Over a decade ago, my mother, Tracy, welcomed you to a tiny corner of the internet that was slowly unfolding as Red Tent Living.
The website was always intended to be a place where women could come and connect in the middle of our messy and hard ordinary. Red Tent Living wasn’t about perfectly curated content. We wanted it to feel like you were pulling up a chair to the kitchen table to chat. At the time, we could not possibly anticipate all of the beauty that would be birthed from the stories women bravely shared with one another here. Very quickly, the space transformed from a sharing of recipes and tablescapes to what we all truly craved: an honest peek into our deeper lives.
Mom and I partook in the wonder as women from different backgrounds and life stages put words to their realities and then generously encouraged one another. Each of the thousands of articles written here are a treasure, as are the tender comments posted beneath that so often express “Me too!”
In the last 11 years, over a million people around the world have sought solidarity in the words penned by the women of Red Tent Living. Periodically, enclaves of us have gathered at conferences and retreats throughout the United States, able to lay eyes on women we have come to call sisters purely through the bonds that we have built with our words.
Stepping back and considering the women I have met through this space, I am filled with awe and gratitude. Who could have imagined such a community?
At the height of the pandemic, Red Tent Living took on a new form—not only drawing us together through the written word, but offering a digital gathering space where we could bring our faces to each other and connect over the divide of isolation we each felt so acutely. Zoom calls and online classes got so many of us through such a challenging time. And on the other side of that pandemic, perhaps none of us are quite the same.
We are all reframing and rebuilding after a shared global trauma that I am not sure we have found words for yet. But at Red Tent Living, we have felt the shift. Year by year since 2021, our women have sought connection in new ways and our website community has continued to shrink.
Mom and I—along with the rest of Red Tent Living’s leadership team (our extraordinary editor Susan Tucker, the warm and welcoming Beth Bruno, and the wise Vanessa Sadler)—have watched carefully and prayerfully considered what the community is telling us. This past June, we saw numbers that dropped below the number of views we had our very first June and we recognized—a season has passed, and it is time for our community to evolve.
This August will be the final month of regular publishing for Red Tent Living. Each of our regular contributors have been invited to publish one final time, and it is our hope that you drink in their words with delight, that you comment as you feel led, and that you share those articles generously.
Starting in September, the website will receive a bit of an update. Our hope is to keep you connected with the ongoing opportunities that Red Tent Living will continue to offer and to preserve the wonderful archive of articles that will always be available for you to revisit and share.
Moving forward, you will have the chance to continue to hear from the Red Tent Living women through weekly episodes of the Red Tent Living podcast.
You’ll also have the opportunity to receive care from some of our cherished authors through events, like Sacred Interruption retreats.
And most importantly, you will have the chance to extend the Red Tent Living community to your own table by signing up for a monthly kits to host Red Tent Dinners with friends.
As we look to the future, Mom and I both feel a pronounced sense of bittersweet. We recognize it is time for this space to function differently, and yet, we have held such delight and gratitude for what this community has shared together.
What an honor to know you, to read you, to share our stories with you, and to cultivate an online space together that is committed to drawing from the margins and meeting in the middle.
You each have made Red Tent Living what it is, and we feel privileged.
We close this letter not with a goodbye, because there are so many tables to share together in the future. Until the next time, we thank you for the glory of your stories.
All our love,
Katy and Tracy
Tracy Johnson and Katy (Johnson) Stafford founded Red Tent Living together in 2013. It has been their joy to cultivate and tend to this beautiful community of women for over a decade. Newly married, Katy is spending her 30s embracing hope, longing, and the wild spaces in her own heart. Her favorite creative project right now is called In Love, a memoir about loving your life beyond white picket fences. Katy shares more of her thoughts here, where she cultivates a community for writers and creatives. Married for over 37 years Tracy is mother to five kids, a pastor’s wife, and a Storywork Coach at ReStory Counseling. She loves quiet mornings with hot coffee, rich conversations, and slowly savored meals around tables with friends.
Thank you for all the years of service and love. This community has often been the air in my lungs and has given me language for what I didn’t know I was carrying. Holding hope for the goodness that is coming…
Thank you for being part of our community Jean, for trusting us with your sacred stories. We have been so blessed to have you with us.
