For a while now, I’ve been wanting to bring our vibrant Open Secrets community together beyond Substack around my favorite topic: our possessions, which is what we cover in our Object-ives and Stuff-ed sections and on the Finders and Keepers podcast (which I hope to bring back for a second season when I have the funds to do so). I’ve greatly enjoyed seeing the vast range of types of items and the memories and emotions behind them.
I considered doing a live event in Philadelphia, near my home, and may do that at a future date, but that would limit our audience to people in that area, and I always want to offer as big a tent as possible. I also wanted to find a way to do online community events where many people can be onscreen at once, unlike Substack Live.
So I’m starting a monthly Zoom series called Show and Tell, where readers and writers, and anyone curious can join us to show off a beloved possession and share the story behind it and why it’s so special to you. It can be as small as a pebble and as big as whatever fits inside your home. If you’re a collector, perhaps you’ll meet other people who collect something similar to you. If you have an item you’re not sure if you want to keep but don’t just want to throw in the trash, this is also a space where you can offer it to someone else on the call.
We will chat for about an hour, and anyone who wants to participate can talk for up to five minutes, time permitting. I see this as almost a live comments section, and a way for us to get to know each other via some of our beloved objects.
Our first Show and Tell will take place on Wednesday, October 28 at 8:30 p.m. ET. Here’s the Zoom link to join us. (You will be admitted via the waiting room.) We’ll be limited to 100 people, though I don’t anticipate that being an issue. To foster sharing and privacy, we will not be recording these sessions. I’ll announce upcoming dates as I book them.
For future sessions, we will have guest speakers who’ve contributed to Open Secrets. If you’ve written for our Object-ives or Stuff-ed sections and want to be considered, comment here or email opensecretsmag at gmail.com with “Show and Tell” in the subject line.
This is an experiment that I hope goes well, because I’m a people person, and always curious about the things people treasure. I’ll be bringing a sweater that I never plan to get rid of even though I never wear it out of the house. You’ll have to join us on Zoom October 28 at 8:30 p.m. ET to find out why! (And for those planning ahead, our next one will be Tuesday, November 17 at 8:30 p.m. ET with special guest Tamika Nimura.)
If you have any questions about the event, leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them ASAP.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Open Secrets Editor-in-Chief
p.s. I’m obviously not a graphic designer, so this image is the best I can do at the moment. If I waited until I had perfect graphics or everything I did was perfect, I would never have launched this magazine or hosted any events.
Love!
Way kool!