Goodbye Substack (I hate Stripe)

All your questions (hopefully) answered!

Kia ora! Usually, right now, you’d be getting Friday Night Chats if you’re a paid subscriber. Instead - you’re getting this!

I had really hoped not to miss Friday Night Chats, but the move from Substack to Ghost has been really challenging. I’m so grateful to Josh Drummond for helping me move. He’s been an absolute lifesaver, and truly, I am so glad I hired him to help me. I could never have managed this on my own.

Let’s get a few questions out of the way, then we can move on to Friday Night Chats stuff!

Substack to Ghost 👻

Do I unsubscribe?

No! Please don’t! I get forced to refund you, which costs me a lot more money because there’s a refund ‘fine’ essentially. I can just move you. YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING!

Do I need to resubscribe?

Nope! As before, you don’t have to do anything! If you are already a Substack subscriber, with a paid or unpaid subscription, your account will move over to Ghost automatically.

How will I log in to Ghost or make comments?

This is actually really seamless. When you go to make a comment or log in on Ghost, you’ll be able to use the exact same email you use to subscribe to me on Substack. You’ll get a one-time code sent to your email. And that’s it! Nothing else changes.

Where will I find you? How will I get Emily Writes Weekly?

You’ll get Emily Writes Weekly in your email inbox. There is a chance, if you use Gmail, your email from me will wind up in the “Promotions” tab. If so, drag it to the inbox. There’s a smaller chance it’ll land in your Spam folder - if so, make sure to list the email as “Not Spam.”

And you’ll be able to find me at https://emilywrites.co.nz, like the olden days when it was my blog! Full circle!

Do I need to download the Ghost app?

No, because there isn’t one! And honestly, it’s better that way - it makes it impossible for Ghost or anyone else to lock me in. It’s just me, sending you emails, and a website you can visit any time you like.

How do I manage my account with Ghost?

It’s easier and more transparent than with Substack. But I’ll update everyone on stuff like this once the move is complete; otherwise, I guarantee I will be dealing with an inbox full of very confused people.

Do I need to delete the Substack app? Should I stay on Substack?

I can’t answer that for you. It’s up to you if you hang out here or not. There’s still a lot of awesome writers here. You can and should continue to support them. Not everybody is able to move. It was a costly and stressful exercise for me, and I don’t begrudge anyone staying.

Will you be on Substack at all?

At this stage, I’m feeling pretty let down about some of the decisions made here. As I said, this move has been really stressful and expensive for me. It’s taken a week and counting. So, I feel like I don’t want to be here at all now because I’m annoyed. But, and it’s a big but - I love a lot of people who share their writing here, so I may still be around. I just won’t be posting here.

⬆️⬆️ Badges for Kids Rock 4 Palestine!! 🇵🇸 Cute eh?

Friday Night Chats!

So, everything has been stressful and rough this week. But I’m happy to say Eddie’s fundraiser this weekend is sold out! There is a raffle - You can buy tickets by donating to: Prosean Pictures Ltd 06-0574-0906928-00 REF: Koha.

Every cent goes to the Aotearoa 2 Gaza mutual aid fund.

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Look at those prizes!!

• A brand new guitar and amp! Donated by the Garcia whānau.

• Beautiful wares from Palestine from Bayyāra and gorgeous mugs from Thea Ceramics

• And two freedom packs from Preserved Identity and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa

Once you donate, fill out this form so I can put you in the draw.

You can also donate to Convoys of Good and Kiwi Trust for Palestinian Children via this link! I’ll be splitting the funds from the tickets and stalls to go to those two amazing charities. Any koha through the link will go to them too!

I’m so proud of Eddie and all of the kids - and I’m looking forward to sharing photos of them with you once it’s all over (and I’m on Ghost). Eddie has put so much mahi into this event. I just hope we have good weather.

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What I’m watching:

I saw a beautiful documentary A New Kind of Wilderness on DocPlay and it is so so beautiful. An incredible film about family and love and grief and the hopes that we all have for our tamariki, but also for our partners. It’s heartbreaking and gorgeous. I really recommend it.

