Happy 1st birthday Overthinker

Featuring not one, but two special announcements!

One year ago, I launched Overthinker and published my first story. I had two main motivations: I wanted to write more and I wanted to create my own space to do it. 

While I felt grateful for the traditional publishing opportunities I have had writing for other publications, I wanted to write more. There were always stories I could never find homes for. I couldn’t find a regular gig reviewing young adult books.

So after much consideration and self-doubt, Overthinker was born. 

Thank you

Overthinker has become so much more than I could have dreamed! I’ve written and published so many more stories than I would’ve without it. 

Being able to reclaim my work in this new way has given me a renewed sense of purpose in my writing. Overthinker has taught me that writing doesn’t always have to be stressful, it can be silly and fun.

So thank you for reading! I am so grateful that you’re here. Sometimes writing feels like shouting into an empty void but this hasn’t felt like that at all and that’s all because of you. Whether you read one story, or all of them, or if this is your very first one, thank you so much for being here. 

50 stories

Over the past year, I’ve written and published 50 stories for Overthinker. That’s a massive milestone and averages out to almost one story for every week of the past year. 

These were my top five most read stories of the year:

1. Let’s talk about money

2. Every YA novel by an Asian Australian writer coming out in 2023

3. Giving up on giving up

4. Interview: John Whinfield

5. Review: Sense and Sensibility (Canberra REP Theatre)

It doesn’t surprise me at all that Let’s talk about money was my most read story of the year. I thought that the vulnerability of talking about how much money I make from writing accompanied by cold hard stats would entice readers. I’m glad it was widely read as it’s a story I really believe in. 

I was surprised that so many other people cared about Every YA novel by an Asian Australian writer coming out in 2023. One of the reasons I started Overthinker was to write about my exact niche interests that maybe no one else cared about – and I was really pleasantly surprised to learn that people did care about this one!

These two stories were also my most widely shared posts beyond this website. 

Coming in third, also a bit of a surprise, is Giving up on giving up in which I talk about how often I think about quitting writing. Similar to Let’s talk about money, I think vulnerability attracts readers. Maybe it was relatable to the other writers out there, too. It’s certainly one of my favourite pieces that I’ve written, and I’ve actually gone back and reread it in those moments where I feel like quitting. 

Special announcements

Enough with being sappy, it’s time to get to the best part of a birthday: the presents!

I’ll start with the small: Overthinker is now on Instagram! You can follow Overthinker @overthinkerpress. 

While the best way to support and keep up with Overthinker is to sign up to receive new stories as emails, I wanted to make an alternative for people who don’t need more stuff flooding their inbox. It’s totally valid if you’re not an email person, I hope you’ll join me over on Instagram. And even if you are, I hope you’ll pop over to check out the cool graphics I’ve designed for it. 

And now for the big announcement (drum roll, please): Overthinker is launching a new section called Fiction! It’s exactly what it sounds like: creative writing in short story and serial format. 

While Overthinker will always be primarily nonfiction-based, it feels like the right time to stop letting the short stories locked away on my computer gather dust and start sharing them. 

So without further ado, my very first story, a contemporary young adult romance called Salt, will be launching this coming Monday. 

Thanks again for an amazing first year and I hope you’re as excited about the next one as I am!