M. Shaw is trying to make the writing thing happen full-time within the next few years. After a few years of relatively lax engagement with the craft, they’re throwing the full force of their talent and practice into the effort. But being able to do things like build a portfolio, send out submissions and grant/residency applications, and find and maintain an audience require money and time that are hard to come by when you need to work a 9-to-5 (or 6:30-3, in their case) to support your household. Making this work is a gradual process of many factors coming together. At the moment, the only real thing they have to offer here is correspondence. They’re not really joking when they tell people that the social media they’re most active on is snail mail correspondence. They send a lot of letters and postcards. Mostly, this is because they enjoy it, but they also write letters and postcards as a sort of writing equivalent of warm-up sketches. Correspondence is an art and a practice itself, and they want their fans and patrons to be able to enjoy them as well as the friends they already send them to on a more free-form schedule. So, make a pledge to help them make the dream work, and they’ll send you a personal, handwritten letter or postcard every month. If they can get this started and keep it going, they’ll be able to offer more rewards later, so stay tuned!
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