligent, often unexpectedly funny, questioning, fearless and peerless, as Wang makes for brilliant company on 13 difficult walks through largely uncharted territory.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES

“Wang’s prose is beautiful and restrained, and her generous, precise characterization makes every perspective feel organic and utterly real in the face of increasingly theatrical circumstances. The result — the story of an American family stretched and manipulated into impossible shapes — is an extraordinary literary and gothic novel of the highest order.”

CARMEN MARIA MACHADO (NPR BOOKS)

“The Border of Paradise is shaped by darkness and the kind of delicious story that makes for missed train stops and bedtimes, keeping a reader up late for just one more page of dynamic character-bouncing perspective… It is the author’s stunning introduction to the literary world.”

NEW YORK TIMES

"Esmé's newsletter is filled with a gentleness that I don't normally find with other newsletters. Her ability to stay candid while also finding a way to utilize language in such a fascinating. way is amazing tome. If you've ever heard Esmé. speak, you'd also find that she maintains the same gentleness with her writing. I will never unsubscribe."

NATASHA B.

“I freakin’ LOVE your newsletter. Well done.”

JUSTINE T.

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P.S. ✏️

And what about those of you who are (also?) interested in emails about writing personal nonfiction? That will now be the purview of a free newsletter called the Academy Bulletin, which you can subscribe to at the page HERE. Expect emails about personal nonfiction writing, including craft essays, personal nonfiction prompts, new class announcements, discounts, and freebies. People who subscribe to the Academy Bulletin will also receive a free online class called The 10-Day MFA. If the below excerpt pricks something in you, you might want to grab a copy.

You feel like you might not be able to get there without having received an MFA—or any formal writing education at all. The author's bios you see at the back of your favorite books frequently mention an MFA, and you worry that if you don't, you won't have what it takes to write the book of your dreams. But you can't bear to walk away from that very dream—so, what next?

I received an MFA from one of the top three MFA programs in the country. I've also been on the other side as a visiting professor at an MFA program. I'm confident that the things that I feel were most important to my writing practice over ten years from the date of my graduation would surprise you... and I want to share them.

I’m bringing all of my learnings and first-hand experience to bear to host my first on-demand class designed to springboard you right into working on your first book: The 10-Day MFA.

I hope you’re excited about these shifts here; I certainly am. Thank you for being here—and for those of you who join the Academy Bulletin, I’ll see you there (and again, you can sign up for that HERE). ❤️

See you soon—