The Long Scrawl

What is The Long Scrawl?

The Long Scrawl is an ever-growing collection of true stories about the long haul of life: the mess and the triumphs, the stress and the dreams, the unexpected heartache, and the joy that waits beneath.

This project was created as a mini memoir to help the reader connect and the writer remember. The personal essays explore themes of transformation, relocation, immigration, deconstruction, and other things that don’t end in “ion.”

The author, LaDonna Witmer, is a writer/dreamer/mother/ex-religious person/American emigrant/resident of Portugal who is figuring out life in a new country, navigating a new culture, and learning a new language (while also trying to write a book and keep a career alive and hold down the home fort and list all the household snacks for the preteen so she can say they’re gross and not trip over two velcro hounds and just stop for a minute to appreciate this exact moment right here before it all whirls away.)

Joining her on this adventure are:
Marido (“husband” in Portuguese), her partner of 20+ years
Filha (“daughter” in Portuguese), her dragon-loving preteen
Vila, an elderly, very emo Boxer/Boston Terrier
Zambú, a gentle Spanish Galgo giant
FeeBea, a small, irreverent parrot

If any of that ticks any of your boxes, you’re welcome to hit the red button to subscribe and a new essay will drop into your inbox every couple of weeks. Come for the words and stay for the photos, if you like. Each post contains (lots of) original photographs from Portugal and beyond.

«These dispatches were originally collected under the title “Word Salad Newsletter” because of the buffet of topics contained therein. Also because at the time, the author was prepping for a cross-Atlantic move and felt somewhat unintelligible in her overwhelm. With only two subscribers, the blog name stakes seemed fairly low. Times have changed; so has the name.»

No subscription fees, but feel free to Tipeee:

The thing that sucks about paid subscriptions is that they leave a whole subset of people out in the cold, on the other side of a paywall, or unable to leave a comment or read the entirety of a post.

And yet. Writing for The Long Scrawl requires a sizable number of hours — a labor of love, yes, but labor nonetheless.

And so, a compromise: tipping. If you enjoy the writing in The Long Scrawl and you’d like to support it in some small way, you can leave a tip here on LaDonna’s Tipeee page.

More photos, plz?

People things @wordsbyladonna
Dog pix @veelahvee_zambu

What is substack?

Substack is the Grubhub/DoorDash of word delivery. Instead of trotting your tired fingers over to some faraway url to get a heaping helping of blog, you get a fresh hot post delivered directly to your inbox the very second it’s published. Sometimes technology is nifty.