Read anything good lately?

By Colleen Hagerty 

Welcome to My World’s on Fire, a newsletter about disasters from journalist Colleen Hagerty. If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, let’s make this a regular thing—subscribe for free to receive disaster deep-dives, Q&As, and context in your inbox on Thursday evenings.

One of my newsletter goals for this year was to find new ways to connect with the growing community of My World’s on Fire subscribers, and I’ve really enjoyed meeting more of you in book clubs and Twitter Spaces. So, I’m excited to share that I’ve started a group on another platform for us all to connect!I created a My World’s on Fire circle on Threadable, which is a social reading platform where you can share and collectively comment on readings. (For now, the Threadable app is only available on iOS devices.)  Within this circle, I’ll be focusing on disaster-related reads, choosing chapters that expand on subjects I regularly cover in this newsletter, such as the foundations of the US disaster system, how disasters are defined, and the ways human actions can set the stage for future hazards to become disasters. You’ll be hearing from a mix of experts, survivors, and maybe even fictional characters. I’ve just shared the first selection today, which comes from Dr. Lucy Jones’ book The Big Ones. Dr. Jones has a knack for making scientific concepts and policies easily understandable, and in the chapter we’ll be reading, she turns her attention to the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927. Along with detailing the hazard, she describes in detail how policies primed the region for floods, how blatant racism factored into the response and the devastating toll that took, the role of local media, and the significant political ripples that followed. I'll share more about why I chose this chapter in the app, but clearly, there’s a lot within it to discuss.

Here's an example of what the comments in the margin look like on Threadable (and a peek into The Big Ones)

A few reasons why Threadable stood out to me and why I think it’s worth the (free!) download:

• Low commitment: I’ll be selecting a new read every two or three weeks, and each will only be one chapter. The selections will also stay available even after they are no longer the circle “focus,” so you can really make this work with your schedule. There are MWOF readers all over the world, and I feel like this format gives us all a chance to participate, without trying to find a time to sync up on Zoom! 

• The interactive potential: I love the fact that you can start comment threads in the margins, so that each note you leave could spark its own discussion and help other readers see something new in the selections. I'll add mine first, and I'm excited to see where you all take it from there!

• A chance to check out a variety of interesting book excerpts for free: Need I say more?

If this all sounds interesting, you can click the button below to download Threadable and join the My World’s on Fire circle. You can also find the circle on the app’s homepage.

You might notice some people are already in the circle—that’s because subscribers got a special heads-up in their monthly email earlier this week! If you’d like to become a MWOF insider and help support this newsletter, you can

explore membership options starting from $5/month.All monthly and yearly donors are on the list to receive an extra email each month, and as a bonus, any one-time donations through the end of the year will get you on the list for the December member’s newsletter!

It’s been

another

tough week

for the media industry, and I can’t stress enough how much your support means to me as an independent journalist working on what’s still considered a relatively obscure beat, despite how

prevalent disasters

have become in our lives. Thanks for making this possible, and as I said to members in their email—I look forward to meeting you in the margins! 

As always

thank you for subscribing to My World’s on Fire.It means the world when you spread the word about MWOF with your family, friends, and total strangers on social media. Be sure to tag me if you do or send me a screenshot so I can share it in a future edition! This week’s subscriber shout-out goes to Jolie for this kind tweet:

Now, here’s a 

little something

 for reading to the end. 

Colleen

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