“Gerard Van der Leun was the creator and author of the popular blog American Digest. He was an essayist, poet, humorist, and raconteur, with a long and colorful career as book editor, agent, author, magazine publisher, world traveler, and photographer. He had a larger-than-life personality, with vast stores of energy and playful humor which he freely dispensed.“
“Gerard Van der Leun had many readers who felt they knew him. Some had been reading his blog American Digest for close to twenty years and looked forward to it every day. When he died unexpectedly in late January of 2023, many readers felt sharp pangs of grief and loss”
The New American Digest was started as a way to keep together the followers of Gerard Van der Luen’s site, American Digest. Gerard died suddenly early in 2023 but left instructions with a friend to keep his site active for 2 years beyond his death. During that time, some of his followers formed a sort of chat club and expressed a desire to keep the club together after American Digest goes dark in January 2025. That time comes near; this site will try to keep this club together.
Format: I’m not anywhere near the writer Gerard was. While I may post an occasional paragraph or three, I like how Neo runs American Digest – an “inspirational” photo and let the comments flow as they will. I received the OK to re-post some of Gerard’s work; I will be happy to post “articles” any of you may wish to add as a post rather than comment. The site will evolve. It may fade away, it may grow. Time will tell.
I have my on-line identity which I believe I will maintain for now; I suppose my actual identity will become public if I feel the need to make this a paid-subscription one. For now though – at least until American Digest goes dark – this site will remain open to all. I’ll follow the stats and check my expenses and make a determination of site status sometime in January. This site isn’t about me anyway.
