Sunday, April 26, 2015

Champion letter-writing in unexpected circumstances

Letter Postcard to the Central African Republic3

I was at a party last night thrown by a friend, but I didn't know very many people there. They were mostly Alex's colleagues, English grad students. To my surprise, I got into a conversation with Emily, who sought me out to talk about letter-writing. She had found my blog through my post on Alex's recent PBS appearance, which was of course the topic of a number of other conversations at this party. Our conversation expanded to include Danielle, and soon we were all talking about letter-writing, mostly me going on and on about how great it is, and how there really are a lot of people who do still write letters, and you CAN find people to write you back. I went on at great length about Postcrossing, and how that's a wonderful way to ensure an equal ratio of received to sent items. (The photo I used for this post is of a Postcrossing postcard I recently sent to the Central African Republic - a first to that country for me. The postcard is in an envelope because the recipient expressed a preference for that.)

I won't detail all the facets of the conversation, and in some ways I'm preaching to the choir since most of my blog readers are already dedicated letter-writers - but I wanted to share with you how charmed I was that I was able to champion letter-writing in unexpected circumstances.

I will also note that I felt a touch guilty about said post on Alex's recent PBS appearance because it really didn't have anything to do with letter-writing, but it still led to bringing other blossoming letter-writers into the fold, albeit from a different direction than I usually experience. (I'm used to my blog readers finding Alex through this blog, not people who know or search for Alex then finding my blog!) So here's to the opportunities to sing the praises of this fantastic mail hobby.

This post is for Emily, Danielle, and anyone who has ever toyed with the idea of starting to write letters - give it a try!

Oh - I almost forgot! Speaking of a great way to share the love of letter-writing: this coming Sunday, May 3, the Letter Writers Alliance will be hosting another Virtual Mail Social at 4pm EST / 3pm Central. I've done two of their mail socials so far (both, I think? Have there only been two?) and they are a fantastic way to connect in real time with other mail enthusiasts, and share the joy of mail and letter-writing.