Dispatch from Rhûn is now Confluence

Following readers’ feedback, the structure of Dispatch from Rhûn is changing. And so is its name. Dispatch from Rhûn is now Confluence, and offers more, more often and better. Below is all the added value coming your way.

Dispatch from Rhûn offered, once every month, reading, listening and viewing recommendations. A lot of my readers—especially those who have been with me since my first newsletter—expressed that they missed the old format, preferring it over the new broken down one.

Once a week, starting this week, Confluence will contextualise a set of ideas or events—curated across international affairs, culture, technology, finance, literature and more—simplified no more than absolutely necessary, in an attempt to understand how they impact our lives.

These events may not be headliners and these ideas may not have basked in the limelight, but they have the potential to impact our lives sooner or later.

Confluence is the spiritual successor to Dispatch from Rhûn. A lot of you wanted a mixture of the old format (from 2019 and earlier) along with the somewhat informal tone of Dispatch. Several of you also indicated that you would consider paying for more frequent issues as well.

To offer the best of both worlds, I decided to make Confluence a paid newsletter with weekly issues instead of monthly issues among which one will be available to all free subscribers every month and three others will be sent out over the same period but exclusively to my paying subscribers. If you had subscribed to Dispatch from Rhûn before 17 December 2022, you have automatically been made a lifetime paid subscriber and need not pay for exclusive issues—sharing all the benefits of paid subscribers.

To everyone who wishes to keep up only once a month and for free, like Dispatch, Confluence will continue to offer a monthly free issue. However, unlike before, free subscribers will no longer be able to access an archival of older issues. Paying subscribers will continue to have access to the archives.

Additionally, paying subscribers will be able to comment on issues—which was not possible before—as well as engage in conversations with other paying subscribers and me through Substack Chat.

In short, Dispatch from Rhûn is now Confluence and carries even better written content in a more popular format. That is all that changes for free subscribers. A new tier of paying subscribers will get several added benefits and four times as much every single month.

If you have any questions regarding the changes outlined above or the migration from Dispatch to Confluence, please feel free to e-mail me about it or leave a comment.

Here’s looking forward to a renewed relationship between you, me and this newsletter.