Letter Writers Alliance

Postal Queries: Handwriting

Welcome to the first installment of Postal Queries, where Kathy and I attempt to give you our advice on your letter writing questions. This one is all about handwriting.

I think I may have been one of the last U.S. public school kids to receive cursive handwriting instruction in the classroom. Even with that help, among my fellow pupils, there were those who had good handwriting and those who would grow up to be doctors. (I work for a doctor and have worked in doctor’s offices for fifteen years; everything people say about doctor handwriting is completely true.)

Now, it doesn’t matter to me one bit if you have a perfect Palmer Method hand or if you dot your Is with little hearts, as long as I can read your letter, you may write however you wish. If I can’t read it (see paranthetical aside above: I can read nearly anything), then we have a problem. Letters are all about communication. If your letter can’t be read by its recipient, it’s not doing its job.       

The thing about communication is that it has to go both ways. There’s no way that the writer will know that the reader can’t read their letter unless the reader tells them. Do you want to continue receiving unsolvable cryptography*, or do you want to have an epistolary conversation? If it’s yes to the later, then you need to politely request that your pen pal try another way of writing to you.   

They can try using print if their cursive is what gives you trouble. There is no rule saying they can not write you on the computer and then print it out and mail it. There is our old friend, the typewriter! There are many options out there. You guys can make this work!

Anyone out there have this problem? Have any ideas to share on how to gently inform someone of their illegible writing and work around it? Add your comments below and remember to mind your Ps & Qs!

*Unsolvable cryptography is no fun; the solvable kind is rather nice.         

Vintage Etiquette & Postal Queries

The types of etiquette questions we handle today are very different than those of the 1920s, but I got a real kick out of reading this little antique guide. Did you know that you were supposed to have different custom stationeries for when you were traveling, and for when you were on your yacht, and for when you were at your club? Nowadays, it's considered the height of good manners to send a thank you note, but stationery and letter writing used to be a strictly regulated system of social graces. Here are some examples from The Etiquette of Letter Writing.

While I'm not advocating for a return to the rules about what alignment of monogram is acceptable for a correspondence card, I am a champion of courtesy and kindness. Kathy and I have, in the past, gotten a lot of questions surrounding the world of modern letter writing. We've decided to start a feature on this blog called "Postal Queries" or "Ps & Qs" for short. If you have a question for us, please send us a note to the P.O. Box or an electronic mail.  We'll answer what we can to the best of our ability. Tune in later this week for our first question and answer.

 

Post Office Infographic from Numbersleuth

Source: NumberSleuth

Aubree with Numbersleuth thought we might like to share this fantastic chart about the big numbers that make up the U.S. Postal Service. I'm especially fond of the zero there for tax dollars. More people need to know that. What do you guys think? Did they miss anything?

 

Stamp Release: Lydia Mendoza

Info from Beyond the Perf: One of the first and greatest stars of Tejano music, Lydia Mendoza (1916-2007) is seen strumming her 12-string guitar on this lively stamp, one of several that inaugurates the "Music Icons" series.

This square stamp captures the look of a vintage 45-rpm record sleeve, down to a slight weathering away of the colors. The stamp art features a black-and-white publicity photo of Mendoza taken in the 1950s. The flag of Texas, Mendoza’s home state, is splashed across the photo, its vertical blue bar and horizontal red stripe providing the stamp’s only color.

The stamp is being released today, May 15. I really do like the Texas flag overlay. It makes for a very graphically dramatic stamp.

Agora Days

Among the contacts in my Flickr stream, I noticed some enchanting images of kids using actual feather quills to write letters. "What is this?!" I hastily messaged to the image poster and L.W.A. member Suzanne. She told me it was part of "Agora Days" at her school. I'd never heard of such a thing and Suzanne graciously offered to write all about it for the blog. I am very jealous that I wasn't a student at this school in my younger days. Everything seems like so much fun.

Suzanne writes: Agora Days take place the 3rd week in February at University of Illinois Laboratory High School (where I teach English, Social Justice, and Gender Studies). The tradition started in 1977 (you can read a little more history in this student newspaper article) and it is an opportunity for students, teachers, parents, and interested community members to teach classes about topics they are passionate about and wouldn't normally get covered in school. 

A sampling of courses taught in the past few years: Quidditch, Belegarth (previously called "Medieval Combat," and largely an excuse to run around and hit each other with foam weapons), Improv, Flight of the Conchords, Back to Kindergarten, Skateboarding Culture, Gender and the Media, Hip-Hop Poetry, Build a Bicycle, Greek Cooking, Cupcake Decorating, Birding, and many more.

 

In the last couple years, I've taught a beginning knitting class that turned into a knitbomb class, a letterpress poetry class; and this year, a class called The Jane Austen Auxiliary Society during which another English teacher and I had a chance to do a few of the supplemental activities that enrich the teaching of an Austen novel that we don't always have time for in class. On the first day of the class, we hosted a fiddler (our school librarian) and dance instructor who taught the students several English Country dances in preparation for our "ball" on the last day of class. 

