# essays & stories (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 3 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover essays & stories. Page: Feed: --- ## [we never know the whole story](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/we-never-know-the-whole-story) _2026-08-22 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ On how little we really know about the people we meet ## [We accept the love we think we deserve](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/we-accept-the-love-we-think-we-deserve) _2026-08-20 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ I was watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower again, and there is something about that line that feels different when you hear it after you have lived a little. ## [Be Your Own Home](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/be-your-own-home) _2026-08-16 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ On becoming the place your heart can finally rest. ## [The Architecture of a Memory](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/the-architecture-of-a-memory) _2026-08-16 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ On the conversations we replay, the people we become, and the things we only understand with time ## [Submit you Essays and Stories](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/open-call-submit-your-essays) _2026-08-14 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ Hello Fisi’s, ## [MISL 1980s: Tales From a Lost Soccer League (foreword, by Rolf Potts)](https://rolfpotts.com/misl-1980s/) _2026-08-13 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ By Rolf Potts Back in 1981, when I was ten years-old and in the fourth grade, I drew a poster that illustrated everything I loved and hated about the world. For some reason I’ve kept it after all these years, and not too long ago I hung it up in the mudroom of my house.… ## [Humans were never meant to be Nonchalant](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/humans-were-never-meant-to-be-nonchalant) _2026-08-12 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ I have never understood why we are so proud of looking like we do not care. ## [The Death of Desire](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/the-death-of-desire) _2026-08-11 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ On wanting love until you learn to live without it. ## [I Didn’t Miss You](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/i-didnt-miss-you) _2026-08-09 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ the quiet aftermath of losing someone ## [Knowing yourself doesn't save you from yourself](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/knowing-yourself-doesnt-save-you) _2026-08-08 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ on self-awareness, emotional control, and the things we still can't reason our way out of ## [CLI-first decentralized compute (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/H1u7QOauEODf) _2026-08-08 · **Sponsored**_ Run and pay spare GPUs from the CLI — transcode, coinpay (DID+escrow), infernet (AI). ## [Grief is weird](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/grief-is-weird) _2026-08-06 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ On missing people, places, and the lives we thought we'd have. ## [Submit Your Essays, Stories & Personal Writing](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/submit-your-essays-stories-and-personal) _2026-08-05 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ Hello Fifi’s, ## [How to Lower Your Cortisol](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/how-to-lower-your-cortisol) _2026-08-04 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ No detox tea required. ## [I Was Never Meant to Grow Old](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/i-was-never-meant-to-grow-old) _2026-08-03 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ On Carrying a Young Heart Through the Passing of Time ## [Travel Writer: Brendan Shanahan](https://rolfpotts.com/brendan-shanahan/) _2026-08-01 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Brendan Shanahan is a writer and painter, living in Australia. He has been a journalist, tour guide, and advertising creative. He is best known for the books In Turkey I Am Beautiful (2008), The Secret Life of the Gold Coast (2004), and Mr Snack and the Lady Water: Travel Tales From My Lost Years (2013).