Hi, I’m Elle Griffin

Every Monday, I write essays thinking through a better capitalism, democracy, technology, and humanity. Fridays alternate between utopian fiction that imagines a more beautiful future and discussion threads with utopian thinkers.

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

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

Now all of our writers are doomers. It’s not about thinking up the 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 essays and literature and discourse.

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

About Me

My newsletter has been featured by BBC, Business Insider, Fast Company, Publisher’s Weekly, Means of Creation, and Morning Brew; and in 2022, I was awarded one of 10 places in Substack’s coveted fellowship program.

I am also a freelance journalist with bylines at Esquire, Forbes, Every, and The Muse—a portfolio of my work can be found here.

I hold degrees in Fashion Merchandising and French and completed my graduate studies in Mariology. For my final project, I recreated eight iconic images of the Virgin Mary using modern photography. They can be purchased from my Etsy store.

I live with my husband in Salt Lake City, Utah where we enjoy wandering the west in our camper van and working from the remote corners of the world. I can be reached at elle@elysian.press.

Thanks for reading!