"Are you a writer?"

Confessions of a past and aspiring future writer.

I get asked this question a lot. I never know how to answer.

I probably could get away with answering, “yes.” After all, I do make my living off of publishing op-eds. But, here’s the catch: they’re not my op-eds.

I used to write a lot. I had a column for the student newspaper in college. I wrote regularly for two DC publications (and even got a little beer money) for most of my mid-twenties. I could link to the archives, but it’s too embarrassing.

Officially, I haven’t published articles regularly since 2020. Unofficially, I write all the time. Grants, memos, pamphlets, newsletters. I write so much that I’m probably a bad delegator with my staff. I try to have them write the first draft of the newsletter, but I always end up rewriting it myself!

Last December, the irony was getting to me. Casey, I thought, You run a nonprofit whose mission is to empower young writers, yet you don’t even write yourself! C’mon, Mr. Executive Director, Mr. Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric from Berkeley, you better goddamn write!

So I did. I published my first op-ed in five years in The Hill about DOGE. It was okay.

Structurally, it was a perfectly fine, formulaic op-ed with a coherent arguments (even if Elon Musk rendered my point largely irrelevant in just a few week’s time).

Psychologically, however, it wasn’t enough of a dopamine hit for me. Of course you can get one op-ed published about the niche corner of the professional policy world that you occupy, I thought. But, when are you going to get out of your comfort zone?

So, I’m starting a Substack exactly to do just that. I can’t make any promises about how often I’ll write. I’m not asking for money, so I won’t feel guilty if I fail to be regular. But, I’ll try to be. George Will told me that’s the key to making it as a writer once. You just keep doing it.

I do have a better conception of what I’d like to discuss. Believe it or not, it won’t be politics, per se. I’ll leave my semi-coherent political takes when I have them for op-eds in The Hill or wherever my staff can get me placed.

Instead, on this Substack, I’d like to focus on culture, civil society, religion, technology. We live in interesting times, and I think the most pressing questions rarely gets asked.

Stuck culture. Religious revival. Dead internet. These are some of the topics I want to explore. I don’t have a title for this space yet, but maybe it’ll come after a few posts.

So, let’s start this journey, shall we?