Letter Writers Alliance

Photos of Mailboxes

I like mailboxes. I like how they can be official with sizes and standards and yet all be very, very different. Even the good ol' blue boxes often have some distinguishing feature, whether it be in the environment or in unofficial adornment. I am not alone. These boxes are all from our LWA Flickr group, but there is a man named Peter Willis across the pond who is on a quest to photograph and document all of the Royal Mail's pillar boxes. The article claims that his pursuit is borning. NAY! I say that writer is boring! Post boxes are where it's at!

Got a mailbox? Add it to the group! Show everyone the mailbox love.

 

Upcoming San Francisco Letter Writing Events!

The epistolative Jennie Hinchcliff sent me notice of this fantastic party in San Francisco this weekend. From her website Red Letter Day:

What better way to celebrate the Co-op’s first year of creativity? Our good friends at the Book Arts and Special Collections of the SF Public Library are hosting a birthday party for us – complete with activities and party games! Grab your favorite fountain pen or beloved rubber stamp and join us.

When: Sunday, May 27^th, 1-4pm

Where: the Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room, lower level of the SF Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, SF. CA.; accessible by public transit — Civic Center station

This event is free and open to the public –  invite friends, family, and other creative types! There will be a cavalcade of correspondence/mail art activities to participate in; activity specifics are listed below.

Program for May 27^th’s SF Correspondence Co-op birthday party:

2pm –> postal bingo: everybody loves bingo — and the best kind of bingo is postal themed! Designer Maureen Forys of Happenstance Type-O-Rama has created a keepsake bingo board for players; the first three folks to call out “bingo!” will receive fabulous prizes. Calling will start at 2pm sharp – don’t delay!

3pm –> postal white elephant swap: if interested in participating, please bring a wrapped postal/letter writing related gift that you are up-cycling – no need to purchase anything new! Examples include: unused stationery, blank journals, ephemera scraps, a packet of interesting envelopes, etc.

When you arrive at the party, please check in at the white elephant table in order to receive a “swap number”. The swap will take place on the dot at 3pm!

throughout the event –> group project/exquisite corpse: bring your favorite art making tools and join our group project! Attendees are welcome to create/draw/stamp at the designated “Creation Station”; paper will be on hand for you to “make” to your heart’s content! Examples of items to bring for art making: pens, rubber stamps, stickers, colored pencils. The Co-op will provide a small selection of tools for you to use.

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AND AND AND If you don't get your fill of mail fun at the Co-Op, or are a MAIL CHAMPION or just couldn't make it to the first event for some reason, THERE'S MORE!

Seriously, color me all kinds of jealous. The World's Smallest Post Service AND Snail Mail Social!? Unreal and too cool! Kathy and I would love to join you, but our San Francisco sojourn will not be until July 21st and 22nd when we will see you at Renegade Craft Fair! Remember that you can see all upcoming letter-fun events on our calendar. Have an event to add? Let us know!

Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger food drive. Participation is easy! Just collect and bag non-perishable food items like soup, canned vegetables or fruit, peanut butter, etc. and leave them out on Saturday, May 12th for your carrier to pick up for delivery to a local food bank.

From the NALC website: “Last year, despite many obstacles, letter carriers proudly collected 70.2 million pounds of food, raising the total amount of donations picked up over the history of the drive to more than 1.1 billion pounds,” [NALC President] Rolando said. “With help from our brothers and sisters in the rural craft, alongside other postal employees and volunteers, letter carriers will do what we can again this year to help all Americans.”

 

Flickr Group Favorites: April

The Letter Writers Alliance has a Flickr group to which members and non-members can contribute. We have always gotten some amazing images of incoming and outgoing mail (and other postal related items) on that group. Here are some of our favorites added in the past month. Hope you enjoy.

1.Untitled, 2. Envelope, 3. Thank-you notes don't need to be fancy. #mail #thankyou, 4. Post card from Trisch 109/366, 5. Neon Delivery, 6. Untitled, 7. The Bag of LWA Awesome, 8. maker faire letter, 9. April mail art 1, 10. Pretty Mail (reverse), 11. Bunny Fluxus to Jennie 4/2012, 12. Mail art for April

I hate to call out favorites from the favorites, but this one below is just amazing. It was sent from a new LWA member (who is twelve years old) to another LWAer, Carolee (who told her about the Alliance).

I especially enjoy the part that states: "One of my teachers said that kids should ALL have e-mail accounts, because pretty soon, everything will be done via e-mail. Well, she's wrong, wrong, WRONG!
We both know that the LWA is committed to keeping that from happening."

Penny Farthing Post

I often get asked what will the members of the Letter Writers Alliance do if the postal service is ever abolished. My response is always to detail exactly why that will never happen, but I do think that if postal armeggedon were upon us, members and other mail lovers would turn hyper local. For an example of a local post, check out Graham Eccles {see the dashing gentleman above}.

Mr. Eccles is a writer and poet in Cornwall. He is also the main operator of the Penny Farthing Post. There are "post offices" in local shops around town and he does three pick-ups and deliveries a day. A letter posted early in the day can arrive at its destination on the same day it was sent, like the city delivery system of old! "I want to encourage the younger generation to love the written word. Everyone's growing up with huge thumbs from texting but receiving a letter is special." You can see him in action in this clip from the BBC.

