Take publishing into your own hands with Substack, a growing, user-friendly platform for writers. Easily upload your writing, find the right readers, and compile a body of work online while retaining copyright. Better than blogs, Substack delivers your stories directly to subscribers’ email inboxes. Readers can comment and you can chat with them online. Substack even facilitates optional payments from readers. In this overview, enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at one writer’s Substack and learn how Mariah entertains subscribers (1,400+ in the first 15 months); how she gets paid (thousands of dollars “without even trying,” she swears); and how to decide if Substack would be a good way for you to expand your reach. We’ll peek at Mariah’s settings to learn how you can launch your own “newsletter” – the Substack term for periodic articles, stories, poems, or whatever you want – under your byline.

Mariah Burton Nelson is an accomplished athlete and author, having published four books with major publishers, including Random House and Harcourt Brace. She published another two books with trade presses and independently published a seventh. Mariah publishes essays – primarily focused on the empowerment of women through sports – in a range of respected outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, Solstice Literary Magazine, Pulse, Fourth Genre, Bay to Ocean Journal, and Delaware Beach Life. She has given keynote speeches in 49 of the 50 U.S. states. She writes and illustrates Stronger Women, her weekly Substack, and publishes Women’s Sports Policy, a second Substack, for the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group. A lifelong athlete, Mariah played Stanford and professional basketball, competed in rowing, golf, and masters swimming, and will soon be competing in the National Senior Games – in cornhole, of all things.

The St. Mary's & Calvert Counties Chapter meets on the fourth Saturday of every month at 1:00 pm.