… ## [I Am Homesick for a Home I Have Yet to Create](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/i-am-homesick-for-a-home-i-have-yet) _2026-08-01 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ A love letter to the life I am still growing into ## [I Don't Know How to Move On](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/i-dont-know-how-to-move-on) _2026-07-31 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ A diary entry about unfinished goodbyes and the quiet work of healing ## [The Slow Burn of Becoming Yourself](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/the-slow-burn-of-becoming-yourself) _2026-07-29 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ On growing into someone you never saw coming ## [Genuine curiosity will always beat performative intellectualism](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/genuine-curiosity-will-always-beat) _2026-07-27 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ A curious mind has nothing to prove. ## [You Can Love Someone and Still Outgrow Them](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/you-can-love-someone-and-still-outgrow) _2026-07-26 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ A conversation about nostalgia, friendship, and the quiet grief of becoming someone new. ## [Ask the crowd: AI or not (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/UvmH05KhqLir) _2026-07-26 · **Sponsored**_ Get a transparent verdict from verified humans via web, RSS, or API. ## [Why Temporary Things Feel Permanent](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/why-temporary-things-feel-permanent) _2026-07-23 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ An essay on memory, attachment, and the things we cannot leave behind. ## [“Jane Room Superman,” by Rolf Potts (1998)](https://rolfpotts.com/jane-room-superman/) _2026-07-23 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ (author’s note, 2026) The following short story was published in the August/September 1998 issue of an online literary magazine called Eclectica. While fictional, the story is a roman à clef evocation of a certain time in my life, when I was coming to terms with the fact that the manuscript for my first travel book… ## [Submit your essays and stories](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/submit-your-essays-and-stories) _2026-07-22 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ Every month, The Open Letters becomes a home for a few new voices. ## [The Quiet Grief of Outgrowing Yourself](https://hasifff.substack.com/p/the-quiet-grief-of-outgrowing-yourself) _2026-07-20 · hasif 💌 · postcards by hasif_ The People We Become to Survive ## [I wish i could be 16 again](https://hasifcore.substack.com/p/i-wish-i-could-be-16-again) _2026-07-16 · hasif core · Letters from Hasif_ The version of me I miss the most never knew I would miss them. ## [I used a $35 thrift-store desk for 20 years (and then took it back to the thrift store)](https://rolfpotts.com/thrift-store-desk/) _2026-07-09 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Back in 2005, when I moved into my prairie double-wide in rural Kansas, I bought a sturdy used desk at the local DAV Thrift Store for $35. Over the course of the next 20 years, I worked at that desk almost every day, when I wasn’t off traveling the world — and in fact I… ## [Travel Writer: Angie Chuang](https://rolfpotts.com/angie-chuang/) _2026-07-01 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Angie Chuang is an author and educator based in Denver, Colorado. Her debut memoir, The Four Words for Home (Aquarius Press / Willow Books 2014), was based on her journalistic coverage of Afghan immigrants and travel to Afghanistan after 9/11. Her scholarly crossover book, American Otherness: News Media Representations of Identity and Belonging (Routledge 2025)… ## [6 thoughts on avoiding unnecessary exposition in a screenplay](https://rolfpotts.com/avoiding-unnecessary-exposition/) _2026-06-25 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ 1) Never explain something you can dramatize Master storytellers never explain. They do the hard, painfully creative thing — they dramatize. Audiences are rarely interested, and certainly never convinced, when forced to listen to the discussion of ideas. Dialogue, the natural talk of characters pursuing desire, is not a platform for the filmmaker’s philosophy. Explanations… ## [I have not been to Liechtenstein (but I have traveled across Liechtenstein)](https://rolfpotts.com/liechtenstein/) _2026-06-11 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ One interesting footnote to the journey Kiki and I made through Switzerland and Austria a few months ago was that we accidentally traversed the micro-nation of Liechtenstein as our train made its way from Chur to Innsbruck. Liechtenstein didn’t announce its borders (nor were its flags flying in any of the communities we passed through),… ## [Travel Writer: Perry Garfinkel](https://rolfpotts.com/perry-garfinkel/) _2026-06-01 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Longtime New York Times contributor Perry Garfinkel has also written for National Geographic Magazine, The Travel Channel, Travel & Leisure, and AARP the Magazine, among many others. A former reporter and editor for newspapers and magazines, he helped launch New Age Journal and EcoTraveler Magazine (both defunct). He has written four books (including national bestseller… ## [Dissecting Series A Rounds (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/Z8ikVLCd48tb) _2026-06-01 · **Sponsored**_ Two real Series A cases: timelines, investor sequencing, and common founder