Hey friends! Writing to let you know our eleventh issue, featuring a series of conversations with Mountain Grass Unit over a year and a half and also some other stuff that we hope you find thoughtful and entertaining and niche, will ship out very soon — early next week!

Pardon the gap between late August announcement and mid-or-late-if-we’re-being-honest September shipment, it’s entirely my fault for being on vacation the last week and a half. My first true time off from work in over a year! We’ve finally got our bulk shipping service in order, two stickers to drop in each envelope, and 2000 hand-numbered zines ready to fly to about 1800 of you immediately and then the next 200 folks who order, subscribe, or apply to free. (We printed 3,000 total, and at a certain point, we start giving away unnumbered copies. Numbering logic is not a system I've fully figured out for now, but hand numbering is time-consuming. Maybe we should eventually number every last one. For the last few issues, we've been doing 2,000, but it seems like those are going away pretty quick, so maybe we'll number more in the next batch!)

Also, I want to thank those of you who did the survey check-in halfway through the year. I loved hearing your feedback, and I will write soon about how we're thinking about our last issue of the year and how I'm thinking about shaping the subscription in general. We are 1500 (!!!) strong at this point, and I want to make sure we stay a community rather than “The Conductor tries to build a media company,” because that wouldn't be fun for you or sustainable for me. I think what makes us special, and why I value your support so much, is that we're able to put out four things a year that we work really hard on. That way, we don't feel like we're constantly putting stuff out to survive. It's an amazing privilege, and I appreciate all of you for that.

One thing we're definitely going to do is build a community-shared Google Map of places you recommend, either in your city or around the United States. That way, if folks are traveling and want to find a heady spot or a good sandwich (or a heady spot with a good sandwich, many such cases) you can share your favorite recommendation with their fellow subscribers.

Another thing we’re definitely going to do is refocus on the data aspect of the zine. I personally miss doing it, and I know a lot of you miss it as well. Its absence from the last couple of issues is nothing more than a function of it being a time-consuming thing and me getting real busy, but that's going to change, I promise!

Aaaaand the thing I'm definitely not going to do is produce more of anything. Four zines and not much else, some emails as necessary, ideally monthly. And I'm personally passionate about getting back to being goofy on Instagram and finding that meme spark again. She’s been missing!

Questions / comments / concerns — Just reply to this email. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If you have a pending email or DM response for me, please know that I'll do my best to get back to you next week, as I come back to Earth from my train on the island.

–The Conductor