Hey, folks. So, I have finally gotten with all the hip kids, and posted a Patreon account. The hope is that folks will donate to have me write a weekly column here at HU, where I will write about all those cultural things that are too unpopular, or old, or weird to write about on mainstream sites.

The name of the column will be Twisted Mass of Heterotopia; the exciting page where you can patronize me and all I stand for is here.

Some longtime (or even not so longtime) readers will be saying, hey, you write about this sort of thing on HU for free all the time! Why do you suddenly need money? A good question! There are two answers:

1. I’d like to start getting paid for what I do here, rather than putting all the work in for free;

2. As I get more freelance work, I’ve had less and less time for the blog, and especially less and less time to put in to in-depth posts on topics I’m not poking at elsewhere for other reasons.

Folks may also be curious how or whether this will change the rest of the blog, outside my writing. The short answer is, I”m not sure. Obviously, if no one throws money my way, nothing will change…though the blog has been in something of a lull for a few months, as my attention has been elsewhere, and I’ve been less engaged in getting new contributors.

If I do manage to get a paying column going, that would mean I would be getting paid here and others would not. I do hope, if I make some of my stretch goals, to pay a guest poster every month…but that may be pie in the sky, and in any case obviously wouldn’t fund paying for every post. I will still be doing volunteer posts here, and hope others would as well, but if people aren’t comfortable doing that given the changed circumstances (if they do change) I’d certainly understand that, and HU might transition to more of a place for my column and musings rather than a group site…but again, that would really be up to what contributors want to do.

This is all getting ahead of myself though. It’s entirely possible this won’t work. But! If you’d like to make it happen, and boldly go where some have gone before but not me, please consider contributing.

Here’s my exciting marketing statement explaining what I think I’m doing. Be swayed by the marketing!

Point your internet to the cultural arbiter of your choice, and chances are you will stumble upon a Game of Thrones think piece. Or a Taylor Swift think piece. Or a Marvel supeheroes think piece. Or maybe on a think piece about Taylor Swift being bitten by a radioactive fantasy novel. With great power, winter is coming. Shake it off.

The point is that mainstream sites tend to write about the same popular things, because popular things are popular. And that’s fine; I’ve written my share of Game of Thrones and Taylor Swift and Avengers think pieces. But I’d also like to write about Nora Olsen’s YA LGBT thriller “Maxine Wore Black”, or how Chuck Berry invented rap, or how D.M. Thomas’ The White Hotel is that rare thing, Holocaust art that does not suck.

That’s where this column comes shambling in. Twisted Mass of Heterotopia will focus on art you don’t usually get to see covered in mainstream venues. The lens will sometimes be feminist, sometimes formalist, and sometimes something else. But the goal is a column once a week at my site, the Hooded Utilitarian. Stretch goals include guest posts from other awesome writers.

All backers will get early notification of column topics and the secret explanation of the column title. Backers higher levels can get ebooks, a chance to commission a column, and other goodies.

As a writer, it is enormously exciting to have the chance to get paid to write about what interests or fascinates or disgusts me, without having to worry about clicks or the brutal tyranny of the news hook. Thank you so much for supporting me. I really appreciate it.

 
There are various goodies if you contribute, including free ebooks which do not exist yet but which I will figure out how to create if anyone actually puts in money at that level. And my wife pointed out that if no one contributes, I can at least write an article about my failed Patreon campaign…which oddly didn’t comfort me quite as she seemed to think it would. But I’ll take what consolation I can, I suppose.