Earlier this week, Lena Dunham announced on Instagram that she had a “two hour surgery” to remove her left ovary, just another procedure in a long line of reproductive-health issues for Lena. Earlier this year, she underwent a hysterectomy because of her long-standing endometriosis issues. I get the feeling that the past year has been a blur for her, a blur of hospitalizations and recovery and physical pain. That’s one of the big reasons why she hasn’t been out promoting her new TV show, Camping, and why she hasn’t been in the news on a weekly or daily basis.

I also wonder if Lena’s health issues have led to this: her Lenny Letter is shutting down. Lenny was started by Lena and Jenni Konner in 2015. It was supposed to be a platform for female voices, female writers and editors, and larger discussions about women that are sometimes ignored by mainstream blogs and media outlets. In the early days of Lenny, I ended up signing on for the newsletter, but I’ve been deleting the emails without reading them for more than a year.

Lenny Letter’s website is shutting down. The site, an outgrowth of a newsletter first run in partnership with Hearst, then Condé Nast, told contributors it will shut down Friday. Staffers were informed of the closure last week, according to an email reviewed by Digiday.

The newsletter grew to over 500,000 subscribers, helped in part by contributions from stars from Jennifer Lawrence to Janet Mock. It then branched out to a website, podcasting and, briefly, video. A separate book publishing arm, Lenny, has published several titles since its launch, most recently a novel called “Providence.” The site also had a spate of controversy in the spring of 2017, when the writer Zinzi Clemmons wrote an open letter about her decision to stop working with Dunham, accusing her of racism.

The site never managed to build any momentum on new platforms. Its Twitter following has been declining over the past 12 months, according to Crowdtangle data, sliding below 50,000 followers earlier this year. Its Facebook page never managed to climb above 100,000 likes. In 2017, Hearst and Lenny were unable to reach an agreement to renew their partnership, according to The Business of Fashion. It signed a deal with Condé Nast in October.

[From Digiday]

I mean… after the initial success of Lenny – ooh, Jennifer Lawrence wrote an essay! – the site/letter-system did seem to lose steam. I’ve heard from many people that even if you don’t like Lena as a person or a writer, she was a good editor and cultivator of talent. To which I say… not really? When I did read Lenny, the pieces were often overwrought, overwritten and in desperate need of a real editor. I’m honestly not trying to dunk on Lena when she’s already down – although she would deserve that – because I do think the Lenny concept was interesting, and you can’t blame her for trying. In the end, I think Lenny was a casualty of many things though – Lena’s health problems, her ego, her come-and-go performative wokeness.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.