THE GROUP CHAT: How We Get By

Welcome to THE GROUP CHAT, a recurring feature in which the Scratch collective invites you into our real-life text thread. In the first installment, we pose the instigating question behind Scratch: How are you surviving? We’re talking numbers. Money in. Money out. But also other kinds of survival — what keeps us going, how we find time to be ourselves, and why we fight to keep doing this type of work. Enjoy the tea 🍵! And don’t forget to subscribe.

 — Manjula, Latria, Rahawa, and Maggie 

This transcript has been lightly edited and condensed.

Manjula: Ok, friends, let’s start with the big, umbrella Q beneath which we are gathered here today: How are you surviving? Material survival first, then we can move on to nonmaterial. I’m talking income sources, money, budgets, jobs… I will go first because “walk the walk,” etc. 

My income sources (pre-tax):

• Dregs of book advance for The Last Fire Season: signed for 400K in 2021, pre-taxes/agent fee. Yes this was a life-changing amount of money! It was my sole income until mid-2025 & was basically similar to a 60-70K annual salary, with a couple gaps between receiving installments. I could talk about alllllll that for a long time, but tl;dr I have about $10k in cash left now!
• Since mid-2025, I work half-time at a nonprofit lit mag that has an uncertain funding future ($40 hourly, 1099)
• I get health insurance from partner’s salaried union job
• My partner and I contribute about equally to household $ at the moment/until that final 10k runs out 😭. Mortgage is like 450K and I have 10K left in student loan debt (which would have been forgiven if… that had happened)
• Basically I’m good right now but I need to sell another book, like, yesterday

Maggie: My current income sources are in heavy flux. My $90k advance on Better Faster Farther, which sold in 2022, ran out last year and no, I am not getting royalties. Plus, many of my previous freelance stalwarts are not coming through like they used to. So my theme for this year is find NEW sources of income!

But for Q1 it's looking like (all of this is pre-tax):

• 1 big profile for an alumni mag at $1.50/word ($5k)
• Teaching at local writing nonprofit, six-week course (~$2k)
• 1 essay for a lit mag ($650)
• 2–3 bigger features pitched currently that I feel pretty good about landing somewhere, but also, not 100% counting on those. Probably only 1 will pay out this quarter. (Hopefully around $2k.)
• Speaking through Humanities Washington, $400 speaker’s fee per appearance with 4 currently scheduled in March ($1.6k)
• Launching a local radio show. Currently unpaid but hoping that we get an underwriter soon! ($0)
• Working on a new book proposal ($0)
• Newsletters, my personal newsletter and Gilmore Women, which I split with my co-writer Megan Burbank (~$1k)
• Health insurance is through my partner's salaried job. He pays for most of our day-to-day expenses, including childcare, mortgage, etc. My finances typically go to my own personal expenses: student loans, clothes, biz expenses, and our family "extras" (kids’ clothes, lessons, sports, vacations, our HELOC loan payment). During more flush times for me, I will also pitch in and cover the mortgage, or some other bigger household payment.

Wow that was both very good for my own organizational brain, and makes me feel very vulnerable putting in the group chat!!!

Manjula: Thank you for putting it out there! I’m not a freelance journalist like you, but in my own areas I also feel like I can’t show this kind of vulnerability and still be taken seriously as a Pro Who Is Great At Her Job Actually. But both can be — and are usually — true. That’s sorta why we’re doing this thing. 💞

Maggie: I've spent basically my entire professional life trying to remember that my worth is not tied to how professionally successful I am considered (Great Recession graduate right here!) but it is STILL v tough sometimes. (Though maybe less tough as the rest of our industry collapses around us!)

Latria: WHEW. Ok. Being this vulnerable is terrifying. 

I made $204k last year (pre-tax). The biggest portion of that was the $100,000 American Mosaic Prize. The other 104k comes from a variety of sources including:

• My day job as an Assistant Professor
• My two magazine columns
• Feature writing (my feature rate is $2/word and my agent also gets 10% of my feature fee when I get her to look over the contract)
• I sold my book in 2021 (a “significant deal”), but I didn’t get any money from it last year — I should get my second advance installment in 2026

Where all this money goes, beyond the usual living expenses:

• Debt: I have a six-figure student loan debt, a car loan, credit cards . . . a lot 
• Helping family: $20k/year
• Dad’s estate: ~$3k
• Expenses for freelance stories and the book: $32k (Note: I don’t take paid trips or media junkets. When I write about a destination, unless explicitly sent on an experience by a magazine, I pay my way. People think travel writers just go on free trips all the time. I refuse to take them.)
• Travel: Tires for my car, food, gas, hotels — I’m on the road a lot
• Material support for my financially unstable students

I’ll also say I was very hesitant to post this because I don't really want advice. I'm doing the things and making the changes, but there is A LOT GOING ON.

