So as you probably have already noticed, the newsletter’s gotten a bit (a lot) of a facelift!
Since science writing is kind of my main gig, I’ve been wanting to do a science newsletter/blog for a long, long time (as you can probably imagine) but I’ve never quite knew what I wanted to do with it or what I wanted it to look like.
Although I’ve ran blogs and newsletters for universities/institutions I’ve worked at making content under their banner, doing one of my own felt strangely more intimidating. Whether it was me creatively copping-out by not putting out what I wanted without the security and order and validation of an institutions’ guidelines, or whether it was a bit of impostor syndrome, or more likely both, I always found an excuse to put it off.
I started Cards Coming Out Of Her Butt (god, still the best title) at the urging of a lot, and I mean a lot of my friends—mostly the incredible Alexander Chee, who gave me the push and confidence to make something under my own name—and I’m so glad they did. It was just what I need to just shut up and do it. And doing a newsletter for anime (few posts though it had), gave me the confidence to once again just go for it and make the thing I’ve been wanting to make forever, which is, well, The Uptake.
For everyone who loved the screamy darksided anime content, so do I. And it’s definitely something I’m going to continue to do. My plan was to make a separate newsletter for science and keep the one for anime nonsense, but since Substack isn’t at the moment optimized for that, I had to make the choice of which one I was going to keep under my domain. So, for now, so long Cards. However, once I figure out a better work around, or Substack is optimized for that a little better, and once I have a little more time (I work a full-time job in addition to freelance writing), I’m absolutely going to bring an anime newsletter back and I will definitely keep you all posted when that happens.
Until then, for everyone who wants to stay on for the new re-vamped newsletter (details below) I’d love to have you! And for everyone was just in it for the anime, sorry to see ya go but I totally get it and I’ll definitely post on socials when that feed is back up and running.
And with that said, cue the intro!
First, a brief intro on me, or in the words of Lil Wayne: “hello muthafucka hey hi how ya dern”
My name’s Jordan Blok (as you probs already know). I’m a queer non-binary science writer based in LA, mainly specializing in biology, health sciences, and environmental science, but I’ve written on everything from archaeology to theoretical mathematics to forensics to linguistics to you name it, so I’m sort of a jack of all trades.
I called this newsletter The Uptake for three reasons:
In biology, “uptake” means an act or instance of absorbing, especially into a living organism, tissue or cell. You know, like all the knowledge you’re going to absorb from this newsletter.
It sounded zingy and newslettery
I didn’t want to spend days and days thinking of a name and wanted to get this started and out there today, and The Uptake sounded good enough
As for what this newsletter’s going to be about? Most of the content is going to be daily roundups with commentary on the most important news stories/studies I read each day, followed by a weekend roundup of my favorite longform pieces/science books I read that week. I’ll also be publishing weekly original deep-dive articles that dig a little more into a news story from the past week, as well as occasional pieces I haven’t published elsewhere on, well, whatever I want (science-related of course)
The news roundups, both daily and weekly, will always be free (you’re so welcome I’m so magnanimous, I know), and all the content on here is gonna be free for a while, probably the next few months while I get my groove, and then I’ll most-likely be making the deep-dives and original articles paid subscriber only. However, any of you would like to subscribe before that, it is always greatly appreciated and I would love you eternally. You could walk into a crystal cave, forgotten by man and beast for centuries, and I would still remember and love you.
Also, as a special treat, I’ll be having a deep-dive up for y’all FOR FREE by the end of the day! I know, I know.
And, well, that’s about it! Love y’all. For everyone staying, so happy to have you, for everyone going, see you later and you’re still the best. Ciao and let’s dig into some science!