Frequently Asked Questions

I have always loved a FAQ.

I’ve never met an FAQ page I didn’t love. Here are answers to questions you might have about this newsletter, about reading on Substack if you’re new, and about me.

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Q: Home Again is about moving back to your hometown after two decades living elsewhere. Where is that hometown?

A: Santa Barbara, California

Q: Why didn’t you say that on your About page or in your first introductory post?

A: I hoped you’d come here for the FAQ party! Plus, the newsletter isn’t really about Santa Barbara, it’s about what it means to live in a place (or not), feel at home in a place (or not), and find community and satisfaction wherever you live.

Q: Who are you, anyway? Not cosmically or spiritually, but, you know, in the context of writing this newsletter?

A: I’m a professional writer and podcaster with two decades of experience across a variety of industries and platforms. For the last decade I have co-hosted (with

Meagan Francis

) a podcast about motherhood and parenting called The Mom Hour.

As the podcast grew and became a full-time business with, like, spreadsheets and a team and annual tax filings and such, my freelance writing capacity shrunk to nearly nil for a few years. I’m currently dusting off, well, everything: my skills, my resumé, my ability to form a coherent sentence on the page instead of on the mic, my professional relationships…all of it.

I’m also a married mother of three (two teens and a pre-teen), an Enneagram 1, a cat person, a podcast consumer, a onetime ballerina, a coffee drinker, a thrift shopper, 80% homebody / 20% travel-lover, a public library enthusiast, and an early riser. None of which are substantively relevant, but I appreciate details and maybe you do, too!

Q: Can I become a paid subscriber?

A: Not at this time. While that’s a model that makes a ton of sense for many Substack writers (and I do hope you’ll find ways to support creators’ work with your dollars if you can!), I’m using this space to get back to the practice of regular writing. For now it feels right to pursue my paid projects outside of Substack and to keep this newsletter free while I dabble and experiment, squirm uncomfortably at the sight of my own byline, overthink the entire endeavor, etc. But I’ll let you know if that changes!

Q: Can you share tips about visiting Santa Barbara?

A: I can for sure. I might, in this space. Check back often!

Q: Where else can I find you?

A: If you are a parent with young children (or if you’re dying to know what my speaking voice sounds like) you can listen to The Mom Hour on any podcast platform (here’s a playlist of episodes I think make for a nice entry into the show).

Besides the podcast, I’m here on Substack and that’s it. I left Instagram in January of 2024 (more on that here, here and here), and I find myself wholly uninterested in spending time on the socials. Part of what I’ll be exploring here at Home Again is how unaccustomed many of us have grown to really inhabiting, physically, the communities where we live, and how much satisfaction I get from moving my actual self through actual space in my actual town. All that to say, don’t look for me on the Internet, but keep an eye out for me here, in real life, in the town where I live. I drive a minivan.