Who am I?
Oh hai, it’s Amy. I have a lot of stuff to say, and here’s the place I say most of it. I also have a website at amynewell.com and I say stuff on twitter at @amynewell and on linkedin at amynewell and occasionally I say things on Instagram at @amywearsboots but over there mostly just saying stuff with the expression on my face and the clothes that I wear.
You can also find me at amywritespoems.substack.com and buttondown.email/woe
I write these newsletters from the inside of a walk-in closet lit with twinkle lights and crammed full of shoes. The walk-in closet also has a dorm fridge in it, where I keep my kombucha. Pretty sure you want to read my kombucha-fueled unhinged walk-in closet writings, so:
Here are some topics I might write about here:
software development, boots, fashion, photography, engineering management, mental illness, gender, leadership, apocalypses, witchcraft, Buddhism, the history of psychiatry, psychopharmacology, psychedelic medicine, pop music, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, grain mills, and my gut microbiome.
I also provide a Taylor Swift lyric appropriate to every issue!
Here are some people talking about how great the newsletter is:
“Amusing at best!” — A troll
“I'll just keep saying this: if you're not subscribed you're missing out. I receive a lot of my friends newsletters, but @amynewell's is one of the very few I always read from beginning to end.” — @avdi
“Exquisitely spot on, as always.” — @ReneeDeehan
“If y'all aren't reading Amy's newsletter, you're missing out! It's full of wisdom and insight on tech, survival, empathy.” — @the_datababe
“I have been subscribed to this newsletter for a while and every one of them reads like a novel (in a good way).” — @ghosteathuman
Here’s one of my standard professional bios for you, if you like that sort of thing:
Amy Newell has been a software engineer since 1999, when she fell in love with a heapsort. She likes to talk about engineering management and the relationships between suffering, authenticity, and productivity in the workplace. She also writes poetry, does stand-up comedy, reads tarot, advocates for the mentally ill, and parents two teenagers. She likes boots, oysters, mezcal, and anti-fascists.
And here’s one of my standard personal bios, if you like those:
Pretty Extra. Talks a lot. "The darkest woman I know..." Definitely doing too many things at once. Taking up space. Professional software engineer, poet, texter; amateur psychopharmacologist. Jewess. Great style; stupid, stupid shoes. Laphroaig, neat. Mescal, runny cheese, oysters, red-tailed hawks, milkweed, moss. A little bit obsessed with her work. Definitely an embarrassment to her children. Mostly trash taste in music. Mugged a mugger in Budapest, hitchhiked to a tiger park in Uttar Pradesh, eaten crickets in Mexico City. Casually mangling French. Ideas are cheap, have some. Took up running to spite a cartoon horse. Not under the illusion that she's in control of her life, so, pretty much open to whatever happens.
