Cruciferous started as a plant-based food and recipe newsletter by me, Joy Manning, food writer, cookbook author, and recipe developer.
But in the middle of 2025, I had a midlife crisis of sorts, a breakdown/breakthrough that made me rethink what I was writing and why.
I came to realize that I had, for decades, given my imagination the job of scaring me instead of doing all the creative things I’d prefer my imagination to do—like writing fiction.
If you want to dig into some newsletters about what happened, check out:
I may write about some food stuff in 2026, but my intention is to use this newsletter this year to document my experiments in rehabbing my imagination as well as my creative writing journey.
That may include newsletters about:
Improv comedy (I’m enrolled in an 8-week class)
The books I’m reading
My personal “100 rejections” project
Meditation
The intersection of creativity and tarot
The subconscious and intuition
My goal is to send you something every week of 2026.