Through my participation in the Month of Letters Challenge, I met a person who corresponds in character and she sent me two goose quills, ink, a book on penmanship, and a couple sample letters written with ink and quill. We used these on the second day of class to begin our letter writing. My co-teacher found a sample ball invitation in the book What Jane Austen Ate, and Charles Dickens Knew and we wrote invitations to the ball for all of our students. During class, we had a quill and ink demonstration by another our of fabulous librarians (this one with excellent penmanship) and then let the students lose with the quills, folding instructions, and sealing wax.  They all sent replies to our invitations, hand delivered by postmistress Lucie (natch). 

On the third day we started class by sharing a little more information about how Jane Austen would have composed letters, and key passages from Emma about the practice of reading letters out loud. There is a lot to be discussed about the role of letters in a society where unsupervised contact between single men and women is not allowed (Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill conduct a secret engagement entirely through letters in Emma, and as a result Jane is always contriving to go to the post office by herself). Additionally, well-written and interesting letters were often read aloud to pass the time and share information.  If we had more than four days for our class, we could have easily spent a day reading aloud key letters from Austen's novels both as an illustration of the practice, but also for the enjoyment of the letters; two that jump to mind are Mr. Darcy's letter to Elizabeth Bennet after she turns down his proposal in Pride and Prejudice and Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne Elliot in Persuasion.

The remainder of the third day was given over to letter writing. I showed students folded and wax sealed letters that I had received through the USPS and several of them wrote letters that they took home to mail to family members. Others wrote letters to each other or their friends not in our class that our postmistress dutifully delivered. My favorite product of the third day is this Study of a Letter that my student Simone created and gave me permission to share. Her study nicely demonstrates cross writing as well as the general consensus that none of my students are comfortable writing in cursive. On our final day of class, the musician and dancing instructor returned and we danced and drank tea. 

 

Thanks for sharing Suzanne. What a wonderful experience for everyone! We love hearing about how Alliance members are bringing letters into different aspects of their lives. If you have a mail project or postal-related venture, let us know about it. You could be featured here. Send us a letter to the P.O. Box or write us an email.

ACE: A Call for Members

My good pen pal Dave is a member of the Art Cover Exchange. I've written about Dave and his involvement with ACE on the site before, and in one of his recent letters to me, he asked if we'd be interested in advertising for ACE on our site. I said, "Well, we don't really do advertising, but I'd be happy to have you write a post about it." Dave is a strictly analog member; so he sent me this letter to share with you.
Go to this link! Or send a letter to:

Joseph Doles

105 Lawson Road

Rochester, NY

14616-1444

Thanks Dave!

The Palace of Postman Cheval

Ferdinand Cheval was a French postman in the late 1800s. He was also a sculptor and an architect and probably some sort of , though he probably wouldn't have described himself as thus. Working nights after his postal shift for the next thirty-three years, Cheval created this structure of naive art architecture. When he finished this “Palais Ideale”, he was in his seventies, but that didn't stop him. When the law prohibited that he be buried in his palace, he then went to work decorating his own mausoleum in the town cemetery.

The legend is that it all started with one interesting rock that Cheval stumbled across along his postal route in 1879. "Inspired by its shape, he began collecting more small stones each day. At first he would carry home the pebbles he found on his mail rounds in his pockets, but as he began collecting more, he started carrying them home in baskets, and eventually a wheelbarrow." The palace is made of these found rocks, cement and lime mortar. He is quoted as saying "I wanted to prove what willpower can achieve."

The palace is still standing and is a cultural landmark in France. It has over 100,000 visitors a year and is certainly on my list should I ever get to France. It even got its own stamp in 1984. Thanks to Carolee for the tip and for the excellent write up at Messy Nessy and the New York Times for the information.

Crafty Wonderland in Portland

Northwest Coast letter lovers, come see me and get your writing supplies stocked up! The booth number is #179. It's always nice to see members in person and make new letter writing friends. There's more information about workshops and free goodie bags on the Crafty Wonderland website. Hope to see many of you there!

Stamp Release: A Flag For All Seasons

Hey, look at that. I... I don't hate these flag stamps. Well done, U.S.P.S. I like that the position of the flag is different in each stamp and that it isn't stuck in that traditional "you must see all of the flag" depiction. The flag is drawn as if you are on the ground, looking up at it. It gives the whole stamp a very uplifting feeling. Even the back grounds are nice, and will be fun to pair with colored envelopes. I would actually use these stamps. I will use these stamps. More details can be found at Beyond the Perf. These stamps are being released today.

Crossed Letters

I received this curious post-script from my pen pal Alan. If you're having trouble reading it, here is the transcription:

"Thinking of log and log graph paper got me thinking. Have you ever come across 'crossed' letters? In the days before adhesive stamps and the Penny Post in 1841, letters were charged by the sheet rather than by weight. To save money some people developed really tiny handwriting but others used to fit more on the page by 'crossing' their letters, writing across the lines at 90°. I read a few of these while researching for my book on Charles Clark and they are not as impossible to read as they might at first appear. Still, however expensive the mail gets, I do not think the practice will return. At least, I hope not! -Alan"

In truth, it's not that difficult to read, as he says. I think your brain gets used to it after a while. Alan's letter sent me to the Internet to look for more historic examples. I'd seen letters of the tiniest of tiny scripts, but never a crossed letter.Delightedly, in my search, I discovered this write up by Mary Robinette Kowal on the Lettermo site about letter writing in the Regency where she specifically mentions crossed letters. Facsinating! What's the weirdest letter you've ever had to decipher? Tell us about it in the comments.