Manjula: I have no advice for you! Only love! And I love that you do not fuck around with your magazine contracts and have your agent look at them.

We will have to do an entire newsletter on the topic of the evils of DELIVERY & ACCEPTANCE aka the legendarily unpredictable and slow-coming second installment of the book advance, ahem. 

Two other elements of what you said, L, jump out at me as super important to air, because a lot of folks deal with these and they don’t fit into the usual “how much $ do you make” conversations:

1) DEBT (financial) and

2) CARE (for others - financial and otherwise)

Latria: I started a whole essay about freelance holes from incurred expenses and credit card interest…

Manjula: Like, I am actually less interested in your teaching salary than in the fact that writers are out here doing this precarious career while also financially supporting a parent or other loved ones. This is not uncommon for writers from working class, immigrant, and other historically precarious financial backgrounds. 

Obvs I am all for the power of rate sharing, but also, when we hyperfixate on “what’s your book advance #” we are leaving out a LOT of the picture.

Maggie: Listen, the caretaking and the debt costs are so real, and adds that whole pressure about not feeling like you can take the risks you want to. Or like, yeah, if we're freelance bc we have to be, we also need to take on 18 other things that are more certain bc I can't just say, “No, I'm not gonna pay for my kids to do XYZ, or pay our mortgage, or my student loans.” It ups the stress of finding work exponentially.

Latria: Absolutely. This is why I have 10+ things going at once, even though I try not to overcommit myself. Because if one check is late, there needs to be another check that can slip into that slot so that bills don't get behind. Once a late fee is tacked onto a bill, it's so much harder to come back from that ding. And even though I think we're supposed to be able to add late fees (because of that Freelance Isn't Free Law if the publication is in NYC) to some invoices, it's hard enough to get pubs to pay what they owe let alone ANYTHING ELSE. And me tacking on a late fee doesn't cover the 11+ individual late fees for all the things that needed paying (depends on the size of the check, but y'all know what I'm saying). 

It feels like we're always on the losing side of this.

Maggie: I just had to do summer camp signups (for my older kid, who, you know, has summer off school, so needs childcare if I want to work), and I always have such an existential crisis around it, because it's a good $4–5k for childcare for the whole summer, and then I have to think, “Am I making enough to make this worthwhile? Should I just not work all summer and hang out with my kid? How much of a detriment to my work is that?” Etc etc etc.

Manjula: Edan Lepucki did a summer where she just mommed instead of doing summer camp. I… cannot recall the results. 

Maggie: Hmm. I will have to look that up. And yes, it's tempting, but it's also a bummer because I do tend to get more freelance work in the summer — I assume bc staffers are on vacation.

Rahawa: Right, it’s not just “Is it worth me staying home?” it's also “Is it worth me working in this way instead of that way while knowing the avenues for the latter are drying up.” (Sorry, coming in late here.)

Maggie:Yes. And that I really am not happy as a full time caretaker.

Rahawa: Fam, *I* am not happy even reading about you being a full-time caretaker. It must come wrapped up in so many additional feelings, too!

Maggie : 😬

Rahawa 😬 The work itself is exhausting, and the feelings are exhausting, and the fear of missing out on other work is exhausting, and the dread of never getting it again is exhausting. It's just exhaustion turtles all the way down.

Manjula: Maggie, maybe YOU should go to summer camp.  🐢⛺🌲

Maggie: Omg I would love. I really regret not being a summer camp counselor in my youth.

Rahawa: Maggie, when do you Maggie. Serious question: When do you get to Mag?

Maggie: Lol during work hours! Also, I am pretty adamant about doing what I want, like book club once a month. When a friend has a thing, I go to the thing. And Matt and I try to give each other alone time each weekend. 

Also once a week I get lunch with my brothers. That's a good one.

Rahawa: Oh shit I never “how we get by”-ed. Most numbers pre-tax:

• Book: I can’t really talk about the book at the moment, other than to say it switched publishers and will now be published by Little, Brown. I can, however, share that everyone who’s heard about my last five years has wanted to burn the publishing industry to the ground. (My new editor is great, though.) Working on the book is currently quarter-time work that will move up to part-time following the Scratch launch.
• COYOTE Media Collective: About $1,750/month part time. Editing, writing, tech tinkering, and wearing any number of hats required by running an independent, worker-owned alt-weekly in the Bay.
• Bakery: I net about $1,200/month quarter time depending on tips and the number of shifts per week. Steady work but keeping my foot injured. :(
• Scratch: Nada for now! Part time while preparing for our launch. Dropping down to quarter time after.

I am the sole provider in my household at the moment, supporting my partner and cat. I have health insurance through the ACA, whose lowest tier premiums makes me want to commit acts of violence.

Maggie: When do YOU get to Rahawa? Ms. 4 jobs???

