Monthly By Email; Always in the App.
Sharing my writings, offering reader club exclusives, and exploring what it means to apply the creative process to everything.
Hello dear readers,
I’m Orna Ross, Irish indie author, creativist, and founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors. And this is my newsletter: Embers & Ink🔥📚.
Here I:
share my recent writings, hot off the presses.
offer reader club exclusives
explore what it means to apply the creative process to everything: the philosophy of life that I call creativism.
I write every day, and post a few times a week—but rather than clog up your in-box, my work lives in the app and I email just once a month, with a roundup and reminder post.
Pick and Mix
I’m a multi-genre, multi-format author. I write epic, cross-generational historical novels in short episodic stories; book length poems and pared back haiku; long reflections and short notes.
You’re unlikely to want everything and so I’ve made it easy to pick and mix. Choose to follow my novel-in-the-making or explore a recent reflection; to lighten your day with a poem; to tune into an episode of the Go Creative! podcast; to read one of my exclusives for authors; to join me in live salon once a month.
Just pick the parts that interest you.
Similarly, you can publicly in comments or have a private chat down the back of the room. Be vocal or lurk. Your call.
Dip in where you’re drawn. Skip lightly over the rest.
Got Questions?
Below I answer questions I’ve been asked about Embers & Ink. Your further questions or thoughts are invited—just drop a note in the comments or send me a DM any time and I’ll answer here.
Thank you again for your time and attention. You keep me writing and publishing and having you here is SO empowering for me, as a writer and publisher.
I’d love to hear how you are making your mark on the world and I hope you find something in Embers & Ink that fuels your fire.
All my thanks to you and happy reading!
FAQ: Embers & Ink: Orna Ross’s Newsletter
I’ve read your books, why should I subscribe to your Substack?
Substack is where you get the living books, in the making.
Here you can:
Read my next novel first and be part of the story: I’m serialising my next novel here. Follow the unfolding story in real time, with the pleasure of short instalments and slow reading. I’m inviting feedback—and your comments are proving very useful to me in shaping up the work.
Go Creative! I’m a creativist–-someone who applies the creative process to every aspect of life. (I actually coined the term). Here I invite you to join me in that most adventurous and expansive way to live. Follow the podcast and come to our creative salons.
Escape into an inspirational poem: Think Maya Angelou, Rumi, Mary Oliver, David Whyte: poems to nurture the soul and evoke the creative spirit. In ‘One of Mine & One of Yours,’ I record a poems weekly here on Substack, along with the work of another poet that I love.
Join in the chat (paid subscribers).
What should I Expect from ‘Embers & Ink’?
Expect a mix of everything, knowing that you can switch off anything you don’t want.
Notes, news, and creative chat
Stories, extracts, and poems
Letters from my creative life
Live monthly salon.
Original artwork illustrations, either open-source from digital art galleries around the world, or the work of my daughter, the conceptual artist Ornagh.
What Do I Get as a Free Subscriber?
If you want to follow along, receive my book news, and the open content on the Go Creative! Podcast, the free subscription is for you.
What’s Extra for Paid Subscribers?
If you want to step inside the work, join my book club, see my creative experiments up close, and enjoy exclusive writings, special discounts, and a monthly live salon, then paid is the place.
- My Books: Earlies & Exclusives
Paid subscriber specials include work hot off the presses, early book releases pre-publication, discounts on my bookstore, and more.
Why did you create your Reader Club?
I created this feature for paid subscribers for several reasons. I wanted to:
create a space for readers and followers to receive discounts, deals and first dibs on my new books.
gather regularly with like-minded authors and creativists to share what I’m learning as I build my books and make my life.
feel free to share my personal thoughts about, and experience of, conscious creation—things I don’t feel comfortable putting out on the Internet for the bots, but am happy to share with my trusted community.
What is a creative salon?
A creative salon is a regular gathering, online or in-person, where people come together around art, ideas, and the creative life. It’s not a talk, a class, or a workshop; it’s a hosted conversation and experience.
Historically, salons were living-room gatherings—often hosted by a woman—where writers, artists, and political thinkers met to exchange ideas. This version keeps that spirit.
What makes this Substack Live a salon rather than a talk, or a webinar, or an online chat is the intention:
Deep rather than performative: Not so much ‘look at me/my work’ as sharing the experience of conscious creation. More listening and real exchange.
Curated but open: Lightly guided, then opened out.
Cross-pollinating: a group of readers and writers, each with different perspectives, all feeding the same fire of creative curiosity.
Experimental: a space to test ideas, share works-in-progress and process notes, and leave with renewed creative energy.
Our creative salons here on Substack Live are shaped around finding and fostering flow as we apply the creative process to our work… and all of life.
How do I follow your serialised novel?
Subscribe to Embers & Ink and go to your account settings. Toggle ‘My Next Novel Now’ to say whether you want to receive the stories by email or in the app.
Once a month I email a roundup post which includes the latest episodes.
You can catch up any time on the Index page.
Do I have to be a paid subscriber to join your Chat?
Yes. As well as talking about books, I want our chat room to be a safe haven for us to discuss creative challenges and what’s coming up for us. This can sometimes be a tender thing.
Our group is kind and honest. We all understand that creativity is not just ‘output’ but how we metabolise life, make meaning, keep ourselves from numbing out, and live with more imagination and courage.
This space for heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul talk is not an open forum.
Of course anyone can comment on individual notes and posts. I am on Substack regularly to read and answer re-stacks and comments.
Where Can I Buy Your Books?
Thanks for asking! At OrnaRoss.com
Love how you're fashioning a transparent intersection between creativity, curiosity and care.
Lovely to (virtually) meet you; look forward to reading more!