Letter Writers Alliance

First Letter Socials of 2012

{photo from our last social at the Read/Write Library}

Hello! Hello! Your attention please! Kathy and I are holding the Letter Writers Alliance first social of 2012 at the newly opened BINTH in Forest Park on Sunday, February 12th from 3PM-6PM. BINTH is located at 7507 West Madison Avenue, Forest Park, IL 60130; the last stop on the Forest Park section of the Blue Line. This will be our first venture into the suburbs and we hope that our regulars and some new folks will make it a point to join us for some last minute love letter writing, or card making or just good ol' plain letters. As always, we'll have memberships and stamps for sale. We may even bring a pigeon or two. The stationery and supplies are complimentary and you're welcome to bring your own as well.

If you can't wait til Sunday {and are a jet setter or flying super hero}, there is also another Snail Mail Social at Arch Drafting Supply on Saturday, the 11th from 1-4PM. The Snail Mail Social was also featured in Uppercase Magazine. Huzzah to the promotion of letter writing!

Hope to see you soon at one or, if you're crazy, both of these great events! -Donovan

P.S. Last reminder, today is the next to last day before the postmarked due date of our 2000th Member Cover Contest. Be sure to send your entries before the 31st of January. Winners and prizes will be announced on Valentine's Day.

Rumpus Letter Subscriptions

I'm not very familiar with the site The Rumpus, but I got an email tip from Member Kim L. about a new service they are starting where they mail you letters. For $5 a month, you'll receive almost weekly letters from known artists and authors such as Dave Eggers, Marc Maron, Stephen Elliott, Janet Fitch, Nick Flynn, Margaret Cho, Cheryl Strayed, Wendy MacNaughton, Emily Gould, Tao Lin, and Jonathan Ames. They want you to "Think of it as the letters you used to get from your creative friends, before this whole internet/email thing."

If you're looking to get more mail, that's one way to do it. If anyone does subscribe, I'd love to have you review the service for the blog.

{photo from Denis Dore Photography photostream under CC license}

Stamp Releases for January

Both the Year of the Dragon and Bonsai stamps were released on the 23rd of this month. They are two of my favorite stamps for this year. On the 31st, the next Black Heritage stamp featuring John H. Johnson will be released.

And while not exactly stamps, there are two prestamped stationery pieces released this month; the Purple Martin envelope and the Sailboat card. The envelope is pretty lovely.

Mark Powell's Art on Envelopes

I'm so in love with the art of Mark Powell. He draws with a Biro pen on old envelopes and other ephemera. You can see more of this work on his website.

Thanks to Cinnamon, L.W.A. member and the maker of our amazing bags, for the Twitter tip-off. Do you have a suggestion for the site? You can email or tweet it, and you can also, you know, write us a letter to our Chicago headquarters. The address is at the sidebar.

P.S. And speaking of art on envelopes, did you enter our 2000th Member Cover Contest? Be sure to send your entries before the 31st of January. Winners and prizes will be announced on Valentine's Day.

U.S. Stamp Rate Increase and Stamp Releases

On January 22nd, it will cost one whole penny more to mail letters to any location in the United States. That's right, a mere 45 cents to send something anwhere in the U.S. It's still a great deal.

Highlights of the new single-piece First-Class Mail pricing, effective Jan. 22, 2012, include:

• Letters (1 oz.): 1-cent increase to 45 cents
• Letters additional ounces: unchanged at 20 cents
• Postcards: 3-cent increase to 32 cents
• Letters to Canada or Mexico (1 oz.): 5-cent increase to 85 cents.
• Letters to other international destinations: 7-cent increase to $1.05

Look at that, it's still less than a dollar to send things to Canada and Mexico and just a dollar and a nickel to send a letter anywhere in the world! Anywhere! In! The! World! It's just amazing.

Also amazing are the stamps released today and this year so far. That's one good thing about a rate increase; you seem to get a lot of new stamps along with it.

The Spectrum Eagle

New Mexico Statehood

Aloha Shirts

Glacier National Park

Wedding Cake {re-release with new pricing}

Weather Vanes

Baltimore Checkerspot

Birds of Prey

Dogs at Work

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Click on the stamp names to be taken to Beyond the Perf, the official blog of U.S. stamp releases, for more information about each stamp.