Rahawa: Right now I don't. I barely get days off. Sometimes my friends will plan an overnight camping trip somewhere, and that’s great. I took these Tigrinya classes last summer that were wonderful! My hope is that I can start to carve out more time for myself by the end of the year.

Maggie: Yes please. Also please appreciate this badass Swedish curler. I love her.

Also, obviously I get my Maggie time in while watching sports. 

@Manjula @Latria, same q to you. When do you get the time to be you? That whole other side of the coin to how are you “surviving”? When are you you?

Manjula: I know this question is about life/work balance, but also… I actually feel like I’ve worked really hard to set myself up with a life and career in which I can “me” as much as possible, at most times. It’s sort of gross, actually, how much I get to Manjula during any given day. And part of that is because I spend a lot of time alone, I live in the woods, I don’t have kids, etc. But also, I have intentionally made choices in my career that allow me to bring my real self to work. And sometimes those choices might mean less money, but also, publishing is so precarious and ... I’ll go with whimsical here — that there’s no way to be sure what is going to make more or less money, or what will blow up, or be a bust. So why not just be oneself? You literally have nothing to lose or gain!

Example — with my book, I 100% could have written a more commercially friendly book about wildfire, one that didn’t fuck with genre conventions and that positioned me as an Expert, and it would have sold more copies and gotten me all the commentator gigs, and whatever else. At one point, that is the kind of book I thought I was going to write. But there are a dozen people who could write that book better than me. Plus, I never would have finished it because I would have died of boredom! So instead I wrote this poetic genre-fuck memoir about trees and my body and climate change and community and colonialism and and and.... and it’s not an easy book to summarize, haha. Which I love, and makes it hard to market/sell. And I will never ever earn out that advance. I have already made all the money I will ever make off that book. And I am so proud of it. It’s good, and it’s me.  

Or, like, with the first Scratch — a lot of people wanted me to turn it into a cottage industry, offer business classes for writers, that sort of thing. It probably would have been successful. But the thought of doing that honestly just kind of made me want to die. So I... didn’t. ☺️

Anyway, I know these are work answers and the question was about LIFE, so… I guess I’m most me when I’m lying on my living room floor listening to records. I have a whole mental list of records that are the MOST ME, and when I need to feel Me, I put those on. Also: ocean.

Oh wait, sorry, one more thing — I have a lot to say about Being Oneself, apparently.

So, I’m turning 50 later this year (I KNOW!) and I’ve been definitely having a midlife moment. And that’s come with some unexpected insecurities around the creative/literary parts of my work and identity.

But I had an amazing assignment last month, the best writing assignment I have ever had in my life, and it made me feel more like myself than anything else has in a very long time. I got to write the liner notes to an album.

It’s a ska band (shut up) that I’ve known since high school, we basically grew up together, and they’re reissuing their albums on vinyl, because I guess the ‘90s are THAT back?

so I wrote this hot 500 words on a fucking typewriter with no capital letters about these boys, and their band, and the town we all come from, and how dirty and beautiful we all were and still are.

And THAT felt like I was truly MANJULA-ing for the first time in a long time.

Gen X nostalgia for the win, i guess?

Rahawa: Anyone who hates ska is an op. I am sorry. I don't trust them.

Manjula: I mean, any ska? Third Wave ska? This is maybe a sidebar 😭

Rahawa: “I guess I’m most me when I’m lying on my living room floor listening to records. I have a whole mental list of records that are the MOST ME, and when I need to feel Me, I put those on.”

I want to know which records, but also if we ever do an event I want these words on a screen and a playlist of these songs.

Manjula:  I should make a playlist — I had one in Spotify to play after my book events but then I unsubscribed to all the things (highly recommend making an I’M SO ME playlist btw — we shall revisit this topic when y’all’s memoirs come out!), but a few, to start:

Ella and Louis - anything from Cole Porter Songbook
Pavement - Two States 🤙
Jawbreaker - West Bay Invitational
Tom Waits - Going Down Slow 
Sam Cooke - get yourself another fool
Gillian Welch - Time the Revelator, song but also whole album
VU - femme fatale, heroin
Fugazi - waiting room 
Smog - Teenage Spaceship

It’s funny a lot of my Me songs are quiet/slow! Oh, and all of The Breeders’ Last Splash, obvs

P.S. The liner notes gig did not pay. It was a favor for a friend!  

Maggie: Manjula, all of the above is why I am on this journey with you!!! I love your yourself-ness!!

Latria: Manjula, this was such an amazing answer 😭

Manjula: I will also say — and this is a longer conversation! — that part of how I got good at making space in my life for me is by learning the hard way over a decade of having chronic illness that I need that space for my physical survival. The body will draw boundaries by force if necessary.

Sorry to go on so long y’all. I’m in my perimenopause feelz and feeling DEEP.

