Moving is not conducive to letter-writing (or blogging)

Hello, dears - I am still here... sort of, anyway. I am now deep in moving hell. Lots of cardboard boxes. I move to Washington, DC in less than a month. Things are progressing as nicely as can be expected, really -- I have an apartment and a job, hooray! -- but it is just as busy as busy can be around my humble (increasingly boxed) abode. The cats are nervous, I am stressed, and... well, you know how it goes.

The priority is getting everything ready for the move, and of course finishing out the job I have now... so I haven't had much time to do mail, and even less time to blog about it. Apologies for disappearing. I hope to give a more detailed update soon, but I was just fairly aghast when I looked at my blog for the first time in over a week, and realized it had been weeks since I posted, hence this brief update.

Now, back to packing...

Announcing "Revolutionary:" January 2014

I have never been more excited for a book release in my life. I am ridiculously excited even to be blogging about it.

Announcing... "Revolutionary" by Alex Myers.

Due out from Simon & Schuster on January 14, 2014, it is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Why am I so excited about this? Well, "Revolutionary" is pretty darn fabulous - "A fascinating retelling of the story of America’s first female soldier, Deborah Sampson Gannett, who ran away from home in 1782, successfully disguised herself as a man, and fought valiantly in the Revolutionary War." It is a book I would love to read anyway, and I know that because I have already read it. How am I so lucky to be an advance reader of this fine novel? Its talented (and, may I say, dashingly handsome) author happens to be my best beloved husband.

How does this book tie into the letter-writing theme of this blog? The novel does have a significant epistolary element - a lot of important information is conveyed in letters, and the reader gets a fine sense of the writing practices (and equipment, all well-researched) from the Revolutionary War era. In fact, in discussing my blog-post-in-progress with Alex, he said that its subject, Deborah Sampson Gannett (of whom Alex is a distant descendent), actually wrote a letter to Paul Revere, which is well-documented and preserved. He promises to write about that Deborah Sampson/Paul Revere letter on his own blog sometime in the future.

If you are wondering why I am suddenly talking about my husband and my personal life when I so rarely do that on this blog, well... I am not only indescribably excited about this book, but I think it is a book that will interest my blog readers as well. There is a clear correlation between reading and letter-writing, and the vast majority of my correspondents and blog readers are also passionate readers of fiction. This book will appeal to lovers of historical fiction and literary fiction alike, including a fascinating examination of the role of gender and how it forms identity.

On his own blog at AlexMyersWriting.blogspot.com, Alex did a great post about the book cover and his thoughts on it. It's a great look at how the themes of the book tie into the cover design (with which he is quite pleased).



This past summer Alex and I did a little road trip to various New England sites where Deborah Sampson has ties; above you can see Alex posing with the statue of Deborah Sampson Gannett (Gannett is her married name) outside the public library in Sharon, Massachusetts, where Deborah lived after the Revolutionary War. Don't ask me if that actually looks like Deborah Sampson or not, because I have no idea, but Alex said the equipment she's holding looks pretty historically accurate.



He would know - he did extensive research on this subject! Photo above shows Alex in 2010, while he was still writing the book, examining Revolutionary War-era equipment at the New Windsor Cantonment in New Windsor, NY - a spot where Deborah (disguised as the soldier Robert) actually spent the winter of 1782-1783 encamped with her fellow soldiers. There is now a handy museum there, with some of the original structure sites and a lot of excellent models of various munitions, uniforms, and other aspects of Revolutionary War life.



Deborah Sampson is a famous enough historical figure to have statues and streets named after her - above you see Alex posing last August with the "Deb Sampson" street sign - and Alex's book is a fictionalized retelling of her days fighting in the Revolutionary War. I am obviously very biased, and I have given up any pretense of objectivity, since I am madly in love with its author and have read many drafts of the book prior to the final version for publication, but I think it is an amazing story and I expect I will not shut up about it anytime soon.

Alex has many published short stories and essays, and one of his essays was adapted for NPR's "This I believe" Rhode Island and aired in July 2012 - you can listen to him reading his "identity" piece on the Rhode Island NPR archives here - and his blog at AlexMyersWriting.blogspot.com is the place to go to read many of Alex's other stories, essays, and some fabulous background information on his research for this historical novel, read a more extensive bio and fascinating personal information about him, plus some great info on his writing process and writing in general, including getting an agent and the publishing process. Good stuff there.

