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Age of Empathy News: April 2024 Edition

Of pub crawls and women’s month…

Why did the banana go to the doctor?

It wasn’t peeling well.

Boom boom!

Why don’t eggs tell jokes?

They’d crack each other up!

Ahem…

What did one egg say to the other on April 1?

Heard any good yolks today?

It’s getting a bit eggy around here.

What do you get when Sally writes a newsletter on April Fool’s Day?

A bunch of stupid jokes to wade through before you get to the interesting bits.

Sorry not sorry!

Just keep me away from writing on April 1st in future, okay? And let’s face it, I’m a rubbish prankster so I’ve made you guys into my victims for the day.

(The best April Fools joke I ever played is still the one where I taped the receiver hold down on the house phone and the phone kept ringing when my dad tried to answer it. Anyone remember household phones with receiver holds? That gives you a clue as to how long ago my best April Fool’s joke took place!)

So moving on swiftly before my bad jokes get much worse, we have the exciting month of March to look back at along with our new April writing prompt. It’s also been a very boosty month with some seriously amazing essays that the curators have been loving. Congrats to all who received a boost here at AoE over the month of March!

The Medium Pub Crawl

As many of you know, Age of Empathy and our sister pub, The Memoirist, both held booths at the Medium Pub Crawl event where writers and publication owners had the opportunity to meet one another on Zoom in an epic 24-hour event.

For those who made it along, you will remember the glitchy start during which the technology was either failing or no one could work out how to use it. But, with the amazing teamwork that Medium does in style, we got over the hurdles and, from my own experience as well as hearing from many others, a great deal of fun was had all round.

KiKi Walter headed up The Memoirist’s booth while I propped up the bar in my little virtual Hobbit-style pub at the Age of Empathy booth. Suzanne Pisano was an absolute trouper and helped us both out during the day (and night) by being available to chat with patrons over virtual pints.

Thanks to all who came to visit our booths that day. It was such a pleasure to meet some of you in person, including both new and seasoned writers of both pubs.

Although the individual booth events weren’t recorded, you can catch up on Tony Stubblebine’s keynote talk here and the publication editor panel discussion here.

The new writer window remains open

During March we have continued to add to our list of writers each week. It’s lovely to see so many gifted people flocking here.

I am continuing to check the email account a couple of times per week and am currently managing to keep on top of the new requests. Therefore I am happy to keep the window for new writers open for April. I will continue to monitor this on a month by month basis.

If you are not yet a writer with us and would like to join, here are the submission steps for you to follow.

New April Prompt

For the month of April, we are running with the theme of Play. As you can see, I’m already having plenty of fun with April’s playful nature with my great jokes, but I’m hoping that you will all out-do me with your prompt responses.

Here is the prompt article for all the details:

‘International Women’s Day’ Prompt Responses

We had a host of wonderful essays to honour International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. Check out the list below for some fabulous tributes to women and womanhood.

Sharing a GSH — Genuine, Sustained Hug by Karen Hoffman

A Seamstress, Matriarch and a Fine Cray-ture — My Irish Grandmother. by Edith Gallagher Boyd

Small ‘p’ Patriarchy Moments as a Gen Xer by Diane Wilder

I’m Going “Mansober” for March by Dana DuBois

Let’s Consider How We Speak to Each Other by Lori Stratton

I Spent Years Wishing I Was Born a Man by Sushmita Singh

I Worked Hard for My Girl Power. by Jaclyn Weber

Try To Take My Life One More Time by J. Avery Stewart

The Best Lessons Motherhood Gave Me Were The Hardest by Sally Prag

March ‘Editor’s Picks’

March saw a really high number of boosted essays in Age of Empathy, along with an especially high volume of amazing essays published, relative to recent months.

This is reflected by the volume of traffic and read time. Readers lingered on the essays published here for a total of 114,493 minutes during March while January and February each averaged less than 83,000 minutes of read time.

The following essays are just a handful of those (not limited to boosted pieces) that brought so many curious eyeballs to our publication.

The Price of Being a Woman Becomes Hefty When a Man’s Reputation Is at Stake by Emily Jane Lacy

I May Feel Awkward, I May Look Awkward, But I’m So Much More by kasey sparks

Let’s Talk About My Abortion by Melissa Corrigan

The Sins of a Father by J Oliver Dempsey

A Love Letter to the Husband I Left Last July by Michelle A. Cmarik

The Rescue and Flight of Dr. Theussical by Gentry Bronson

Our Balloon Contest Was Up In The Air Until It Wasn’t by Stephanie Wilson

The Transformative Journey of Method Writing by Cindy Heath

I Advised My Client to Plead Guilty, Even Though He Didn’t Do It by Simply Sophia

The Aftermath of Denying Dad’s Last Request and His Harsh Final Words by Hogan Torah

What it’s Like to Regret Not Being in a Relationship For Your Whole Adult Life by Meaghan Ward

When ‘Living Our Values’ Means Making Unconventional Choices in Life by Maggie Monroe

Postpartum Anxiety and the Strange World of Fear by AshBunny

Anorexia Swallowed Me Whole Before I’d Even Learned Its Name by Liberty Forrest, Author

I Realized I Might Be Autistic Because of Cheese Curds by Becca CO 🌵

My Dad Had Lunch with Obi-Wan Kenobi by Sarah Paris

How Does Love Arrive? A Lover’s Fable, as Told by the Moon by Lucy Clemens

English is Harder Than You Will Ever Know by Carlos Garbiras

That’s all for this month’s updates.

I do have one last gem I wish to share with you, however. Memoirist Extraordinaire, KiKi Walter, wrote this excellent piece along with a very useful chart to explain the difference between memoir and personal essays. Since we are obviously a personal essay pub, and many of our writers here are writers for both The Memoirist and Age of Empathy, it is worth sharing here:

As we go into April, I look forward to seeing many of your wonderful words coming our way, and many more readers finding their way to them.

Wishing you a wonderful (and very playful) April!

Sally and all of the team at Age of Empathy XOX