No. 025: What's the Matter?

Introducing Matter of Faith.

If you dream of becoming a published author, your first step near certainly shouldn’t be to write a book. But back then I didn’t know that, so over the summer of 2024 I, well, wrote a book.

The 60,000-word manuscript represented the culmination of several years of my reflections and personal revelations on the topic of material covetousness, and I believed my argument for how to heal a covetous heart demonstrated a uniquely constructive perspective—one that had truly reoriented my own heart for the better and that I was confident could do the same for others. When I completed my first draft, I turned bright-eyed to some of my connections in the Christian publishing world in hopes of pitching the book for publication.

It didn’t take long for me to realize the extent of my naïveté about how authors realistically come to be published through traditional channels: Publishers, as it turns out, need to sell copies of books in order to stay in business, and they are only likely to sell said copies if their authors have established audiences ready to buy them. Whether or not a falling tree makes a noise if no one’s there to hear it, still even the best-written book won’t make a ripple if no one’s there to read it.

Therefore, I set off chasing ideas for how I might start to build something of an audience in hopes of someday, hypothetically, sending my book to press. Instagram seemed like the obvious answer—so I started a public Instagram account. Substack was then unfamiliar territory to me, but it seemed like a helpful tool for growing my experience and reputation as a writer—so I started my Substack. I started pitching essays to online publishers, and I developed my linocut hobby into a public-facing endeavor (and eventually into an Etsy shop). It was a busy season, but the work was life-giving, and pretty quickly I came to love it all for its own sake rather than for the sake of what it might do to inch me forward on the timeline of a higher goal. (After a while I even decided to shelf my covetousness book project. I was glad to have written it for my own edification, but for several reasons I acquiesced that it wasn’t really the best big project to be my first big project.)

This past year, 2025, has been busy for other reasons: shopping for, buying, moving into, and then settling into a new home; an increased load with homeschooling; three kids playing baseball; and leaning into several unforeseen, yet welcomed, in-person opportunities. I’ve been busy with all good things, but even a good busy can become an overwhelming busy, and as this year has drawn toward its close I’ve increasingly felt the need to refine and streamline multiple channels of my life, including the channel dedicated my creative pursuits.

If 2025 was my year for testing many waters, then 2026 will be my year for diving into a lane and then swimming it. And—lucky you!—the lane I’ve chosen is Substack. (Fare thee well, Instagram! I won’t miss you a bit!) I still have creative goals, some more developed than others, on my horizon, but my top priority for now is simply to settle into a sustainable rhythm of creative output.

While I am keeping my Substack newsletter, there will be a handful of small changes here. First—you may or may not have already noticed—I’ve changed the title of my newsletter from I’m Still Learning to Matter of Faith. Although I am, in fact, still learning and do enjoy using my writing as a tool for learning, I wanted my title to reflect more precisely my core purpose for this platform, which is to celebrate God’s grace in the material world and to promote the exercise of an embodied faith.

Additionally, I plan moving forward to use this channel more properly as a newsletter rather than as an outlet for formal essays. I do of course intend to continue sending shorter and more casual reflections on the life of embodied faith (e.g., on community, material culture, practical virtue, and so on), but I hope in the upcoming year to spend more time and energy developing bigger ideas into essays worth pitching for publication.

I’ll end every newsletter with a list of “Matters of Late”—updates on writing projects, displays of new linocut pieces, news of sales and discounts on my Etsy shop, and other tidbits about what I’ve been up to lately. Finally, with every newsletter I plan to offer the chance for subscribers to win a giveaway (most often a linocut print) that will be mailed via USPS to its winner.

To celebrate the opening of this new chapter, I’ve designed a linocut print that will only be available as a free, downloadable, and printable digital file (in three color options!) for subscribers. The print features Psalm 34:8, “Taste and see that the LORD is good,” inscribed onto a stick of butter; because let’s be real, if there’s any experience that leads me to praise God for the gift of my embodied existence, surely it’s that of eating fresh bread with a thick slab of salted butter.

New subscribers will receive the link to the file in their welcome email, so if you haven’t yet subscribed but would like to, click this button:

This month I had the opportunity to operate a booth at my church’s German-style Christmas Market, which took place in conjunction with our Advent concerts. Having the chance to chat with passersby about my art was beyond delightful, and it was exciting to see some of my prints that are often overlooked on Etsy attract interest from in-person customers.

At least seven people held up my No-possum print and asked me through chuckles what my inspiration for it was.

To that all I can say is that as I settle into my thirties I care continually less about people-pleasing and presenting myself as “very demure, very mindful” (as the youths say) and am learning to love the version of myself that sometimes just feels like a shrill, little opossum speaking her mind about what she will and will not tolerate. I am the No-possum, and the No-possum is me, and hey, maybe sometimes it’s you too, and that’s okay!

This month I’m giving away three hand-printed, wooden Christmas tree ornaments! (They may not make it to you in time for this Christmas, but should at least make it to you in time to pack up along with all your other ornaments to save for next year.)

Click the button below and fill out the form before Sunday, December 21 if you’d like to be entered in the drawing. Note that this giveaway is open to subscribers only, but both old and new subscribers are welcome!

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Thanks for reading! Until next time—

Holly