Fran Magazine: The next generation (?)
Some news
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End of 2024 extravaganza reminder
Do you guys like how I never figured out how to center the image for this correctly?
Anyway: did you read all these fantastic lists? No??? Get on that!!! They’re always so much fun.
Anyway
In 2022 I wrote:
[Fran Magazine] go on like this forever until [it] is bought out from under me by, hmmm, I don’t know, ESPN+. Every day I wake up and pray that Fran Magazine is bought out from under me by ESPN+.
In 2023 I wrote:
Though I joke about my desperate and loathsome desire for Fran Magazine to be bought out by a rich patron or corporate ghoul — if you are a rich patron or corporate ghoul reading this, please consider buying out Fran Magazine — it has tethered me to financial security in the year since I launched.
In 2024 I wrote:
I said I would write Fran Magazine until I could get a full-time job with benefits or trick Substack into giving me some kind of writer grant they’re always giving to, like, ethical altruists (?) or transphobes and not anyone doing anything useful or, more importantly, nice and fun. At the time of writing, however, I have neither a full-time job nor a writer grant from Substack to make up an offensive opinion to peddle for American cash.
In 2025 I write to you approximately two and a half overwhelming but great days into a full-time job — my first in seven years. At the end of last year, I accepted a position as a staff writer at Vulture, where I’ve been writing and blogging1 for a little over a year. I’m really happy and relieved and grateful.
Because the nature of my life is no longer waking up at 8:30 and staring at my computer wondering what I will do with my day basically every single day, the nature of Fran Magazine too must change. While Fran Magazine was never the commitment of a full-time job, it was, like, a third of a full-time job, and I do not want to be splitting my time between a full-time job and another third of a full-time job. But even though I spent the last three years threatening to quit Fran Magazine the second I could, I kind of don’t want to! I’m proud of what this blog was and is.
So here’s what’s happening.
Fran Magazine will continue, but less frequently
Writing two blogs a week on top of everything else I am responsible to other people for would send me into nervous breakdown mode faster than you can say “Maestro moment.” You will hear from me, but I don’t know what that schedule will look like. I anticipate writing shorter, more off-the-cuff blogs, and focusing more keenly on books, classical music, food, art (?), and personal writing either about me the person or “in conversation” with friends like in these two great blogs. Maybe also video games when I finally beat Elden Ring. A number of great blogs that I read publish on a schedule that can best be described as “heart’s content” — I aspire to this.
But Fran Magazine will be taking a break, probably for the rest of this month
There will be a great guest post from friend of the magazine Claire, but otherwise I am taking some time away to adjust to a new schedule and go to Sundance (!).
Paid subscriptions will continue — for now
I went back and forth on this, but I was keen to get this post out before mid-January when many people initially became subscribers should they choose to cancel their paid subscription. I’m keeping the paid option available for three reasons:
I don’t think it’s all that controversial to say that writing can and should be paid for — by editors, readers, etc. Nothing is free!!! Unless you find it out on the stoop, but even then.
However: about 70% of Fran Magazine will be free going forward.
I will be donating 50% of my Fran Magazine earnings to a charity of my choosing — ideal if you are too lazy to donate to charities or scroll past myriad GoFundMes.
I intend to paywall a few more personal pieces of writing, in a half-hearted attempt to create something of a boundary. This may not last the year, but I’m committed to trying it out for the time being.
That said, should you choose not to renew or to cancel your subscription, I won’t take any offense. It’s your money!!!
Sunday dispatch — not sure where this goes…
I think people like a weekly check-in of viewings/readings/listenings, etc. I do too, though I admire
’s approach to monthly culture diaries. I’m figuring this part of this magazine out, but curious for your thoughts, if any, if this feature should continue: free, paid, or otherwise.May bookclub
It is happening. What should we read??? I never read the Titus Groan sequels… embarrassing. Anyway, suggestions welcome below.
Last but not least: thank you for reading Fran Magazine, a thing I hope you continue to do
The past four and a half years have been marked with great insecurity — emotional, professional, financial, etc. As evidence, let me show you a folder I added to my Gmail back in July:
When I set out to start Fran Magazine, I did so less under the guise of “ah what the hell” and more as an attempt to anchor myself somewhere — where I would know that I would have a place to write, even when I didn’t always actually have a place to write. I assumed people would read, but I could not have anticipated the generosity and excitement of the readers and commenters of this blog, and the passion that we all share for much of the same stuff. It’s not even attention economy stuff — I am just always so happy to be here and talking with people about culture, even when we disagree, and I’m thrilled anyone has ever taken anything I write here seriously enough to weigh in or share or text me off to the side. I try to work with profound gratitude and a playful integrity that’s allowed me some very wonderful opportunities, many of which would not have occurred without this blog as a base. So for all of my threats about wanting to be bought out so I become a private citizen, really, the greatest pleasure would and will continue to be having this space to continue to write sometimes and chat sometimes and talk about one really long book together once a year. So let’s do that! It’ll be great.
In short
Fran Magazine is dead. Long live Fran Magazine!
Sometimes these are the same thing and sometimes they are different. Do not rely on me to tell you what that difference is because it’s just something you feel in your bones.
Failing Fran Magazine (complimentary)
FRAN SUPREMACY