To recap: check out more about Revolutionary on Amazon, and if you're that interested, go ahead and pre-order!

January 14, 2014 is less than 9 months away...

I'm featured on the Postcrossing blog today!!

Today is exciting beyond words: my etsy items (and this blog, too) are featured on the Postcrossing blog!!

I have been an enthusiastic member of Postcrossing for more than 7 years now, and I follow the wonderful Postcrossing blog very closely, so this just has me over the moon.

Just had to share the fantastic news!

Fun ways to decorate a postcard

The fine Postcrossing blog has a lovely entry up now about "fun ways to decorate a postcard." It details all kinds of great decorative enhancements - stickers, artwork, rubber stamps - and illustrates the examples with some great photos (looks like they're from the collection of another fabulous mail blogger, PostMuse).

If you peruse my multitudinous postcard posts, you'll see that I'm a big fan of decorating and coordinating stamps, and I receive nearly as many decorated Postcrossing postcards as I send; what a treat to see this practice suggested by Postcrossing, and know that so many others like to get their embellishments on.

...time to write a postcard...

Postal Travels magazine, April issue

The new issue of Postal Travels magazine just came out, and it's full of all kinds of mail and postal goodness. Pen-pallers might want to check out all the interesting articles and product reviews... and products from Missive Maven on etsy are reviewed on pp.42-43.

Happy reading and writing!

Japanese postcards tend to be awesome

I've gotten some truly delightful Postcrossing postcards from Japan lately! The postcard above is JP-383733, and the sender had noticed that I'd marked this design as a favorite but hadn't yet received it. I love the clean lines showing the evolution of Japanese mailboxes through the years, and the deep red color is rich and elegant.



Perhaps just as charming, though, is the fabulous collection of postage stamps! Some look vintage and some look more modern, but they're all different and all gorgeous. I wish I could read Japanese - that green one in the middle with the little icon that looks sort of like Mr. Zip must be mail-related, yes?



Here's another fine mail-related postcard, JP-382166, which is an illustration of various scenes of letter-writing. It has a vintage look and feel, but I think it's new.



However, the stamps the sender used look mighty vintage to me! I honestly don't know much about Japanese philately, and I can't tell by "look" whether or not a stamp is vintage, but I've seen more current Japanese stamps and they don't look like this. I love the variety and old scenes! Are there any Japanese stamp enthusiasts out there that can share some knowledge?

I know I spend a lot of characters praising Postcrossing on this blog, but it is joyous surprises like this that sustain my mail delight. It's so exciting to know that such lovely things may await me in my mailbox, who knows when!

International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club

Remember my whole caveat about how I'm drowning in pen pals and can't take on any more? Yeah, that's still true. But since so many of my blog readers are still looking to connect with more pen pals, I wanted to share this new phenomenon, which has been a Twitter/Tumblr sensation since its launch just last week: International Geek Girl Pen Pal Club.

It appears to be a pen pal matching service that works in rounds, and it looks like the second round is closed already. The first round reached 1000 pen pallers in 3 days, and the second round reached 1000 correspondents in 26 hours. Wow!

As with any new pen pal matching endeavor, stay tuned to see how it goes. I really hope that all 2000 of those folks who signed up will genuinely exchange some great mail, and I hope the service continues, because it certainly looks fun.

Their blurb says "we are reviving the lost art of letter writing," and if you've been reading my blog for a while, you may be aware of how I get a bit touchy when someone asserts that letter writing is a "lost art." Maybe you lost it, folks, but it's been with me and lots of others, going strong! Still, as I always try to remind myself, any efforts to get anyone to write more letters are worthy and appreciated.

Did any of my readers make it in the first two rounds? Any thoughts on the experience?

Missive Movin'...

I have exciting news. (It is actually terrifying and exciting all at the same time, but I'm focusing on the exciting part.) This has been brewing for a while, and if you've noticed that I've been blogging a little less, my apologies... I've been busy in a whole new way.



Sometime soon, most likely in June, I will be moving.



I am tantalizing you with photos of my new location-to-be.



Have you figured it out yet?



Washington, DC -- here I come!

