Hi, I’m Elle Griffin

his is all because I’m nostalgic for the Enlightenment, when our writers were thinkers.

Literary salons popped up all over the place. So did leagues and social clubs. People wanted to think, and to think up solutions! They came up with ideas like democracy and capitalism and socialism and humanism. They were philosophers, literary thinkers, and spread these ideas far and wide with pamphlets delivered to every door.

Now all of our writers are doomers. Journalism is not about thinking up solutions, it’s about reporting on the problems. Even our fiction is dystopian. Our science fiction writers can only imagine a future plagued by AI apocalypse, government surveillance, computer chips in our brains, and space colonies that take us away from the polluted world we created.

If even our best literary minds cannot imagine a better future, how are we supposed to create it?

That’s why I’ve created The Elysian—a utopian garden where we can study philosophy and debate politics and rethink capitalism and enjoy contemplative leisure and be part of a new enlightenment. It’s a place where we can think through a more beautiful future through collaborative essay collections and print pamphlets.

And I’m just optimistic enough to believe that’s enough of a start to creating one.

That’s why I’m thinking through the most important ideas of our time through long-form essay series and print pamphlets. Paid subscribers get everything published online, Collector subscribers get everything we publish as collectible print pamphlets.