Hello Grief Book Club Readers,

I’ll keep this short. I’ve decided to close Grief Book Club to submissions indefinitely. The publication will remain on Medium for now, but feel free to withdraw your work if you’re published here. If I decide to close the publication, your work reverts to your own profiles automatically.

This publication has been on Medium for nearly as long as I have, which is close to eight years. It started as a place for me to write about grief and occasionally review books, shows, and other media that have helped me on my grief journey. When I became a boost nominator in 2024, I opened the publication to new writers and it has grown quite a bit since then.

I’ve heard people describe Grief Book Club as niche. It’s focused on grief and sad stories versus broader personal essays. But unless you’re incredibly lucky, grief will touch your life eventually. For some of us, it has reshaped our worlds forever. If you’re part of that club (and you know who you are), I am so sorry. I hope I have been a bit of a lightkeeper for some of you and that the stories here have helped you feel less alone in your sorrow.

It’s been an honor to read your stories and publish them here. This isn’t meant to be a dramatic exit. Medium is taking a new direction that isn’t a fit for me, but it’s not only about that. It’s time for a change.

I have been writing on Substack for a few years without much of a plan. I’d like to explore that space more and branch out beyond grief. I still plan to write about grief (I often say that parental grief is a permanent condition), but I want to write about other things too.

I’m not really sure what those other things are at this point. The beauty of Substack is there’s really no pressure over there. I have some dedicated readers who are happy to hear from me when I’m able to write. My work feels as though it disappears into a void when I publish it on Medium and, given the glut of AI-generated writing on the internet at large, that’s been a bit demoralizing.

I hope you’ll come visit me on Substack where I have a newsletter called The Halfway Path. Maybe you’ll even want to stick around. My newsletter is completely free, though you have the option to pay for it if you want to (zero pressure — it will always remain free). And I guess that’s the final reason I’m venturing beyond Medium’s walled garden. I don’t want all my work to be locked behind a paywall. Thank you for reading.

All the best,
Jackie

Grief Book Club is on Indefinite Hiatus was originally published in Grief Book Club on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.