An introduction before you get acquainted with my letters

Dear readers, 

I am Bella Devine, and welcome to my typewriter. 

This is where I will write loudly, rebelliously, and passionately about what haunts my sleep and what I see in the streets—the hidden personal and the political. This is where my ink will converse with an array of subjects: womanhood, literature, the status quo, the philosophical, and the theological. 

Although most of those around me know me for my poetry and my fiction, this is not where those pieces will be published. That is reserved for a quieter, more polished—more traditional place. The places where I have knocked a thousand times until they open the door. 

But this? This is where I allow myself to be more bold without putting on the scrutiny of a demanding editor.

I’m well aware that Substack can be a place where sometimes, the same topics run their rounds through everyone's essays, making it difficult to bring something fresh to the table. But frankly, I see it more as a cobweb of ideas, where everything is intertwined, synthesized, and what has been said before is accentuated. 

Expect annotations on margins, reflections on existence, on mine or yours, on politics, femininity, and anything I sense needs calling. By default I will publish a piece twice a month, but if it gets hectic and my typewriter runs out of ink, it will be once a month. 

I will challenge you with my gripping convictions, but challenge me back. After all, I write on a typewriter, not in a technological manuscript.