LWA Virtual Mail Social all day today: Sunday, February 8!

Today's the day! Today's the day! All day today - Sunday, February 8, whatever the 24 hours of Sunday are for you, wherever you are - the Letter Writers Alliance is having a Virtual Mail Social.

In celebration, I'll be writing mail much of the day today!

You can play along by using the hashtag #LWAsocial on Twitter and Instagram. The main event is a Live video social and chat at 4pm EST / 3pm Central time. This is their second such event - the first was in December, and I was utterly tickled by how delightful it was: great, great fun. I really enjoy the camaraderie of seeing all the tweets and photos from other letter lovers writing mail at the same time, and it inspires me to write, too. So I'm participating already, and encourage anyone else who is interested to join the fun.

Love this #postcard from the National Postal Museum #npm

A photo posted by Missive Maven (@missivemaven) on Feb 7, 2015 at 10:06am PST

Also built into the video social will be a chat window, and the instagram feed for #LWAsocial. I had been toying with the idea of joining instagram for a while now, and this was the final push I needed. So yesterday I joined up, and now you can find me on instagram as missivemaven. There's sure to be much mail and many cats in my instagram feed. And I'll be posting lots of photos of my #LWAsocial mail there.

Happy #LWAsocial day! Join the fun! Write more letters! And maybe I'll see you at the LWA Virtual Social at 4pm EST today.

September 2: Twitter chat on historical fiction

If you're into Twitter or historical fiction, or certainly if you're into both, check out the Twitter chat on historical fiction that will be happening tomorrow. Hosted by Erin Lindsay McCabe, author of the novel "I shall be near to you,", it will take place on Twitter on Tuesday, September 2nd from 9-10pm EST (aka 6-7pm PST), using the hashtag #IShall.

There will be a bunch of book bloggers and historical fiction authors participating, including my own dear spouse Alex Myers, author of "Revolutionary", also found on Twitter at @MyersWriting.

So while this post isn't directly about letter-writing, I can confirm that both "I Shall Be Near to You" and "Revolutionary" include some fine epistolary elements -- and really, nearly all of us who are writers are also enthusiastic readers. So join in that Twitter chat tomorrow night if you're interested!

Check out Erin's blog post for full details of all the participants, plus a couple of helpful tips about how to participate fully.

Letter Writers Alliance Social Sunday

The fantastic Letter Writers Alliance Social Sunday is happening right now! Participate in letter-writing all over the world today, and join in the virtual social by posting with the hashtag #lwasocial on Twitter or Flickr. When my kittens are sleeping, I'm joining in - writing, Tweeting, and posting photos of letters (and kittens with letters).

Another great idea from the Letter Writers Alliance - if you join in the social, do say hi to me on Twitter!

Shark Mail!

A while back I had a little conversation on Twitter about shark mail. It turns out that Laura of PleaseDeliverTo had blog visitors from the search term "shark letters," and so did I. We both thought this was very odd. PostMuse of the Orphaned Postcard Project also rang in.

If you are thinking what we were thinking, this seemed a perfect opportunity for a little whimsical mail art. So, I sent Laura some shark mail. Front of postcard with teeth (dripping blood - hey, folks, for freehand drawing, this is pretty darn good for me) shown above. Since my artwork may not be the clearest, I had to designate it shark mail on the side.



On the back, my theme was "let's give 'em something for their search!" So here is some real shark mail. (See the sparkly sticker? That's an orca, or a killer whale. It's not a shark, but it's the closest sort of sticker I had. This is the first time in my life I was wishing for some shark stickers.)

I was counting on my own blog post for this occasion, and possibly more - and indeed, Laura noted the postcard in one of her blog posts. (And indeed, I've received word that more sharks may be on the way. Sharks ahoy!)



But it doesn't end there! PostMuse sent me a Shark Mail postcard, too - and wow, can she draw a creepy/comical shark well, or what? Look out, mail carriers - shark infested mailboxes!

On the back of her card, she reminisced about the old Saturday Night Live skit with a shark knocking on doors. I remember that one. Ha.

Anyhoo, this exchange embodies the fun and whimsical spirit of my favorite sort of mail art. And whoever was googling shark letters can now find fruit for their labors.

Show and Mail

There's a fun new hashtag on Twitter, started by the National Postal Museum tweeters, called #ShowAndMail. The idea is a sort of postal "show and tell" to share one's daily mail, sent and received. I forgot to photograph my outgoing mail today before it started its journey, but here's what I received today. Typical for a Monday, it's a fun assortment.



I got a very fun assortment of foreign postage stamps, mostly from Postcrossing postcards.



I am most taken with these Dutch stamps - the meta mail-looking stamp in the upper right corner, and the one on the bottom with what looks like a leaf gnome surrounded by birds -- that one looks to be an older, maybe vintage stamp.

If you want to see some fun mail that's being sent and received, I highly recommend taking a look at the #ShowAndMail items; there are a lot of philepistolists (those obsessed with mail - thank you, Craftgasm, for coining that fine word) who tweet about mail and postal-related items regularly. Oh, and of course, I do a lot of mail tweeting, and you can follow me on Twitter, too.

What did you get in your mailbox today?

{Edit/Persnickety luddite clarification: I don't text. None of my tweeting is done on my phone. Did you know you can do Twitter all through the internet? That's what I do. I'll play with Twitter when I'm online only.}

Looking for a pen pal? Here's a Twitter option...

I just saw that one of my fine tweeps (that's Twitter users I follow, for those unfamiliar with that lingo), @LetterSets of lettersets.com has offered to help with pen pal searches on Twitter. If you tweet that you're looking for a pen pal, they'll retweet it to all their followers for you.

Seems rather instantaneous, but for all those people who are looking for a pen pal RIGHT NOW, it could be a fun option.

If you've read this blog for a while, you know that the last thing I am seeking is more pen pals... but I do know a lot of folks who land here are looking for more pen pals and letter writers, so I hope this is useful to someone.

Tweet, tweet

I'm holding out on Facebook for a million reasons I don't even want to get into here (yep, I'm one of those people who doesn't do Facebook), but I did cave and join twitter once I learned you don't have to do it from a mobile phone. I tweet from my laptop.

You can find me on Twitter now, and I even added the little buttons above my post labels so you can tweet, or email, my posts. (The latter is somewhat experimental.)

Are you on Twitter? Let me know. I am still exploring that realm and would love to check out your little corner of it.