I Quit My Job... For Rough Notes
The re-launch is finally here: new design, fresh merch and yes, paid subscriptions.
Welcome back to Rough Notes.
I’m headed into the unknown and hoping you’ll come with me. For months now, I’ve been in the process of quitting my full-time job of over a decade (in fact, it’s the only institution I’ve worked for since graduating college.) Why? You’ll find out inevitably over the course of new posts, but a few of the primary reasons for leaving my job are: to have more time to cover women’s basketball, to get more confident in making my own things, and to expand Rough Notes.
Of course this decision is proving harder & more terrifying than I could have imagined (I even fled to Vermont for the month) and I’m still figuring it all out. The whole process has also forced me to think about I’m doing Rough Notes, in the first place, at my core:
I started this project in the summer of 2024 while covering the Chicago Sky and feeling like a total misfit in press row. What if I stopped trying to think differently? I finally asked myself. What if I arrived as I am? And so, for the first time, I allowed myself to cover women’s basketball with my full, authentic self: publishing “rough notes” as bullet points, blurring the edges of traditional reporting, erupting my little heart, and breaking perhaps a few too many rules. And it felt really, really good. Sort of like discovering a new gut.
Women’s basketball has always been sacred to me: not just a game, but as a poetry, a muscle memory, a childhood, the art of turning strangers into friends, a home for my queer identity, the often glorious & sometimes maddening rise of the WNBA, the world of women’s sports as force and spectacle layers of deep and often-ignored history, a heartbeat marked by disenfranchisement, defiance, and change. I love women’s basketball because I think it has the power to transform all of us: emotionally, culturally, politically, and in big mysterious ways we may not even know. My goal is not only to share women’s basketball stories with you, but to make you feel like part of them. Because you are.
So what have I been working on all month in Vermont? The big updates:
We gave Rough Notes a whole ass makeover! And I do mean we: a ‘lil collective we’re calling Rough Notes Productions (TM), including writers, artists & designers who want to support this project. I’m a deeply external thinker & creative collaborator, so support from talented friends means the world to me. Right now, the team includes Stefania Gomez, Justine Tobiasz, and Clara May. We’ll have lots more art + photography + design to share with paid subscribers.
You can now follow Rough Notes on Instagram, where we’ll share even more unhinged + collective women’s basketball content. I’m also highlighting blurbs from subscribers there, and what they think of the project: sports journalists and audio producers musicians and filmmakers and therapists and diehard W fans and and poets. Because all kinds of people read Rough Notes, and that matters a lot to me.
There’s fresh Rough Notes merch! Ok, yes, you can only get it by paying for a subscription. I am obsessed with the 3x3” sticker, which could adorn your laptop, car or toaster oven. And if you sign up as a “Rough Notes Believer,” aka you are willing to pledge over $60 in support, you’ll also receive a kitchen magnet engraved with the same logo.
I think this is where I’ll leave you. For now. Oh, first a little more insight about what I’ve actually been doing in Vermont: Writing. Appearing on the small college campus where I lived between the ages of 18-22. Revisiting an elite New England athletics culture that still bewilders me. Talking to every single college professor I ever had. Scratching together the most fragile armor for a broken heart. Staying where people welcome me. Berating myself. Asking for help. Learning to use a laser printer. Meditating when I wake up. Crying. Watching NCAA & Unrivaled in fragments. Sitting in front of a wood stove fire in my friends’ living room while their young kids sleep, a family’s home, where the warmth is strong enough to make my impervious brain a little wavy and a little melty, a place to stay until the new day begins.
This week, I’ll send out the first Rough Notes essay of this new era, and I hope you’ll be subscribed to read it :)
My first foray into entrepreneurialism/self-employment was the scariest time. It was also in the sports industry, and it took over a year before I felt like I was able to tie my shoes, let alone find my footing. That leap of faith paved the way for every life-changing decision after that, both personal and professional. Even though the subsequent decisions and opportunities were much bigger, they never felt as scary. Here's to the hardest decision being accomplished! I hope every day feels like you're stepping more and more into your light. Rooting for you like crazy!
Yay!!!!