Welcome (back) to our Substack

Exciting things ahead for the Guild of Food Writers on Substack. Here’s what you can expect going forward

Hello and welcome to our little corner of Substack. We’re very pleased to be sharing this space with you.

The Guild of Food Writers is a UK-based association for professionals who create and publish content about food. Membership is open to anyone who is paid to create content about food, whose work is available to a UK audience. We have more than 600 members worldwide, spanning authors, broadcasters, columnists, content creators and journalists.

Why we’re on Substack

Since many of our members are busy on Substack, we also want to be more active here:

• Our primary goal is to promote the work of Guild members, by restacking posts, recommending publications, and generally showcasing the amazing work our members do here on Substack.

• Since we first joined Substack in 2024, Substack Notes has become a hive of activity. We plan to use Notes more often – not just to amplify members’ work, but also to have a little fun. Look out for our weekly questions about food and food writing. (Writers’ Bites? Tasty Teasers? Flavour Pop Quiz? Name suggestions welcome.)

• We will also be publishing a monthly post on various topics around food writing and the work our members do on Substack. (Guild members, note that this is different to the monthly newsletter that you already receive on the 1^st of each month. Instead, this is an opportunity to tell different or deeper stories.)

Help us to share your work

There are a few ways you can help us to spread the word:

• If you’re a Guild member, we want to share your work with our audience. Please drop a comment below with the name of your Substack so we can subscribe and recommend your publication, if we haven’t already. We’ll endeavour to restack a selection of members’ posts each week.

• We would also love it if you’d recommend the Guild’s Substack to your audience. The more we can grow our audience, the better we can amplify our members’ work here. You can add us to your list of recommended publications via the ‘Recommendations’ section in your author dashboard.

• We’re also open to other ideas on how we can support Guild members on Substack. Again, you can comment on this post, or drop us a DM using the Chat function.

Please keep in mind that the Guild is run by volunteers, and that includes this Substack. (It’s being managed by me, Claire Ruston. Hello!) Apologies if it takes a little while to respond to messages.

Finally, thank you to Kathy Slack who originally set up the Guild’s presence and ran this account until last year. Thanks for getting us started, Kathy.

And thank you, reader, for being here

We’re really looking forward to this new phase of our Substack journey and are thrilled to have you along for the ride.

Not a Guild member?

Joining the Guild of Food Writers has benefits that can last the length of your career as a food writer, broadcaster or creator. You can read about membership criteria and the application process on our website. If you have any questions about becoming a member, please contact our administrator on admin@gfw.co.uk.

Bye for now.