One subscriber per day is chosen at random to write an essay for a mailing list with 13 thousand subscribers

[Video Link] Here's how The Listserve works: you subscribe to the mailing list (13,667 people are subscribers so far). Once a day, a subscriber is chosen at random to share a self-written essay with the other subscribers. I've been a member for a couple of weeks and every essay has been worth reading. I've received recipes, advice for being happier, information about keeping bees, business-starting tips, and more.

Here's a recent essay:

When I turned twenty I had reached a point where my earthly possessions could be summarized as the clothes I was wearing, an old bag containing some more clothes, a few science-fiction books, and my guitar. No money, no place to live, just a bunch of friends who helped me out of the streets and put me back on my feet.

Ending up in such a pit you first feel anger, then sorrow, then you make fun of it because that is the only way to make it bearable, and then you can go forward. It took me three more years to be able to shop for food without having to count change in my pockets.

Twenty years later I gave the books away but I still keep the old bag as a memory and my guitar is now standing in the living-room where I occasionally use it to sing for my kids.

Life has been a tough ride so far, but at least I know how to live without being bothered by simple objects. I know the only things you can count on are:

- What is inside you: your skills, your knowledge

- Good friends, and other people you love

Be generous and help somebody today get out of poverty. We all deserve a future.

nicolas314

The Listserve

• [Bradley Robinson]

  Excellent.  I’m in.

• [relawson]

  Sounds fun! 

  Can you opt out of being picked for writing? I’d like to see the other people’s essays, I just suck at writing and don’t think I have anything real interesting to say anyway.

  • [Dez]

    I wonder how many people that signed up also think they have nothing to say.

  • [ericwbailey]

    I don’t think being a good writer is the point, but their site does say you have 3 days of notification to submit your message. I’m assuming if you don’t answer back you’ll be skipped over.

  • [Mark_Frauenfelder]

    The odds are low that you will ever be chosen, but I have a feeling you would have something interesting to contribute. I’ve never met a person who doesn’t have an interesting life once you start asking them about it!

    • [ericwbailey]

      Agreed. Honestly, I find the best submissions thus far to be stuff like a perfect Bloody Mary recipe, musings on software design, beekeeping, etc., and less stuff like someone’s lame, inspirational Hallmark philosophy.

    • [tristan eldritch]

      “I’ve never met a person who doesn’t have an interesting life once you start asking them about it!”

      You’ve been lucky with seating at dinner parties and weddings.

      • [Sekino]

         … as well as with seating in airplanes and Greyhound buses!

• [Dez]

  Thanks for sharing this! I’m in :-)

• [Antoine Roy Larouche]

  And in Québec, there is Le Parloir!
  http://parloir.org/

• [yumtacos]

  I know I’ll never get picked, and if I did get picked, 3 days isn’t long enough for me to come up with something that a lot of people would want to read. I signed up to read these great stories (and recipes, and other things). It’s always entertaining.

• [herocious]

  I’m in as well. Right now I think I’ll say:

  “Read my novel, Austin Nights, for the cost of a tweet here http://theopenend.com/”

• [9illy]

  Well that made me tear up a little bit. Didn’t expect that.