Thank you Karen Michaels 🦋, Neil Cunningham 🫧, and many others for tuning into my live video with Kristi Keller 🇨🇦! Join me for my next live video in the app.
summary written by claude.ai
Substack Live: Teri Leigh & Kristi Keller — Fierce Love, Rebranding, and the Women of Minnesota
Participants: Teri Leigh (Fierce Love, Minnesota) and Kristi Keller (Unstack Substack / Homebody-ish Magazine)
Teri’s Substack Publications
Fierce Love, Minnesota — her main publication, focused on love, activism, and storytelling from the ground in Minnesota
Creator Retreat — a cohort program helping people build their Substacks “the slow, gentle, sensitive soul way”
Abundant Money Mindset — a cohort co-run with Axel Meyerhofer blending practical money management with mindset work
The Hobbit and the Owl — a fun weekly publication she writes with her husband, Neal (”the Hobbit”), about being in a relationship
Words or Spells — an alphabet-based publication exploring the energetic power of letters, winding down as she nears the end of the alphabet
Why Teri Rebranded (Mindful Sense Mentor → Fierce Love)
From December through mid-January, the ICE surge in Minnesota left Teri doom-scrolling, sheltering in place, and unable to write her usual mindfulness content — it all felt “frivolous” while people were being harmed on her streets. She couldn’t justify starting a sixth publication, and roughly 1,200 subscribers have followed her for 20+ years across every pivot — she couldn’t abandon them.
A Substack Note she posted about life on the ground in Minnesota went viral — 66,000+ likes, 6,000 new subscribers in three days — and the rebrand felt like something that “happened to her” rather than a deliberate decision. Having rebranded multiple times over 20 years of online business, the shift was natural and fast — done in just a few days, keeping her signature watercolor visual identity.
The WOMN Book Project
The title “WOMN” (Women of Minnesota) came to Teri in a middle-of-the-night download — “women” without the E, removing the “men,” with MN standing for Minnesota. The book collects stories of everyday Minnesota women — teachers, mothers, neighbors — who stepped up during the ICE crisis. One interviewee calls herself an “OWL” — an Old White Lady — a term Teri embraced since she’s always loved owls.
Stories from the Ground
The first-grade teacher: Head of the teachers’ union, she watched her classroom get reorganized overnight after a school closure — no goodbyes for her six-year-olds. Teaching online from her classroom, she’d hear children crying on a bench outside her door and realized she could identify each child by the sound of their cry. After school, she delivered groceries to families and sat with isolated parents who told her, “You’re the only adult that comes to my door.” Her insight: “I show up because they need me, but I stay because I need them.”
Dog walking and rescue: White women walking dogs for Black and Brown neighbors who couldn’t safely go outside, plus a whole dog rescue movement created for pets left behind by detained families
The Quarter Fairy: A woman with no connection to a local school called asking how to help. The school said they needed quarters for coin-operated laundry in apartment buildings, since sheltering-in-place families couldn’t go out to get them. She went bank to bank collecting quarters.
Confronting ICE: Women using their voices to confront ICE — and ICE literally walking away
Teri’s own encounter: She froze when she encountered ICE while walking her dog, but says next time she’d film, call rapid response, and take down license plates
Kristi’s Role and the Value of “Custodial” Work
Teri credited Kristi extensively as the behind-the-scenes force who made her Substack work — organizing the Good News Lists into posts, implementing back-end changes, spotting patterns in metrics and comments. She compared Kristi’s work to her husband’s job as “custodian of websites” for the State of Minnesota and to the teacher tucking diapers into a kid’s backpack — quiet, essential, unsung labor that makes everything else function. Kristi expressed feeling disconnected from her own Substack work, wanting something “more human than shouting into the void.”
Vulnerability, Fear, and Defiance
Kristi asked if Teri felt vulnerable being so publicly vocal — Teri said every woman she’s interviewed has said the same thing: “I don’t care. If they’re going to come for me, come for me.” White women who’ve been detained and arrested have had their charges dropped and say it was worth it to amplify what’s happening. Both women identify as introverts and “keyboard activists” — not the type to physically protest, but committed to telling stories and raising awareness through writing.
Broader Themes
The disorienting compression and expansion of time (”time is accordion”) — four months feeling like four years
The contrast between Substack’s supportive, love-centered community and the toxicity of Facebook (Teri cross-posted her viral note to Facebook and was immediately overwhelmed by trolls)
Declining international travel, airline safety concerns, and the ripple effects of the political climate on everyday life
The tension between technology/AI and humanity — Teri noted that dramatic inhumanity draws out even fiercer human love and connection
Loyal Substack supporters who restack everything were celebrated — the “quiet amplifiers” who spread the word
Closing
77 viewers at peak — Teri’s highest in a long time. Both expressed love for their friendship forged over two and a half years on Substack, with Teri saying, “Someday I will hug you in person when all this is over and we can actually cross the Canada border again.”