Thank you both. I have cherished RTL. I have seen it evolve and grow, like a cherished family member each morning leaving a message in my inbox. I have enjoyed the opportunity to glimpse into so many women’s experience. I respect what you have done, and will do. All blessings.
Thank you Claudia. What a delight it has been to get to know a bit in this space as you have written and commented over the years. We hold hope for more to come!
I have so enjoyed RTL. I was not here at the start but was referred to RTL by a sweet friend whose daughter in law wrote a few times for RTL. I am so glad she did. I am a stay at home retiree at 74 years of age. RTL became my daily devotional guide. Living in a rural community and mostly homebound, your letters of love and insight were such a blessing. Looking forward to your new chapter and new learning for me. God bless your new paths.
Cindy – thank you for sharing a bit of your story with us, including how you found us. We are glad you have been blessed by our offerings.
We hope you will follow us and listen in to the podcast! And there are so many stories still here on the website – lots to still read!
“Bittersweet” describes my feelings as I read this. I am so grateful for the encouragement and support you have given me over the years, and I wish you all God’s choicest blessings as your journey on new paths.
What a gift you have been Madeline. Your writing has blessed to many women in our community. We are so grateful to have had you with us!
Yes, your post is bitter-sweet. I’ve looked forward, over the decade, to every morning coffee with Red Tent Living. More than many of the stories have touched and inspired me deeply. I’ve been honored and blessed to have had a few of my own stories shared through Red Tent Living, too. I look forward to what is to come.
Sharon – yes, we feel the bittersweet with you. Thank you for being part of our community, we are so grateful to have you here.
Oh my
Oops! That sent way too soon!
I must confess I have felt sadness and grief over this news.
I think I found Red Tent Living just before the pandemic, but it was during the pandemic when you offered the space on Zoom for us to come together and process some of what we were experiencing. I was captivated by how real you were, Tracy (and all!) and how you named some things I was feeling that I couldn’t put words to. It was so instructive for me and so healing! Those Zooms were a lifeline for me, and I will always be grateful for your offering them to us. The daily RTL posts have met me countless times over the years, and have provided such rich perspective and offered such goodness. I’m so grateful for the women who have shared their stories with vulnerability and courage. Thank you all! I look forward to the podcast!
Robyn – Those zoom gathering were absolutely sacred spaces. So glad you were with us during that season. We join you in the sadness. Ending something well is just hard. We do look forward to you being with us as we move forward in new ways.
Sending thanks to you ladies and all your contributors who have made this world so rich and touched lives everywhere. I found solace in this space years ago while living abroad as I struggled to connect with others.
Wishing you peace and excitement as you pivot the movement and continue the dance in a different direction.
How wonderful that as you were living abroad we were a place of connection and solace. thank you for your words here, and for being part of our community!
What a beautiful space to have been a part of in this way. Thank you. My heart will always hold this time with tenderness and gratitude.
Dearest B – you are held with tenderness and gratitude too.
Thank you for the gift of this space to read, write, and process over the years. From its beginning to this ending, Red Tent Living and the beautiful women who write here, have held my story with generous kindness and shared theirs with deep vulnerability.
As this particular chapter closes, I look forward to the podcast and other goodness that continues to unfold. Many blessings to you all!
Julie – what a privilege and gift to have had the opportunity to bear witness to your story. You have chosen again and again to trust us with the tender unfolding of your life, and to bring us with you as you honored your mother’s passing. You are dear to our community of women. Thank you for risking with us.
It’s impossible to put to words the grief of reading this. Red Tent has been one of a very few places where a portion of my story could be witnessed. This community has been healing to know that there are some good people out there. I will miss the blog viscerally and inexpressibly.
Thank you to all the wonderful people who created such a safe haven. I hope you know how remarkable a place this is. And thank you especially to Tracy, who has had such a spacious kindness and ability to linger with suffering.
Dear Marín it has been such an honor for us to bear witness to your story, and offer space for you to tell it with such generosity and courage. Thank you for trusting us again and again.
I look forward to these writings so much. They have made my life richer and allowed me new paths to knowing myself and my story more. I have shared them with women dear to me and invited them to see the world through the new filters you all have provided. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I cannot wait to stay connected in the spaces you all welcome women to.
Thank you Heidi, for reading and sharing and being here in our midst.