The website
Ampersunder is a website about writing, reading, and trying to be a good human being. It covers topics like creativity, technology, happiness, curiosity, learning, and productivity. It eternally seeks a balance between producing, consuming, decluttering, being grateful, having fun, dwelling in the now, staying connected, pursuing solitude, not taking everything so seriously, and searching for the meaning of life.
The word
Ampersunder is a portmanteau or blend word of “ampersand” and “sunder”. The combination of these two words refers to a concept of how art is made and how the universe works: Putting things together and taking them apart. Breaking them down and building something new. Forming and erasing. Because everything is made of the same matter.
As Picasso said, “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”
The author
Laura Joldersma writes and runs Ampersunder from her home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
The inspiration
Many places on the web have inspired Ampersunder. Here are a few of them:
Brain Pickings, Literary Hub, Electric Lit, Book Riot, The Paris Review, Vela, Dani Shapiro, Extraordinary Routines, Writing Routines, Girls at Library, Arts and Letters Daily, Austin Kleon, Derek Sivers, Cal Newport, Wait But Why, Open Culture, The Rumpus, The Millions, Read It Forward, Letters of Note, Brevity, and many more.
Is there a website you think I should be reading, or a specific essay or book I need to know about? Let me know.