Welcome to Movable Worlds

Letters from Kuala Lumpur, Berlin, places in between: seeking and telling stories to make sense of a changing world and our place in it.

Jul 16, 2022

“This looks so wonderful! (In fact, breaking my vow not to sign up for new newsletters for this one!) Everything Emily writes is stellar.” —Abby Seiff

Hi! I’m Emily Ding, a writer-photographer based in Kuala Lumpur and Berlin.

My stories—which circle the themes of place, culture, and justice—have been published in both news and literary media.

As a former columnist for Virginia Quarterly Review, I contributed a series of narrative nonfiction as braided Instagram posts. I have also written personal, travel, and critical essays for The Mekong Review.

My news features have been published in Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, Public Radio International, South China Morning Post, Foreign Policy, Slate, Roads & Kingdoms, Wired UK, Esquire Singapore/Malaysia, etc.

Presently, I am turning my attention more to personal projects: sharpening what I can already do, experimenting with forms new to me. I’m trying to focus more on process over results—scary, but it feels necessary.

What you’ll read here

This is a newsletter about seeking and telling stories to make sense of a changing world and our place in it. I tend to write about:

Things happening in the world I care about and the parts of my life that intersect with it.
The places I’ve been—real places, literary places, imaginary places, places that exist only in the past.
Found affinities in books, movies, and art.

Because I’m currently trying to focus on deeper work elsewhere, this newsletter may lean increasingly into its more diaristic iterations—spontaneous, incomplete, irregular, less hung up on polish. I want to think less about what fits its parameters and “the audience” I’m writing to.

Occasionally, I like to talk to other people about their relationships to places and how their passions propel them through the world—a curiosity that is also informed by my own relationships to places.

I hope for this newsletter to be a tool of continuous discovery, each letter building on the one before. In times of rapid change, when old certainties are giving way, nothing can be the last word on anything.

Why “Movable Worlds”?

It’s born of a curiosity about all the different worlds that also exist inside the ones we know. As Suzanne Joinson wrote, “Stories of human nature are linked with pathologies of places.”

I also hope for it to convey the idea of a world in flux and how we meet it with the worlds we carry inside ourselves.

It alludes to my lifelong love for stories: both the real and fictional worlds that illuminate, and sometimes unsettle, our own.

So, subscribe?

By doing so, you’ll be receiving new letters in your inbox.

You’ll be supporting my writing and curiosity, sending me a little encouragement—what with the media meltdown and all the things that demand our attention these days—that you want my work to exist in the world, which means a lot.

I try to write at least once a month, but intervals between letters could also be longer. Life, and other work, happens.

When a letter does makes its way to you, I hope it lands as a mixed parcel of delights, drawing on the delicate interconnectedness of all things, heightening the texture of ordinary days ✨

What about paid subscriptions?

You can make a paid subscription if:

you appreciate my work and would generally like to support it, and
you want to read paywalled letters (usually because they are more personal or I think I may want to build on them in my work) in the archive.

A paid subscription costs USD$5 a month, or $30 a year.

If you would prefer, you can make a one-off gesture via Paypal instead. (I’ll be in touch to set you up manually with a paid subscription for a limited time.)

Contribute with Paypal

As of October 2024, any money received will go towards my book-hoarding fund. In Kuala Lumpur, I usually buy from Lit Books and Kinokuniya; in Berlin, Buchbox!, Uslar & Rai, Love Story of Berlin, Minoa, Shakespeare & Sons—and occasionally Amazon for books I don’t find in shops.

Once subscribed, you can change or cancel your subscription plan at anytime.

Recurring characters in my letters

For years, when I travelled, I often did so on my own. These days, I usually go around with W.C., a concept artist for video games, so he gets an occasional mention. W.C., “Willing Companion”, is a nod to Martha Gellhorn’s U.C., “Unwilling Companion” (a.k.a Hemingway), in Travels with Myself and Another 😁

Two family dogs in Kuala Lumpur sometimes make an appearance, too. Let’s call the little one “Miss Marple” because she always has her nose to the ground, sniffing; and the big one “Ducky”, because she had disproportionately large, almost webbed-looking feet, as a puppy. (And yes, it’s ridiculous, but I am reluctant to name them publicly, even if it wouldn’t implicate any passwords! 😆)

Despite their size difference, they get along really well!

How else can I show my support?

Follow me on Instagram.

Ask a friend to subscribe to Movable Worlds.

Write a recommendation, which I may share publicly.

If you’re an editor, commission me to write or report.

Some housekeeping notes

You can ignore this section if you want to just stick to receiving my letters in your inbox. That’s the main thing!

If, however, you’d like to get more use out of Substack, on its website or app, here are some tips:

You have to be signed into Substack to like or comment on a letter, unless you’re doing it directly from inside your email client.
If you don’t remember ever signing up properly for a Substack account but have previously subscribed to a Substack newsletter, then you already have an account. On the login page, just enter your email address and a log-in link will be sent to you. If you know your password, click “Sign in with password”.

You can adjust your profile settings to determine how you receive newsletter notifications for Movable Worlds (and other Substack newsletters you subscribe to). As I would prefer to meet you directly in your inbox always, I recommend opting for “In email and app” or “Only in email” 🙏

How this newsletter has evolved

It first began in 2019 as an ad-hoc reporting diary, in which I shared unpublished fragments of human stories I found while on assignment, as well as haphazard lists of reading and culture recommendations.

But amid the pandemic, I felt I wanted to be more intentional with the newsletter. I refined its mission statement and consolidated the archives, in separate categories, to better reflect the tweak in focus.

In November 2021, I changed the overarching name of the newsletter to Movable Worlds, to better encompass everything I might conceivably want to do with it, and gave the original name, “The Great Affair”, over to the guest section.

For a time, I put real effort into curation with the Landmarkings series. At the end of 2022, I discontinued it. I hesitated on calling it a day on it, since I had a feeling many subscribers had signed up for its eclectic, capacious pickings with which I hoped to offer a unique view on the world. But it was taking too much time, distracting me from the work I most want to do.

In 2024, I phased out guest letters. Q&As will still pop up from time to time.

Those who have stayed and continue to read despite any changes from the outset, thank you! It’ll probably continue to change shape…