When people ask me what I do, I never know how to answer. Or rather, I find the question to be 1) boring, and 2) constricting? You can call me an essayist (you can read my writing in Elle, New York Magazine, Vogue, and more), filmmaker (in Los Angeles, who isn’t?), playwright (not that kind of theatre kid), or my least favorite of them all: multi-hyphenate. I primarily create art, though sometimes I critique it, too.
I found my way into this space through my politics, which I don’t use in reference to party politics or U.S democracy as a whole. By politics, I am talking about my lived experiences that inform and shape how I feel about and react to the state of the world. This Substack is an anthology of my ‘gut feelings’: timely takes, poetry, rejected essays*, interviews, recommendations, etc.
“An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to affect the times. I think that’s true of painters, sculptors, poets, musicians. […] That, to me, is my duty; and at this crucial time in our lives when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved.” — Nina Simone
Gut Feelings is political, but it is also extremely personal. Though for me, as an artist, there is no real separation of the two. I try to post as often as I can between my other projects, so I appreciate this community of readers. I don’t take your attention for granted, especially in this cultural economy.
This corner of my world is especially precious to me because everything you see here is the purest and rawest iteration of my subconscious. There are no editors, producers, lawyers, or marketing teams chiming in here (though I appreciate all of them!). It’s just me and my best. I hope you subscribe.
For $5 a month—less than the cost of a Los Angeles latte—you can gain access to a handful of extra essays that may or may not be progressively more unhinged than what’s publicly available.
You can also find me on Instagram (sometimes).
All of my love,
Sara
* For a plethora of reasons (budget, industry layoffs, etc), not all of my work sees the light of day. In those cases, I will share them here instead.
