Mera Magazine features weekly musings, essays, interviews, book recs, writing tips, and more fun stuff from Alexis Mera Damen, a Dutch-American writer and content strategist living in Amsterdam. New issues are delivered to your inbox a maximum of twice a week and a minimum of once a month.

Hey, hello, hi. I’m Alexis. I was born and raised in New York, and I am currently living my best life (and exploring my Dutch roots) in Amsterdam. Mera is my middle name, which I inherited from my maternal great-great-grandmother. By day, I’m a freelance content strategist and writer for tech, e-commerce, and lifestyle companies. Here, I share musings from life’s in-betweens, personal essays, interviews, book recs, writing tips, and more. One of my essays was published in HuffPost, which planted the seed to pursue writing a memoir about how losing my mom to Alzheimer’s in my 30s has shaped me. So that’s another thing I’m working on now. When I’m not writing, you can find me on the padel court, at CrossFit, traveling, trying new recipes, or learning to paint.

You have given grief a better, more fluid definition. Thank you. Well done. —Jane

This is exactly on the money. Such a great read this morning! —Gayle

Alexis, thank you for writing this. Your point about there being no universal timeline really resonated with me. —Desaree

Alexis writes funny, down-to-earth, heartfelt essays that are always my favorite of the week! —Lindsey

Funny + wise insights from a fellow American expat in Europe. —Lee

I too grew up ashamed of my teeth! Appreciate you. —Kate

A great piece of writing Alexis. —Hannah

This is so funny. —Leslie

Great advice, thank you! —Mindy

• My husband dumped me on FaceTime (Personal)

• I thought divorce at 33 meant failure—until I reinvented my life in Amsterdam (Personal)

• 13 signs you’ve entered midlife (Midlife humor)

• I don’t want kids, and I’m finally OK with that (Personal)

• I failed my mental load test, here’s what I’m doing about it (Personal/Wellbeing)

• Brownies (an essay about love, loss, and finding comfort in brownies) (Personal)

• I was a toothless teenager—here’s how it shaped me (Personal)

• I’m motherless, now what? (Personal)

• Things worth sharing... 8 books I loved this year (Recs)

• What’s your love language? (Relationship humor)

• Learn how to work with me 1:1

• For content marketing and writing services: contact me here

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I appreciate your readership alone, but if you’d like to further support Mera Magazine and my independent writing (and help me reach my dream of becoming a partially retired middle-aged writer lady by the age of 55), consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you so much.

(Note: I occasionally include affiliate links to bookshop.org in my book rec posts. If you make a purchase through one of my links, I may earn a very small commission. This is one way to help me keep Mera Magazine alive. And it’s a great way to support independent book shops!)