Hi friends,
This isn’t a real post. It’s just my every-several-months boilerplate where I post my tip jar and talk about where to find me when I’m not here.
For those of you who are new: hello! I’m Mary. I’m a mom and an author from Steubenville, Ohio. Here on Patheos, I write about my life as a Catholic in Northern Appalachia, focusing mostly on issues like poverty, social justice, and recovery from spiritual abuse. I also write about politics, Church news, and whatever Christians have been arguing about on social media. This last few weeks, we’ve talked about the pioneer cemetery that was found near my house. We talked far more than I wanted to about Trump’s threats to the Vatican and feud with Pope Leo, and of course the war in Iran. We got to take my nephew to see the Lincoln Bridge, and ended up talking about Heaven and Hell. I’ve been meditating on love. Adrienne graduated from the eighth grade. I got to talk about how much I admire Pope Leo.
Besides my work here at Patheos, I also have a Substack where I write about topics that aren’t directly connected to my life as a Catholic: mostly politics and autism acceptance and how much I hate AI, lately. I also use that spot to record short videos. Most of what I post is free, but people who pay me a bit of money on Substack get a members-only video per week. Often, those little eight dollar payments are how I keep gas in my car.
I was honored to write for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette one more time this spring, but now they no longer have an editorial section so I’ll be looking for other places to publish. Wherever I go, the very best way you can help me out is to read my work and talk about how you like it, as I do get more opportunities to write that way.
And now, of course, the tip jar.
You might have noticed that life is getting unbelievably expensive lately. Gas prices have doubled since the last time I wrote one of these posts. The grocery prices are going up every week. Ohio’s notorious utility bills have also added what seems like a hundred dollars extra per month in the past year or so. My husband works full time at a restaurant and tries to get overtime whenever he can, but all of my work is writing. I get paid a tiny royalty check for my books occasionally. I get another tiny check from Patheos for clicks in the United States and nothing for clicks in most other countries. I get paid when I get published in a newspaper and when I do any other writing project. The rest of my living is just gratuities from satisfied readers. And summer is a particularly bad time to depend on readers. Right at this moment, I don’t see how we’ll get by if we don’t get a little bit more in the tip jar, particularly around the middle of the month.
So, if you like what you read, leave me a tip when you can!
I have a paypal donate button which looks like you’re donating to a charity, but it’s actually just to my business paypal that I pay taxes on. The reason the name that comes up when you click it is “the Little Portion” is that I had an Etsy craft shop where I made Rosaries with that name years ago. I also have a Venmo. And of course, if you subscribe to my Substack, that helps me as well.
And now back to writing worth your time!
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