What’s The Commonplace?

For centuries, people have kept commonplace books as a way of collecting the things that mattered most to them—usually wise words from thinkers, artists, writers, and ordinary people they admired.

A Common Place is also a shared space to have meaningful conversations, a quotidian but sacred act to share with others this side of heaven.

Additionally, as dwellers on this shared dirt, a Common Place should be one of our highest values: prioritizing the care of our shared real-world communities for the betterment of us all. We become more human when this is why we do what we do.

All these are commonplace—ordinary yet sacramental—and these three meanings also describe this newsletter.

Hi! I’m Tsh Oxenreider.

I write books and other sundry, and my next book comes out spring 2027 with Image Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House (though I’m still slowly eking out my first novel). I also podcast, lead pilgrimages, and teach humanities to high schoolers, though my favorite titles are wife and mom. I’m a nomadic homebody besotted with wanderlust and a nerdy Catholic-convert bookworm (after a lifetime of being Protestant) with more questions than answers. If you relate to any of this, you’re my people.

Part intrepid pilgrim and scrutinizer of cultural oddities, part whimsical homebody and charming troglodyte, my name really and truly is spelled correctly. You pronounce it as though there’s an i, like Tish, unless you’re a coffee shop barista, in which you pronounce it Lucy because you give them a fake name to avoid the hassle.

I love exploring the world, but like you, I don’t get to as often as I’d prefer. While the backpacks wait in our closet until our next adventure, stories keep me occupied—from books and those from the people in front of me.

…And you are?

The Commonplace is for folks who like to explore the world’s nooks and crannies (and the people who live in them), sometimes by being there first-hand, but more often than not in a favorite chair, absorbed in a great story, with a drink in hand.

You probably side-eye a lot of our modern culture and secretly wonder if you’re from a different era, stuck in a tesseract. You also probably ask honest questions about belonging, exploring, home, faith, education, placemaking, and the sacramental nature of things.

You prefer quiet chats over the vitriol of social media, long-form essays over click-baity sound bytes, and good books over tropey industry films. You don’t know who’s nominated for this year’s Emmys (do they still do those?) and you definitely don’t care. This means you often feel out of it, pop culture-wise, but it’s the price you’re willing to pay for living a life according to who you are.

You sometimes feel spiritually homeless, but you’re also glad there are thousands of sage men and women who’ve shared your sentiments in the centuries before you. To you, taking heed to the Democracy of the Dead makes more sense than blindly following a modern flash-in-the-pan Thought Leader™ with a color-coordinated Instagram account. You might be Carrie, but even if you’re not, you’re welcome here.

If this sounds like you, even a little bit, you’ll probably like my weekly letter called 5 Quick Things, as well as my occasional essays and podcast episodes:

Commonplace Sections

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Consider becoming a paying subscriber.

If you enjoy what I create—books, essays, podcast episodes, and beyond—your involvement goes a long way in making those things happen. It’s only a few dollars per month, and even less annually. …Last I checked, mine is one of the lowest-cost Substack newsletters out there, very much on purpose (it’s as low as Substack will allow me)—we’re all asked to subscribe to a bajillion things, and the cost of everything can feel demoralizing.

Why? Well, mostly because it’s good to pay writers and artists for their work. We’re so used to consuming stuff for free that we forget that it’s real human beings who labor hard to create the quality work we love. It’s good to pay for good things because it helps those good things continue.

We pay for streaming subscriptions, movie tickets, meals at restaurants, and more—why wouldn’t we also pay for the independent writers, artists, and makers? It’s a tangible way we can vote with our dollars for more goodness in the world. Let’s counteract the dumpster-fire drama and vitriolic rage-baiting with what’s beautiful, good, and true.

When you subscribe to The Commonplace, you’ll receive weekly 5 Quick Things and monthly essays, but also additional essays from me you won’t find elsewhere, regular chats, and other delightful sundry.

Whatever first brought you here… thank you. It’s an honor to write, and it wouldn’t happen without readers! I’m grateful you’re here.