Welcome to The Elysian

We need thinkers more than journalists

This 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 essays and literature and discourse.

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

We create media projects imagining a better future

We are thinking through the most important ideas of our time through collaborative media projects. Here are a few of our upcoming projects:

• WE SHOULD OWN THE ECONOMY // A multi-year project studying capital and how we can create more owners of it. Readers can invest in the book and earn a share of the profits when it sells.

• CITY STATE // An online series and print pamphlet about autonomous government.

• TERRAFORM // An online series and print pamphlet about the future of our planet.

• THE NEW REPUBLIC // Modern thinkers recreate Plato’s republic, imagining the ideal city-state for a podcast and print book

• THE DAILY HUMANIST // A one-year newsletter & philosophy book prompting modern readers to make the world a better place through human effort

Join the Elysian League—our community of thinkers

Free subscribers can read all of our media projects, but paid supporters join the Elysian League—our inner circle of writers and thinkers. Think of it like an old social club and literary salon with:

• Literary salons and guest lectures

• Research notes

• Office hours + online discussions

You can also support our work as a Founding Member to receive the annual print edition, and monthly investor newsletter.

I’m Elle Griffin

Hi, I’m Elle. I am the founder and editor for The Elysian. In 2023, I was named a Roots of Progress fellow and in 2022, I was awarded one of 10 places in Substack’s coveted fellowship program. After I serialized my first novel in my newsletter, I gave a TEDx talk about my experience and the return of serial publishing.

My newsletter has been featured by The New York Times, BBC, Business Insider, Fast Company, The Information, Publisher’s Weekly, Means of Creation, and Morning Brew. 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 want to see our media ecosystem transformed from doomer sensationalism, partisan journalism, and dystopian thought, to solutions-oriented journalism, speculative brainstorming, and generative thought about how we can create something better. I’d love to see that media ecosystem owned and operated by independent writers and podcasters and filmmakers rather than media moguls with an agenda, an algorithm, and an ad-captured sensationalist bent.

I’m even optimistic enough to believe that by changing our media ecosystem, we could change our outlook on the world. And be inspired to create a better one.

I hope you’ll join us.