I had actually planned to host these Behind The Stack series, unpacking the inspiration behind the names of our favourite writers. I wanted it to be dished out like fast food. Quick stories under a minute or less hosted in my 1 Minute, please? Podcast channel.
But the moment I listened to Alex’s message to the community, I knew there was no way that was going to happen. That would have been robbing the community.
The first thing that jumps out of the episode is finding out the story of the prodigal son inspired the name of his newsletter “Feels Like Home”. Wherever the prodigal son is right now, I’m sure he’ll be proud to see how his dumb mistakes inspired a treasure maker like
.
Below is a transcription of Alex’s story. If you’re at work and can’t listen—read it below. If not, I highly recommend you listen.
Q: What's the story behind the name of your newsletter “Feels Like Home”?
Alex Lewis: So my newsletter is titled Feels Like Home, and that title is actually inspired by the Prodigal Son story in the Bible.
I don't go to church anymore, but one of the things from Christianity that I still hold on to, and particularly from the Bible that I still hold on to, is the story of the Prodigal Son.
And really, the aspect of that story that I love so much is that idea of returning home and the fact that when we return home, we're welcomed with open arms.
All the things and the people that we love are there, and no matter how far we stray from home, we can always be gently nudged back. I sought out to write about the things that I love, and the people and moments that have shaped me, and those are the things that feel most like home to me.
So I always wanted my newsletter to be a place where I felt like I could return to home, and that hopefully people experience a sense of home when they're reading it.
Q: At what point did you realize, oh, it has to be “Feels Like Home”?
Alex Lewis: I didn't have a name in mind until I got to the section of the substack settings where it said I had to put in a newsletter name. And it's funny that the name that I settled on is actually something that is so meaningful to me because I put together my newsletter really in like a matter of hours.
I had been publishing on Medium for probably about a year, year and a half. And it just felt like the people who wanted to read my work couldn't access it. Like if they didn't see me post something about it on social media, then they wouldn't know that I had published anything.
And so I finally was like, OK, I'm going to start a substack. And when I get locked on something, like I kind of just go for it. And that was really the way it went with building out my newsletter. And so I'm cranking away and then I get to the box that's like, hey, what do you want to call it?
And I ended up just looking back at some of my older essays and I was seeing this phrase Feels Like Home or It Felt Like Home. I was seeing that pop up a lot. And I was like, actually, yeah, like that is what I want this to be. Like I want the work that I'm putting out to feel like home and I want people to feel like they're at home when they're reading it.
And so, yeah, that's that's when I knew like it has to be Feels Like Home.
Q: did you have the audience in mind when you crafted the name?
Alex Lewis: Yeah, I would say that I definitely had the audience in mind. One, I knew that I wanted the experience that people had when they were reading my work. I wanted them to feel like they were at home.
Even if I'm writing about a personal experience, I wanted them to be able to see themselves in that experience. I wanted them to be able to see themselves in that work, and even if I'm talking about things that feel like home to me, I'm hoping that those things may begin to feel like home for them too.
I also knew that a big part of me starting this newsletter was so that more people could read my work. It was so that the people who actually wanted to read my work and had expressed an interest in wanting to read my work actually had more consistent access to the work that I was putting out.
Yeah, there's definitely paying attention to the audience. Ultimately, knowing that I had an audience in mind in terms of starting my newsletter and had an audience in mind with the title that I went with, with Feels Like Home.
Q: how would you describe your ideal reader?
Alex Lewis: This is actually a funny question to me because I have a hard time with how I categorize my newsletter. Because in writing about the things that I love and the people and moments that have shaped me, I touch on so many different things, from music to sports to reality TV to books.
Honestly, whatever my life may happen to touch or whatever may happen to intersect with my life that catches my attention in some way, in a way that has an impression on me, that can and likely will show up in my writing.
I would say that my ideal reader is somebody who is willing to go along for the journey, who enjoys when connections are made between seemingly disparate things. Maybe it's the people who enjoy when there's harmony between two things that don't feel like they go together. Because that is very much the type of person and the type of writer that I am.
And I think a big part of starting my newsletter and what I've been really so humbled by is the fact that people actually want to read it. And so many of those people are my ideal reader.
They're the people who say like, yo, I'm not necessarily an NBA fan, but you made me think about this and care about this in a way that I previously hadn't.
Like, hey, I don't listen to Tyler, the Creator or Childish Gambino. I don't know anything about them, but the way that you wrote about this made me actually think about what their work means to me personally.
