A year and a half ago, Savannah was still waking up to a post-pandemic world.

We Rip Van Winkles stretched our legs and wiped our eyes to find a city quite different than the one we fell asleep in, full of new people and a wild real estate market and a slew of massive cranes constructing buildings taller than anything seen here before.

I launched this weekly missive to try and make sense of it all, and also to give my idle hands something to do, as they were kind of itching to slap the obnoxious recent transplants who didn’t seem to know how to act right in our storied Southern city.

My intention was to showcase the characters, elevate the causes, and preserve the stories that have made Savannah so wonderful and weird in the first place, picking up where I left off after publishing the book Savannah Sideways in 2018.

“Spilling the tea and spreading the jam” became my new battle cry for this Beloved Community, and I went forth with the idea of telling its tales, one by one. I’m so grateful to *all y’all* for the support and readership of the Savannah Sideways Substack, and I promise I’m not going anywhere.

But so much has changed in the last couple of years, including me. After years of spotty employment, I’ve got more freelance work than I can handle. My kids have grown and flown. The political landscape is a toxic wasteland. Some of my favorite Savannah people have moved away. A few of the best ones are gone forever.

A hundred or so weekly columns later, I’m not sure I’ve done anyone any justice, though I now remember how hard it is to keep up with y’all.

The awesome elders in my life advise that as the earth keeps spinning at full speed, it’s deeply important to slow down and savor the time we have left. As an unrepentant word wrangler in a TikTok world, I’ve also learned that some stories deserve a deeper dive.

I just need to take a few breaths.

So for the next little while, I’m pressing pause on the weekly grind in order to work on some longer pieces and projects. I’m also switching up from the free-for-all model, so please upgrade if you’d like to receive these next stories in your inbox.

You gorgeous paid subscribers will also still have access to the archives as I mine them for a new book, Savannah Sideways Volume 2, due out this spring. Obviously, you’ll get the first invitations to the launch party.

Until then, thank you for all that you are and everything you do to make this city, country, and planet sparkle.

Still here, just clickety-clacking more quietly ~ JLL

Savannah Sideways

'Tis the Season to Switch Up and Press Pause