Well done, Mr. Eccles! You have our stamp of approval as it were. The first L.W.A. member to send me documentation of using the Penny Farthing Post gets an Inkling. Do you know of any other local posts? Please leave a comment if you do!

P.S. Additional thanks to member Cheyenne for the first tip on this.

P.P.S. Quote from the Guardian article linked in the post.

 

Interactive Member Map Now Online

Ask and ye shall receive! Okay, it's been a long time coming, but we decided on a way to show you on a map where our members are located.

But wait, I thought there were over 2500 members, and there's only 30 dots on this map. How can that be? That's because we don't fill out the map automatically when you purchase a membership. Why not? Because tons of people ship to different addresses than they want associated with their membership numbers or give memberships as gifts.

To be on the map, you have to play along with us! You'll have to download, fill out and mail in one of our Community Forms. It looks just like the image above. From there, we (by "we" I mean "Kathy") scan it, tag it, and add it to the map. Sound like fun? Log in using the password and download your form now! You HAVE to log in to see the Members Only downloads of which, this is one. Otherwise, you'll only see the downloads that are available for the public.

 

Mail Voyeur

Is our Letter Writers Alliance Flickr group just not enough to fulfil your desire to look at pictures of other people's mail? Well then, have I some recommendations for you!

Cut Paper Paste

I've always enjoyed Dawn's collage work. She's a very gifted artist and has a real eye for design. Here are some photos of her recently sent and received mail:

Send More Mail

Our neighbor to the North, Jaime's blog has photos that bring me to a very calm place, full of stamps and good mail:

Postal Freak

A tumblr blog devoted to what we are all devoted to; the love of mail:

Good Mail Day

We've mentioned the G.M.D. tumblr here before, but it's full of such fun that a reminder is in order.

Finally, there's a fun new hashtag on Twitter for all you member users out there. #ShowAndMail was started by the National Postal Museum. Send a tweet with the tag of your latest incoming/outgoing mail to join the fun. Do you have any places you go for pictures of mail? Mention it in the comments and share the mail love!

Flickr Group Favorites: March

The Letter Writers Alliance has a Flickr group to which members and non-members can contribute. We have always gotten some amazing images of incoming and outgoing mail (and other postal related items) on that group. Here are some of our favorites added in the past month. Hope you enjoy.

1. today's outgoing post, 2. , 3. start 'em young., 4. Outgoing St.Pat's env. 3/2012, 5. Post Haul, incoming, March 19, 2012, 6. "To Russia with love", 7. helimail?, 8. 12-year old Lucy thanks me for her LWA membership, 9. Closeup on red, 10. Untitled, 11. Mail art 1, 12. fancy fingers 1, 13. DIY Envelopes, 14. Untitled, 15. Map-themed mail art from Mrs. Sawbones

Katherine's Stamp Story -or- I Have Awesome Pen Pals

You might recall these lovely weathervane stamps that were released earlier this year. At the time of issue, they were only available as coils of 3,000 and 10,000 stamps. That's $1,350.00 or $4,500.00 if you're counting. I was resigned to admire them from afar. Even at the rate I write letters, 3,000 stamps at a go is a bit much for me.

Enter my superb and astouding pen pal Katherine. Katherine is one of those pen pals who always writes a satisfying letter and who often sends little surprises on a postal whim. Her joy truly lies in sending rather than receiving and I'm more than happy to be on the receiving end, although I do try to keep up. She sent me a package of beans from her garden once. Simple and meaningful and beautifully packaged things end up at my mail slot via Katherine's hand.

It turns out that Katherine lives near  the Shelburne Museum that displays these weathervanes. Her post office was granted a special privilege to break open two of the coils to sell to local residents. Unfortunately, Katherine was on vacation during the release and by the time she got there, the office was all sold out. They only had one coil left and they were not allowed to break any more than two. She had no choice. She bought the coil. Katherine is my hero.

She told me that she was concerned at what her husband might say when she told him how much money she'd just spent on stamps, but there was no need. She says he was just happy that they made her happy and that he knew she'd use them. Then, she sent some to me along with her sweet story. I asked her if I could share it and she agreed so now we all know how cool Katherine is and how mad she is for stamps.

Do you have an awesome pen pal? Show them you think they're swell by nominating them for our Perfect Pen Pal award! Log in to the Members Only site and go to the "downloads" section for the nomination form.

P.S. Katherine's story takes place prior to the U.S.P.S. realizing that these stamps were too great not to sell in smaller lots. You can now get a strip of 25 from the U.S.P.S. website.

Flickr Group Favorites: February

The Letter Writers Alliance has a Flickr group to which members and non-members can contribute. We have been always gotten some amazing images of incoming and outgoing mail (and other postal related items) on that group. We had some amazing mail in the pool for February, which made it very hard to choose what to feature this month. I had to stretch it out to a larger selection than last month. Hope you enjoy.

1. Outgoing 2/2012, 2. 2.7.12 Outgoing Mail, 3. First letter in my new workspace!
4. Outgoing Mail 3.5.12, 5. Ring pop valentine, 6. Untitled
7. Annie's giant pencil, 8. Untitled, 9. Tools of the Trade
10. Portrait of Admiral Abelmeyer, 11. A riot of colour, 12. Ready to mail
13. February - Auckland Letter Writing Club, 14. For Millicent, 15. incoming Feb 12 04