Welcome to Why Am I Like This?, an essay collection broken up monthly via newsletter.

At the end of each month, subscribers will receive one in a collection of previously unpublished short essays that humorously (and sometimes darkly) examine the little things that take up a lot of our collective generational brain, like relationships, the mind, the Internet, the way we dress, and the things we consume.

For now, Why Am I Like This? is free to all readers.

About the author

Hannah Dylan Pasternak is a writer and editor in New York City. She works as the Associate Director of Special Projects at SELF magazine. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Alma, and other places. She has been featured in the New York Times twice, though the first time was much sillier.

A note before you go

I started this endeavor because I missed purely creative writing and being funny. I want a space to play. I want to experiment with format—what if you could receive a really great essay collection right in your inbox? No link roundups, no diary entries, no Q&As. I want to write in a way that I find exists on the Internet in less and less fashion these days—and in print, even less so. It’s a somewhat self-indulgent endeavor, but my ultimate goal is that I will write stuff that you read and think, SAME. Maybe you will feel a little entertained, a little brain-jogged, and a little less alone.

You can learn more about me here and here. My newsletter art is by Nicole Byron.