BIG GIVEAWAY To Celebrate Two Years of Publishing Powerful Personal Essays!

Open Secrets Magazine subscribers, enter to win an Open Secrets t shirt, tote bag, tumbler, mini notebook, and sticker!

Apr 03, 2025

I know many of you already subscribe to my personal essay magazine Open Secrets (thank you!) so if you do, apologies that you'll see this twice, but it's a big day for me celebrating a project that began as a random thought in my head and, like my old blog Cupcakes Take the Cake, grew into something much bigger. When I have a chance, I'll tally up exactly how many pieces we've published but I know it's over 70 original essays. I got some very cool swag, including tote bags (which I forgot in the original post even though I mentally went through all the items) and as you'll see in the post, all you have to do is be a subscriber and leave a comment about your favorite essay we've published to enter to win! Good luck and thanks for reading! -

Rachel Kramer Bussel

selective focus photography of assorted-color balloons — Happy second anniversary to Open Secrets Magazine! Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since Open Secrets Magazine launched with our debut essay, “Searching for a Taylor Swift Fix” by

Ellen Friedrichs

. When I had the idea for Open Secrets, it was loosely formed, a whim that seemed doable because of the capacities of Substack and a desire to uplift writers I’m friends with, my essay writing students, and strangers.

Since then, Open Secrets has grown from publishing one essay per week to, last month, publishing ten pieces, including six essays and four columns, the Dear Daddy advice column, my The ADHD Diaries, Radical Pleasure by

Athena Dixon

, and Essay Writing Tips by various authors. We are inching very close to 5,000 subscribers, which I’d love to hit this month, and are gearing up for our first event, the personal storytelling summit Open Secrets Live in New York City on May 3 with over 40 speakers. It’s currently sold out, but if any tickets open up, I’ll send an email and post a note.

Because not everyone can attend the event, I wanted to offer a giveaway to five subscribers of items that will be given out to attendees as well as a special item that’s only being given out as a raffle prize (the tumbler).

Five winners will receive:

An Open Secrets Magazine heather grey unisex t shirt (in their choice of sizes small to XXL)

An Open Secrets tote bag

An Open Secrets Magazine tumbler

An Open Secrets Magazine bookmark (see above)

An Open Secrets Magazine mini notebook

An Open Secrets Magazine sticker

To enter our anniversary giveaway, you must be an Open Secrets Magazine free or paid subscriber, located anywhere in the world, and leave a comment sharing your favorite Open Secrets Magazine personal essay and why you liked it. Deadline: May 4, 2025, 11:59 pm ET. Here’s our essay archives if you want to check all of them out.

Winners will be notified by Substack DM, and prizes will be sent the week of May 5, 2025.

Last but not least, if you want to support the work Open Secrets Magazine is doing, help us expand and publish essays more frequently, and be able to open a new general call for submissions, I’d love if you would share this post, recommend Open Secrets on Substack, and/or become a paid subscriber during our April 2025 anniversary sale. Through April 30, monthly subscriptions are only $6/month (instead of $8) and annual paid subscriptions are only $60/year (instead of $80).

I look forward to reading about your favorite of our personal essays and GOOD LUCK and stay tuned for many more powerful essays!

— Rachel Kramer Bussel, Editor, Open Secrets Magazine