I really recommend getting DocPlay. We love watching docs as a family - I just watched I am Greta again with Hammy. He loves it. We all love Greta. I think he relates to her a lot with her autism. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking doco. If you’re the parent of an ND child it will hit hard. I always tear up when her dad is trying to get her to have a banana.

@emilyjeanmonroegeorgia aquarium thank you for your service

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I am considering going to see Orwell 2+2=5 at the film festival. I’m a huge fan of 1984 and Animal Farm. I feel like Animal Farm changed my life, and I want to read it again

Raoul Peck, the acclaimed documentary chronicler of power in America, looks to George Orwell’s writing of 1984 as a prescient guide to our modern era of Trumpian rule and reality manipulation.

Raoul Peck, of course, made I Am Not Your Negro.

On a very different note lol - I have been watching The Summer I Turned Pretty, and it’s my new hate-watch. I mean, it is made for teenagers, but my GOD, not one person makes a good decision in this film. And if my child said they were getting married at 21, I’d spin out (even if I got married at 25 lol).

I’m very excited about this film. I am really thirsty for Paul Mescal. He looks like he’s in my fave genre of Paul Mescal films which is Sad Gay Paul Mescal Films.

And here’s Hammy’s review of Wednesday on Netflix:

Wednesday is a good show, although it portrays werewolves as good even though there homicidal and eat human flesh and kill people, slowly, and eat their babies, and dont even try to redeem themselves. I like how they release it at once and how wednesday has autism, although it is propaganda for werewolves. Many people die from werewolves.

What I’m reading:

At 50, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is ‘imperfectly’ good (and queer) as ever

‘Weapons’ and the Demonization of Teachers

Sally Rooney: I support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it

Related:

Ministry forced to release secret files showing alcohol lobby influence

The role of inflammation in the development of tic symptoms in subjects with ADHD

Māori wards: how the Hobson’s Pledge campaign relies on a ‘historical fiction’

Melania’s Embarrassing Letter to Putin Has Huge I-Can-Fix-Him Energy

Kneecap’s Mo Chara—‘This is about more than me, it’s about Palestine’

Meta’s flirty AI chatbot invited a retiree to New York. He never made it home.

I absolutely love this guest post on Webworm: Falling In Love With A Bot - We tend to love things that can’t love us back.

I have been thinking about this a lot - I am heartbroken at some people close to me using chatbots, but I know it’s about loneliness. It’s easier to criticise people about AI use than it is to reckon with whether we are supporting our friends and family through loneliness and lack of community. Why would someone turn to a chatbot instead of a human being? Maybe because the person they’re turning to isn’t there for them. I don’t like thinking about this because it makes me think about my role in being present in their lives - have I been doing enough?

Anyway, we are so cooked: Wired and Business Insider remove ‘AI-written’ freelance articles.

Let’s move onto something happier - We’re broke, exhausted, doing everything right - yet still called ‘merchants of misery’ - oh oops lol.

What I’m listening to:

One of my fave podcasts Celebrity Memoir Book Club is no more! I think I will be replacing it with Panic World - I love it so much. It’s a weekly podcast, hosted by Ryan Broderick of my fave newsletter Garbage Day, about “how the internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality”.

I haven’t had much luck with audiobooks! I just gave up Dead Animals by Phoebe Stokes as it was too grim. I’m trying The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling. I've found that my attention span is just not up to audiobooks and podcasts at the moment. Maybe next week?

So, that’s it for me this week. I sincerely hope the next email you get will be from Ghost. If you don’t get it - head over to www.EmilyWrites.co.nz! It’s not ready yet though!

I hope you have a great weekend. If you’re coming to Kids Rock 4 Palestine - I’ll see you there!

I’d love to know what you’re reading, listening to, watching - for now you can comment here until I move!

Finally, my friend Ben died this week. I am sending my love to everyone whose precious life his precious life touched - his family, friends, and community. I thought of Aaron Freeman’s Eulogy by a Physicist when his lovely wife told us. So I thought I’d share it here. Rest easy e hoa. You are so loved.

“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”

I hope you have a lovely weekend. Thank you for all of your support. Arohanui Emily x

Still bored? Rocket-like jellyfish, regal Komodo dragon and harrowing whale rescue — see the stunning Ocean Photographer of the Year 2025 finalists.

Love the aunties in this clip!