Welcome. Here’s a brief history of what is going on right now.
The Show
How I Learned was a live NYC series produced and hosted by Blaise Allysen Kearsley (that’s me) from 2009 to 2019. It’s the only thing I’ve ever done consistently every month for a decade. I don’t even do the dishes that often.
The show featured writers, storytellers, comedians, and other performers including Alexander Chee, Ayo Edebiri, Anna Sale, Hugh Ryan, Starlee Kine, Isaac Fitzgerald, Aparna Nancherla, Dodai Stewart, Maggie Estep, and many others.
The Magazine
Now How I Learned is resurrected, reinvented, re-formed into something for the digital page. It’s what you’re looking at right now. Is it a magazine? Is it a blog? Is it a Su****ck? Is it anything? Who even knows. It’s the internet. It’s just the internet.
How I Learned brings you personal nonfiction short-form and super-short form essays from diverse perspectives, sensibilities, and voices that offer an evocative spin on existential-leaning themes. How we learn what life is like. How we learn the hard way. How we learn to laugh at ourselves. How we learn it’s definitely someone else’s fault. How we learn who we are, what we want, how we survive, and what it is we’ve come to say.
These stories by new, emerging, and established writers are posted in “Featured Essays” and collected in the archives for your perusal. You may also want to subject yourself to my own personal carryings-on in “My Next Ghost”, “Last Thing I’ll Say”, and “Dreadline,” if that’s your vibe. We all make decisions. I am not for everyone.
If you’d like to submit a How I Learned essay, submission guidelines live here.
The Person
I’m a Black-biracial, Brooklyn based creative nonfiction writer, teacher, creative coach, and artist. My writing has appeared in Catapult, Longreads, The Boston Globe, VICE, Memoir Land, and elsewhere. In addition to hosting How I Learned in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Orleans, I’ve told stories onstage at The Moth, Literary Death Match, Risk!, Mortified, The Liar Show, and I’ve been a panelist at The Gotham Storytelling Festival.
For a full bio and more than you probably ever needed to know, visit blaiseallysenkearsley.com. I have three too many Instagram accounts. After this page, let’s all get off the internet for a minute.
Thank you so much for being here. I really hope you enjoy whatever this is. xo
How I Learned is 100% funded by generous folks like you who have good taste and make great decisions in most areas of life. To receive new posts and to support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.