People are wired to love stories — and the Sirens of Substack are here to seduce you with their womanly wisdom. Some stories may be salty, some may be sweet, some may leave a bitter aftertaste. All are guaranteed to dazzle you in four minutes or less.
Our monthly show will take place on Zoom and feature 10 stories from 10 storytellers who just happen to be anyone who identifies as a woman or non-binary and writes on Substack. Our cherished audience members will play an indispensable role in each show, because they’ll be voting for their favorite performer! Unlike those soul-sucking retail surveys, your opinion does matter and will determine the winner.
Heads up: You gotta be an annual paid subscriber to be an audience member OR you can purchase a ticket for any slam you want to attend. Remember, our storytellers are women, trans and cis, and non-binary folx. Our audience can be anyone, if you’re well-behaved and respectful. Zoom bombers, beware. Nan’s love for the “remove” button in Zoom is legendary, and she won’t hesitate to use it, so be good!
Please keep this in mind. There’s a SIRcharge for the men of our species. They’ll pay a little more, because, yes, wage gap repHERations. Deal with it, boys.
Instead of a cheesy medal or bragging rights, the winner gets one hundred American cash dollars, while they still hold some value. We don’t do bitcoin here. That’s $25 a minute, people, an hourly wage of $1,500! Which is exactly $100 more than most writers ever see.
And yes, you earned bragging rights as well.
Come on, kids, let’s put on a show!
We’ll prove to the soulless AI bots that nothing can replace the sound of a human voice asking to be heard.
Check out our LIVE announcement, if you missed on Friday, November 14, 2025.
Meet the Sirens!
Your delightful and dangerous emcees Eileen Dougharty and Nan Tepper. Our beloved muse and matron saint of feminism, Slamone de Beauvoir. She’s a little unreliable, but even when she’s MIA, her spirit fills our hearts and minds. And there’s our video maven, Jeanne Vitale.
Our crew is strapped in and ready to take off.
When Eileen Dougharty isn’t flying around the country passing out drinks, snacks, and snark, she is furiously scribbling her musings at You’re Right, I Do Look Tired, here on Substack. She began writing sketch comedy when she moved to Chicago in 2009, but quickly found her real life adventures were far more entertaining. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2018, Eileen chronicles her unconventional life, most recently featuring tales of how she spent her Hot Brain Surgery Summer.
Nan is memoirist-in-chief at The Next Write Thing and styles stacks for other writers who need her help at Style Your Stack. She’s made friends with some super-SHERO writers who’ve become great friends.
She really likes Chris Stanton. He’s her token man friend, but he’ll still have to pay the SIRcharge to get in.
Nan’s a cheerleader for other writers and believes that there’s more than enough readers for everyone. And even though WBTYS IS a competition, she doesn’t believe that we have to be competitive to win at writing or life. We just have to show up as our best selves, keep sharing our truth, and making each other laugh. We WILL get through this nightmare, together. At least, that’s what Nan keeps telling herself. Some days, she even believes it.
Too poor to marry, Slamone chain-smoked philosophy and took lovers instead. No time for kids while birthing feminism with a pen and a glare. Could out-drink and out-think her existential fuck buddies, including Sartre and Nelson Algren.
Nickname: Beaver
Jeanne is a film editor extraordinaire. She’ll be in the background most of the time (we think), but she’s always welcome to come out and play, once all the editing is finished. And if she gets the urge to tell a story, we know a lot of people who are eager to hear what she has to say. She’s scary smart and very, very funny.
Why subscribe? Why wouldn’t you?
Hmmm… Because it’ll be Fun? Fabulous? Ferocious? Fiery? Fanciful?
Fucking Fantastic? FEMINIST????? Hell, yeah. Let’s Frolic together!