mistakes. ## [It would seem that I have a strange weakness for souvenir socks](https://rolfpotts.com/souvenir-socks/) _2026-05-21 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Amid our Vienna sojourn a few months ago, Kiki and I saw all manner of kitschy Mozart and Freud and Klimt socks for sale — and at the Leopold Museum Kiki splurged on a pair of socks depicting Egon Schiele’s 1910 “Self-Portrait with Striped Shirt.” I have a weakness for these socks myself. While visiting… ## [9 outtakes from Yi-Fu Tuan’s 1977 book “Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience”](https://rolfpotts.com/yi-fu-tuan-space-and-place/) _2026-05-14 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ 1) Solitude is a condition for acquiring a sense of immensity Solitude is a condition for acquiring a sense of immensity. Alone one’s thoughts wander freely over space. In the presence of others they are pulled back by an awareness of other personalities who project their own worlds onto the same area. 2) Place is… ## [Travel Writer: Caroline Van Hemert](https://rolfpotts.com/caroline-van-hemert/) _2026-05-01 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Caroline Van Hemert is an Alaska-based writer and wildlife biologist. She’s the author of The Sun is a Compass, winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award. Her essays and articles explore the intersections between science and adventure travel, and have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Outside, Vogue, High Country News, and… ## [Talking about sense of place and “Kansas Never Plays Itself” on Yonder Radio](https://rolfpotts.com/kansas-never-plays-itself-yonder-radio/) _2026-04-30 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ This week I appeared on Yonder Radio, an hour-long audio show and podcast produced by the Center for Rural Strategies, to talk about my feature-length found-footage video essay Kansas Never Plays Itself, which draws on a century of film to analyze how cinematic shorthand shapes the public’s imagination of places. What’s the name of this… [Listen](https://rolfpotts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Yonder-Radio-KS-Plays.mp3) ## [Outtakes from an interview about ecotourists who share the the Darien Gap with migrant travelers](https://rolfpotts.com/outtakes-from-an-interview-about-ecotourists-who-share-the-the-darien-gap-with-migrant-travelers/) _2026-04-23 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ I’ve noted here before that I’m regularly interviewed by traditional news outlets seeking my perspective, as a veteran travel writer, about various aspects of travel and tourism. Sometimes my quotes don’t make it into those articles. One of the more interesting such articles in recent years was Laura Gottesdiener’s Reuter’s article, “For migrants, the Darien… ## [7 outtakes from Christine Rosen’s 2024 book “The Extinction of Experience”](https://rolfpotts.com/christine-rosen-the-extinction-of-experience/) _2026-04-09 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ 1) Capturing an experience while you are having it alters the way you experience it Capturing an experience while you are having it alters the way you experience it, as Wendell Berry’s poem “The Vacation” describes. It tells the story of a man who films his entire vacation with an older technology, the video camera.… ## [Travel Writer: Rachel Rudwall](https://rolfpotts.com/rachel-rudwall/) _2026-04-02 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ An EMMY-nominated producer, on-camera host, camera operator, writer, and award-winning photographer, Rachel Rudwall has traveled all seven continents, lived in three countries, and journeyed through 80+ nations – all in the name of storytelling. Her global audience spans over 250,000 adventurous souls, and clients include Google, TIME, Nat Geo, AFAR, Discovery, TEDx, and more. How… ## [Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Writers](https://rolfpotts.com/elmore-leonards-10-rules-for-writers/) _2026-03-19 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ 1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a charac­ter’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead look­ing for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an… ## [5 Thoughts on Confession in Memoir, from Emily Fox Gordon](https://rolfpotts.com/5-thoughts-on-confession-in-memoir-from-emily-fox-gordon/) _2026-03-05 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ 1) Confessing and confiding are overlapping concepts Confessing and confiding are overlapping concepts, like envy and jealousy, often used interchangeably, but distinct at their cores. The fundamental difference between them is that a confession, in the word’s historical, nonliterary sense, is addressed to some entity—God, the court, the public, a person one has wronged. That… ## [Travel Writer: Erin Levi](https://rolfpotts.com/erin-levi/) _2026-02-26 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Erin Levi is a Connecticut-born, Montréal-based travel journalist whose work