Why Write Letters?

I wrote this back in September, but thought it was a good way to get 2012 off to a good start here on the Letter Writers Alliance blog. Have something to add about why you write letters? I'd love to hear from you. Leaving a comment is fine, but I'd rather see your words, hold them in my hand, hear them in my heart; why not send a note to our P.O. Box with why you love writing letters! I'll feature the letters here on the blog and we can all share.

Happy New Year,

The Case of the Secret Spacemen

Not only is this envelope neat because of its design and awesome stamp, it may also be the evidence needed to identify China's taikonauts. China keeps this information secret, but the sharp-eyed curators over at collectSPACE spotted this cover* and noticed that it is "signed by seven Chinese pilots. The group included two women, one of whom may soon become China's first female astronaut, or "taikonaut," to reach space.

"The names of the military pilots selected in 2010 to form China's second group of taikonauts – which have been a closely guarded secret for the last 18 months – appear to have been released [as the result of] a possible philatelic blunder," said Tony Quine, an Isle of Man-based space memorabilia collector and contributing writer for the British Interplanetary Society's "Spaceflight" magazine.

Quine worked together with Russian space industry expert Igor Lissov to confirm the cover's autographs since finding it listed for sale on a German space dealer's website two days ago. The two also elicited the assistance of Chinese space enthusiasts to verify the signatures' translation.

The stamped envelope was postmarked in China on May 10, 2010, the same day that the country's space program reportedly appointed the candidates to its astronaut corps."

More information is on the collectSPACE sight. I love that stamp collecting may have leaked a state secret. It's just so very pulp fiction! *A "cover" is a philatellic term for a stamped and postmarked envelope.

RSVP 8 - On Sale!

RSVP #8 is now up for purchase on the member site.
Members log in to grab one up for yourself.

This series' theme is FOOD & DRINK.
There are only 10 sets available SOLD OUT!

 

- - - The member site has a new look! - - -

You will noticed that the login area (and the public LWA site) looks a bit different than it did last week. We did some reorganization and streamlined the login process. There are no longer any pop-up windows to input your password or for the member site. Everything opens in the same page. Your password is still the same!

The member site also got refreshed: the shop is divided into different categories for easy browsing, but you can still "View all" if you prefer to see everything at once.

The RSVP page is under ADVENTURE. Although, there is a image link to it right on the member home page.

We also did a lot of under the hood fixes that I won't bore you with. If you find any errors or missing pages/images, please let us know via email or by leaving a comment here.

Thanks!

Kathy

Initiative Response Honors

We've had enough members completing various Initiative Response projects that you may have seen your fellow LWAers walking around with curious badges. I thought it would be good to write a little primer on what these badges mean. So here we go...

Know your L.W.A. Honors (From top left)
Typist badge, World Traveler badge, Out of the Box badge.

All of these above are awarded to members who have completed the various I.R. tasks within that specific initiative. There are three tasks per initiative, with opportunity for extra credit, which brings me to the bottom two badges...

Extra Credit Honors
First class honors (star pin)
You went above and beyond on an I.R. submission

Airmail Honors (wings)
You completed a second or third I.R. (not nec. all at the same time) in a unique or creative manner.

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Those are the honors we have for Initiative Response so far. So, if you see any of these badges on someone bag or person, strike up a conversation with them, for they are surely very cool.

For those of you have any of these honors, take a picture of where you have it/them and post it in the comments or upload it to the LWA Flickr group!

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And a reminder for everyone about the 2000th Member Cover Contest. Be sure to send your entries before the 31st of January. Winners and prizes will be announced on Valentine's Day.

The Society for the Prevention of Empty Mailboxes

Letter Writers Alliance mail not enough for you? Are you just not happy with the amount of penpals you have? Are you a college undergrad? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then The Society for the Prevention of Empty Mailboxes may be a place for you.

Annabeth Carroll and Maggie Cooper created T.S.P.E.M. to facilitate correspondence between college students across the cosmos. Any undergraduate university student may become a member of the Society. " If you submit an introductory letter and your mailing address, we’ll set you up with a penpal from another school! By signing up, you’re promising to regularly write your penpal throughout the semester or summer; in return, we hope you’ll make a new friend, learn something new, or at least find that your mailbox stays a little more full." Check on their website for more details. Great work!