We spent most of the week there last week, checking out the scene and specifically looking at apartments. We need to find a place to live, and oh yes, a little detail - I need to find a job. Any DC folks with tips, I'd love to hear them! We are familiar with the city but it's still a big incredible exciting ($$$EXPENSIVE$$$) move.

Though I'm still in Newport for a while yet, I definitely feel like I'm already in transition. It's a fluttery, strange feeling. I've done cross-country moves before, but never to a city this big.

So a few notes as relate to this blog and my correspondence:

I don't know my new address yet. I won't for a while. I'm trying to be patient. I've gotta find a place to live first. I will keep my Newport address well after the move, and I will use mail forwarding from the U.S. Postal Service as well as a backup option from my UPS Store mailbox service. Never fear, I am hoping the mail transition will be a fairly smooth one.

Space is going to be at a premium. I live in a fairly spacious house right now (that I don't own, so no worries about selling it - whew!) with incredible amounts of storage. I am going to move to a tiny apartment, which will be half the size of my house if I'm lucky. I am doing a lot of downsizing. I will be listing a lot of items in my etsy store. I will be putting a lot in storage, and divesting myself of some other possessions in various ways. For all of my blog readers and lovely pen pals who send me surprises, I love them, but please don't send me stuff now. Everything I look at is regarded as more expensive pounds to move or to store, and I am trying to get rid of stuff in a major way.

I am going to be on a much tighter budget. (WAY poorer until I find a job!) Right now I'm pretty comfortable, I don't make all that much money but my housing and utilities are provided by my employer, so my expenses are nearly nil. This will not be the case come June. DC is a very expensive city, the process of moving alone will be costly, and money worries are starting to set in already. I have run this blog for the past four years as a labor of love, and I've kept it ad-free because I can. I am considering a change to allowing ads on this blog. I welcome feedback as always.

You'll be hearing plenty more from me in the future about moving plans, and I'm curious to see how my letter-writing life will transition to my new home. One of the most exciting things about Washington, DC is all the culture and museums, though, and sometime soon you'll be seeing my blog post about my first, fantastic visit to the National Postal Museum!

We can improve your nightlife

Another gem from Postcrossing, this is FR-268010 from France. It shows a photo by Jill Posener (in London, 1981), of an ad by Rest Assured Beds. The ad tagline is "We can improve your nightlife," and it's been wittily defaced with "join lesbians united" graffiti. It's been a long time since I've come across a Jill Posener postcard, but I used to see them (and buy them!) all the time. She's a fantastic feminist photographer who happens to catch some great sexist advertisements that have been re-framed by wonderful feminist graffiti. This postcard was a treat to receive; it was published by The Women's Press in London.



The sender also used a righteous stamp of a woman doing karate. Even though the woman looks a little anime/stylized (hello, unrealistically long legs), it's still a great image of a woman in a powerful pose, and a fantastically fitting accompaniment to this fabulous postcard.

German rainbow stamp

I've seen this fabulous rainbow spectrum stamp from Germany on a few German Postcrossing postcards now. I love it! The colors just jump out when I pull the postcards from my mailbox.

This stamp honors German optician Josef von Fraunhofer. Honestly, I'm most excited about the fine rainbow spectrum. My love of rainbows is childish, primal, and somewhat inexplicable.

Along with the fine postcard surprises one gets from Postcrossing, I am often just delighted with the postage stamps, too.

Roses and unicorns: new sticker seal designs

I'm very excited to share with you three new envelope sticker seal designs I've just listed in my etsy shop. First, as seen above, we have a magical unicorn!



Who wouldn't want to seal a letter with a unicorn? Okay, I can think of some people who wouldn't, but I am not among them.



Next up, a lovely bright seal with a single red rose in full bloom.



I love roses in real life and in artwork, and this large, lush red rose bloom in a vintage illustration is one of the loveliest I've seen.



Last but not least, there is a vase of blooming roses, overflowing with blossoms in yellow, pink, and red.



I really enjoy the colors in this old-fashioned vase of roses, which is more subtle than the single large red blossom.

These three new sticker designs - unicorn, red rose, and old-fashioned vase of roses - are the new additions to my other three sticker designs - postman, To get a letter, write a letter, and letterbird - which have been around for a while but have proved fairly popular. I hope there are other letter writers out there who may enjoy these new designs, too.