spans the Himalayas, Central Asia, and beyond. A polyglot and lifelong traveler, she has trekked to Sir Edmund Hillary’s favorite viewpoint of Mount Everest, sipped Chasselas and danced on tables with the Cent-Suisses, a historic Swiss Guard unit, during a once-in-a-generation Swiss winegrowers’ festival in… ## [Seven of the best Deviate episodes about 1990s zeitgeist (& zeitgeist-adjacent) experiences](https://rolfpotts.com/1990s/) _2026-02-20 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ My Deviate podcast has been, since its inception, a pretext to explore topics I don’t typically cover as a travel writer. Granted, a majority of my episodes have nonetheless been about travel (or travel writing), but by its very name, Deviate gives me the opportunity to veer away from what I’m supposed to write about as… ## [Using AI to enhance a 37-year-old photo of me with Barry Sanders’ Heisman](https://rolfpotts.com/ai-barry-sanders-heisman/) _2026-02-04 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Here’s a curious look into AI image enhancement technology, in relation to how we once captured images. It’s a story that dates back more than 37 years. In early 1989, not long after Kansas native Barry Sanders won the Heisman Trophy as the top player in college football, I had the chance to pose with… ## [Travel Writer: Jen Rose Smith](https://rolfpotts.com/12566-2/) _2026-01-29 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Jen Rose Smith is an award-winning writer and editor living in Vermont’s Green Mountains, where she writes deeply reported features on travel, culture, sustainability, adventure, and place. Her work has been featured by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC Travel, and many other outlets. Recent stories include a feature for the… ## [11 Outtakes from Chuck Klosterman’s “Football”](https://rolfpotts.com/klosterman-football/) _2026-01-20 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ 1) On the way Americans call football “football” for no cogent reason Americans call football “football” because that’s what Americans want to call it. We offer no cogent clarification as to why this is, nor do we insist that other nations do the same, nor do we spend much time considering how this might seem… ## [Our Kansas short film gets a glowing review (alongside “Wicked” and “Somebody Somewhere”)](https://rolfpotts.com/the-game-camera-review/) _2026-01-09 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ I learned many things helping Kiki make her short film, The Game Camera, and I’ll share two of the more curious lessons here. First, I learned that the writer’s job is pretty much to keep out of everyone’s way once the production begins. I have almost no photos of myself on-set, and the image here… ## [Travel Writer: Natalie Compton](https://rolfpotts.com/12558-2/) _2026-01-01 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Natalie Compton is a travel reporter for the Washington Post. Originally from California, she has covered travel, food, and alcohol from every continent. How did you get started traveling? My dad did a lot of domestic travel for work (very George Clooney in Up in the Air) and my mom was always happy to tag… ## [On the task of keeping an author website (in an era when folks don’t read websites like they used to)](https://rolfpotts.com/author-website/) _2025-12-28 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Earlier this year, around mid-October, RolfPotts.com went offline for a few days, due to a DNS glitch that happened as my webmaster was moving the site’s content to a bigger server. It was a weirdly unsettling experience, for reasons I’ll try to explain here. On having had a personal website for nearly three decades RolfPotts.com… ## [Kansas Never Plays Itself: A full transcript of the video essay by Rolf Potts](https://rolfpotts.com/kansas-never-plays-itself/) _2025-12-24 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ A full transcript of Rolf's 2025 video essay about the role places play in cinema. ## [Nine passages from The Vagabond’s Way (that readers like to quote back to me)](https://rolfpotts.com/9-outtakes-from-the-vagabonds-way-that-readers-like-to-quote-back-to-me/) _2025-12-11 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ One of the pleasures of writing books that eventually prove popular with readers is hearing which quotes and outtakes from a book resonate with people. A little more than three years after the release of The Vagabond’s Way, here are nine quotes from the book that readers seem to enjoy quoting back to me (both… ## [Travel Writer: Mark Orwoll](https://rolfpotts.com/mark-orwoll/) _2025-12-04 · Rolf Potts · Rolf Potts_ Mark Orwoll is the author of four books, including Just One Little Hitch (Pleasant Villain Press, 2024), a travel memoir. For 30 years he was on the editorial staff of Travel + Leisure magazine, most recently as the International Editor. He has won numerous accolades over the years, including the Silver Award in the 2025 Lowell Thomas competition’s Travel Journalist…