WRB—Announcements for 2026

Some changes in the new year

[Dear readers:

I have been working long and strenuous hours at my day job, and the time and effort it requires have made it impossible for me to maintain the existing twice-a-week WRB schedule. To ensure that the WRB maintains the quality you have come to expect and to avoid me running myself into the ground, the WRB will now come out once a week, on Wednesdays, and the Film Supplement will be on an indefinite hiatus. To make up for this reduction in the WRB to our paid subscribers, I have reduced the annual rate to $30/year. (I would reduce the monthly rate as well, but it already sits at Substack’s lower limit of $5/month; my apologies for that.)

It brings me no pleasure to make these changes, but I fear that, if I am going to avoid imminent burnout, I need to. If I felt that there was any way for me to keep the WRB on its previous schedule, I would. You, our readers, mean a lot to me, and I know many of you have come to expect and look forward to the WRB on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. I hope that the WRB continues to play a role in your intellectual lives.

And perhaps it is bad form to do this right after announcing a reduction in the newsletter, but: please sign up for a paid subscription. The WRB is and always has been a labor of love, one that I cobble together in my spare time because the work is important and because something like it should exist. We’re all busy, we’re all tired, and we all—I hope—benefit from a newsletter that makes keeping up with what’s new and interesting in the world of books and culture easier. The support the WRB gets from you, its readers, and especially those of you who pay to subscribe, helps make it possible. I really can’t thank you enough.

—Steve]