B.A. Lampman on Substack

Vulnerability in writing is a precision tool.“ If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known,” Tim Kreider wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that has since become a wildly popular Tumblr meme.

“If I told someone to be more vulnerable in an essay or book, what I would mean is that not everything the reader needs is making it onto the page,” I wrote to her. “You want people to understand and relate to your story, not just intellectually but viscerally—but there are certain tools and information you have to give them to do that.

Through my work, I present all my dreams, my fears, my ego, my insecurity, and it takes a level of being OK with being “seen” like that to really create work that speaks to the human condition. I laugh thinking back on an example I can give — I have a dress from one of my first collections that has my nightmares printed on it from when I was a chil... See more