Latria: I feel like I'm most me when I’m doing my adventure shenanigans. I really struggle when I don't have an adventure assignment to look forward to, even if they're work (and sometimes logistically overwhelming).

I live for a good sunrise. I think they might be my favorite thing? Sunsets are chill too, and I've seen some epic ones (I have a pic of me reading Maggie's Sports Illustrated cover story while waiting on sunset at the Grand Canyon on my phone somewhere), but seeing a sunrise means I've prioritized myself early in the day. As I get older I'm really into them.

Even when I can't get a sunrise, I still say those super early morning hours (circa 4am when not commuting), before anyone expects me to be awake, before I have to be "on" or freak out about answering emails. Sitting on the back porch with a hot cup of coffee in total darkness is a close second. It doesn't happen as often as I would like, but they're... centering? Like I can figure out how to face the day usually if I can figure that piece out.

In the day-to-day I am most myself in the car (sometimes it's an audiobook, other times it's a Southern rap playlist), usually on the way to somewhere interesting. I don't know how to explain it, but it's this little moment where I'm not stressed out or pressed for time but before I have to grapple with the overwhelm or disappointment of arrival and whether or not the place/experience I'm headed to matches the emotions in my head. In that little time in the Volvo I'm still excited about the possibility of where I'm going.

In the writing/reporting side of stuff, I am most myself when I get to follow my curiosity or write about something I'm into. Not long ago I turned in a G&G column about seeing Texas bluebonnets, which is the closest I've ever been to witnessing something like a superbloom. It was a story that didn't hurt, and I appreciated that. But I really hang on for those days/moments/trips when there's time to follow my curiosities and side quests.

Rahawa: OK well now I have to revisit my answer. It can't be 👇🏾

Maggie: Once a week I get lunch with my brothers
Me: I took a Tigrinya class once
Latria and Manjula: <insert the most heartfelt, lyrical meditation on life and mortality and artistry and insisting on making meaning of it all despite the world>

Maggie: I want a do-over too!!! OK I'm trying to keep this short and doubling down a bit on my above answers:

— Work-wise: I genuinely do feel like myself when I'm working most of the time. I love my work and there's a reason I am a freelance writer in a dying industry instead of making more and stable money in a desk job I don't care about. Most of all though, I love getting lost in an archive. Diving into a rabbit hole of documents is my happy place. Research is sooo satisfying to me.

— Relatedly: reading beautiful work. Sitting on a comfy couch with a hot beverage and a book is like peak living to me, and never feels like work even when it is.

— As a parent, I LOVE reading to my kids. It's the best part of my day, and watching them fall in love with books gives me glimmers of hope for the future.

— Making time for myself to be a friend, partner, writer, sibling, individual human being, etc. whether that's going for a run or a swim with someone, or just hanging out and watching sports (or yapping about sports on my new radio show), or the weekly standing lunch with my brothers. I never take any of that for granted. As a mom in our society, just having time of your own is not a given at all, and I truly feel sometimes that I am grabbing this time from the jaws of capitalism, but I know without it, I wouldn't feel like me, and I honestly don't think I would survive.

Manjula: Maggie, the mental image of you reading to your little dudelets is so heartwarming.

Rahawa: I think I am most me in the sun. Ideally, by the water. If I am alive by the ocean, then I am most alive. At the moment, I am juggling too much to prioritize myself, but I recognize how unsustainable this is and I’m working on it. My cat and my partner, both of whom I adore, would also like me to right this imbalance, but the hope is for all that juggling to pay off someday. 

I am deeply invested in finding a way to be free enough from our industry's disposability to fight what's coming, and that does not happen alone. It's why Scratch is the second leftist worker-owned co-op I've helped launch in the last six months (COYOTE Media being the first). 

The second answer to the question of when I am most me is when I am listening to music, or more generally to the world. I am desperate to buy a field recorder and dig out my old pair of binaural mics and just... walk around. I think the obvious next step is for me to go over to Manjula's so we can listen to records. We can be our most me-s together.

Manjula: Come on over!

Maggie: ⁨Guys, sorry, I just need to put these here because they’re too spot on for us 😂⁩

Rahawa [AQUARIUS]: Oh my fucking god

Maggie [PISCES]: I KNOWWWW

⁨Rahawa⁩: I need to lie down. Might need a few days to recover.

Maggie: And Latria [LEO] and berries and Manjula [VIRGO] and flowers!!! And me and spreadsheets 💀

⁨Manjula: Is this some creepy AI shit bc it’s TOO REAL

⁨Rahawa⁩: I am changing all of our passwords AT ONCE

This post was edited by Manjula Martin.

Scratch is a worker-owned, four-person collective, publishing essays, interviews, and topical inquiries into the publishing and media industries today. If you want to support us, a paid subscription is the best way to do so.