And that's something that's really special for me. So my ideal reader is definitely the people who are willing to go through all the different twists and turns where I might take them and still feel like they can land in a soft place at the end.
Q: Are you planning to niche?
Alex Lewis: I hope not. Like, I hope that I can continue to show up to my newsletter as a place to play and imagine and dream and see where it takes me.
I am somebody who, you know, I tend to have little micro-obsessions at any given point, these little like hyper fixations that come up for me. And they can span across, several different categories at a time.
And I don't want to lose that. Like, I think that is part of what makes me, me. And that is something that I deeply appreciate about myself. I enjoy the people in my life who also share some of those same traits.
And so, yeah, well, I think there is value in being able to find a particular niche that, you know, can work for you, work for your audience. If my niche were to be anything, I hope that it leads us to a more communal understanding of ourselves and understanding that we need each other.
And that at the end of the day, like we are the ones who have to care for us as a collective because no one is coming to save us.
Q: What’s an experience that you had that you think shaped who you are today?
Alex Lewis: So after college, I moved out to Colorado. I moved out there less than a week after graduation, and while I was there, I was invited to go to a youth poetry slam.
And I had never been to anything like that before. I'd been to Colorado before for an internship, but never knew that anything like this happened in Colorado Springs, the city that I was in.
And so I went to that, and what I witnessed honestly blew my mind. It was these middle school students, these high school students getting in front of a room of strangers and sharing their deepest, darkest secrets.
I was so moved by that experience, and the biggest thing that I felt throughout it was; “yo! why don't more people know about this?” Why did I not know about this when I was in Colorado Springs before?
And so from that moment, I was like, I want more people to be aware of the art that exists in this city. And so I decided to start this local art project called “Car Window Poetry”, and it's as simple as it sounds.
It was these little one-by-one note cards that people could write poems on to put on people's car windows underneath the windshield wiper.
And it was something that started really simple, and what ended up happening is that it went from a local art project really to this global poetry movement because it was featured on NBC Nightly News, and then from there, a number of other publications in different places around the U.S picked it up.
And that experience is one that I think about a lot because there were a number of things that it taught me. I got to go into classrooms as part of that project, and I got to write with students in elementary school, middle school, high school, college.
And one of the things that it taught me is that everyone has the capacity to write. Everyone has the capacity to share something meaningful, and that's something that I still hold on to today.
It's something that I remind myself of, and also that experience of having something that I began as kind of this small sort of just like passion project.
I started feeling that pressure of monetizing it and the pressure of feeling like I needed to grow some kind of personal brand, and all of that felt so distant from where my heart was in beginning the project, and honestly, it burnt me out.
And so even now, as I think about my own personal writing journey, I am so cognizant and try to be so careful about not burning myself out, of ensuring that I'm moving at a pace that allows for me to care for myself, to care for my people, to enjoy the things that I want to enjoy, not putting unnecessary pressure on myself.
And so that experience is one that I come back to a lot because it was hard. There were some challenging aspects of it, but also it was such a unique and a cool thing to be able to experience and to participate in that there was no way that I could come out of that unchanged.
Q: Finally, What have you noticed in this phase of your life that feels like home?
Alex Lewis: Man, so many things. You know, one of the things that feels like home for me is actually being home, like sitting on the couch with my wife, watching Love Island or whatever Bravo show we got on, Summer House, Real Housewives.
Just being on the couch together and laughing together, having our inside jokes. We kind of know like what the other is thinking and is going to say before we even say it, like that feels like home to me.
That's such a knowledge of one another, this understanding that we have of each other that, has been built and crafted over time, the familiarity that we have with each other is so special to me.
Another thing that feels like home for me is having people in my life, especially the men in my life, who accept me as I am, who I get to write alongside, and I get to see the beauty in how their brains and their hearts work, and also the permission that we give each other to show up to the page with a sense of openness.
We don't pressure each other to feel like we have to hit a certain mark or attain a certain goal in order to be enough or to feel like we matter.
We start from a place of love. We start from a place of you are good, you are enough, I'm happy to know you, I'm blessed to know you, and it's a blessing for me to continue to get to know you as you show up however you want to show up and whatever time you want to show up at whatever pace you want to show up. That's a blessing.
That's something that feels like home for me is knowing that I have those men from the homie () to
, , , , , , and so many others that really hold me and let me know like, “hey”, I'm okay to show up however I want to show up, however I need to show up. I'm good!
If you read to this point, please subscribe to Alex’s Love Letters to have a feel of home away from home.
Also, I strongly advice listening to the audio. It’s 10x magical.
What’s one thing you picked from this piece?
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