Introducing the "Not That Rob Thomas" newsletter

If I want to Substack around, well I will, well I will.

Hello! I’m doing the thing. The thing being starting my own Substack. Full disclosure, as the title suggests: I am not the Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20. I’m not even the Rob Thomas who created “Veronica Mars.”

(Not this Rob Thomas.)

I’m a writer and features editor with the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. As my writing over there has become increasingly and understandably Madison-focused, I wanted to create a separate space over here for myself. In addition to sharing that Madison-centric work, I wanted a place to write non-localized work that didn’t really fit into that local newspaper space — movie reviews, TV reviews, maybe book and music reviews, essays, random musings, recommendations, and perhaps some updates on a Big Project that I’ve been working on for the past few years.

I think it’ll be fun! I ran a personal blog called Madison Movie for a few years in the ‘10s and had a great time with it. Since that Madison Movie name doesn’t really fit with what I have in mind for this newsletter, I’ve chosen the name Not That Rob Thomas. So if you thought if this was a newsletter written by any other Rob Thomas, that’s on you at this point.

(Not this Rob Thomas either.)

At this point, I’m planning to keep this newsletter free while I figure out if and how I can sustain it long-term. I have a couple of ideas for potential premium content down the road, but I think it’s way too early to be making promises. I want to focus right now on having fun with this, connecting with people, and figuring out how to make it all work.

I must admit to having a little trepidation on putting myself out there in such a direct and personal way. But then I remembered that I did this recently, and somehow writing in the first person didn’t seem so scary:

More on THAT in a future post.

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