Letter Writers Alliance

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!

Crafty Wonderland

I hope to see each and every letter-lover and craft-wonderer there! Our booth number is 160. As for a letter writing social in Portland that I wanted to do, it turns out that Sunday is a little day called Mother's Day and places were booked already or closed or expensive to rent. Next time, Portland! Next time! There *MAY* be a social sans letter writing at some local watering hole. Follow the calendar and our Twitter {@dovbee @_LWA} for breaking updates on that front. See you in Portland!

This just in: Donovan will be "meeting & greeting" Alliance members on Sunday, May 13th from 3PM - 6PM at Lucky Lab Pub on Hawthorne in Portland, OR! There won't be any sanctioned letter writing at the meet, but bring your address to swap with others if you are so inclined. Donovan *may* have little prizes...

Typewriters on Parade in Urbana, IL

We took our show on the road last weekend to the Mini Maker Faire in Urbana, IL. We took with us a flock of pigeons, a store of stationery and a brigade of typewriters. All these things combined to make us a hit success at the fair. Our booth was full of eager letter writers all day.
A special thanks again to the Appleton Coated company for their sponsorship. The Conqueror paper they sent us is "like buttah" in the typewriters.
I even went so far as to print it in color to mimick the MAKE magazine logo. It looked so nice that people could not believe we were giving it away for free.
Jealous of all the fun these guys are having? Remember to join us at our next social for Atlas Obscura Day, tomorrow, Saturday the 28th, at the Read/Write Library. You can get your hands on some of that super nice Conqueror paper in a brand-new commemorative design for the day. A ticket is only required IF you want the special L.W.A. membership card. As always, we are hosting the social for free and donations to Read/Write Library are welcomed.

P.S. A little pigeon told  me that this social is also an Elsewhere Philatellic Society stamp window. Please bring your passport to be stamped. Visas will also be available upon providing of an S.A.S.E.

The Vanishing Post Office

Heads up, Post Office fans in the Chicago area! A Twitter tip from LWA member Kimberly alerted us to this free event at the Oak Park Public library tonight. From their website:

Oak Park resident and life-long photographer Jim Krysan will make a presentation about his photographic essay, “Small-town Post Offices in Eastern South Dakota: A Photographic Odyssey,” on Monday, March 26 at 7 pm at Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake Street. The photo essay was recently published in the annual Historic Preservation Issue of South Dakota History, a journal of the South Dakota State Historical Society. The program, cosponsored by the Oak Park Photography Club, is free and open to the public.

Jim Krysan said “The buildings in small towns attracted the photographer in me, and I came to see post offices as a common denominator among the towns. Among the hundreds of buildings I had photographed in South Dakota towns in the mid 1970s, 57 were post offices. We left South Dakota for the West Coast, then the East Coast, and in 2002 we settled in Oak Park – only a day’s drive from Eastern South Dakota. I decided to photograph the post offices again.”

As always, if you attend the event and send us some photos and review, we'll send you an Inkling. Inklings are for things you do above-and-beyond just writing letters!

Cherry Blossom Centennial Stamp Release and Party

If any Alliance members attend and send us a report with pictures for the blog, they'll earn an Inkling! I wish I could be there! This beautiful se-tenant issue makes me want to send all kinds of heavy letters.

And the winner is....

We recently asked you all to participate in a decorated envelope, or "cover" in philatellic terms, contest to celebrate that we had reached 2000 members. The gallery was put up on Flickr for voting and they were all great, but it's, you know, a contest; so the winner was determined by the number of unique comments left on the photo. Super-scientific processes over here at Headquarters, you guys. I have carefully ennumerated all of the comments and determined that our grand prize winner is:

Second Place:

Our grand prize winner will recieve an LWA felt award and a collection of Cavallini printed tape, all to know how awesome they are at making neat things and to make new neat things. Our runner up will also recieve some Cavallini tape! Yay for multiple prizes. Yay for contests. Yay for mail art. Yay for eveyone who participated. I hope it was enjoyable for everyone and that we can do it again sometime.

P.S. I have a mail story to tell you about this Cavallini tape...

P.P.S.  Don't forget to write some letters with us Saturday for your chance to win issue 12 of Uppercase!

Sat., March 3rd • 3pm - 6pm
Read/Write Library
914 N. California | Chicago, IL 60622

Your Present from the Postal Museum

The National Postal Museum just announced a new online exhibition called "Systems at Work". You can use the interactive site to explore how your mail gets around the world using the U.S.P.S. from 1808 to today.

From the About the Exhibit page:

"You drop a letter in a mailbox and then what happens? You receive mail at home or the office-- how does it get there? The answer to these questions unfolds in Systems at Work, a new permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum.

Those pieces of mail join roughly 700 million others that are sorted and delivered to 150 million addresses six days a week. The service depends on an astonishing network of people and technology that collects, transports, processes, and delivers the mail.

The exhibit uses objects, graphics, multimedia, and interactives, to guide you to the heart of the matter--the people and machines whose daily work keeps the mail moving."

 

There are lots of real treasures in this exhibit. Films and stories abound. Make a cup of tea and stay a while. Learn all about mail and mail history! Thanks NPM!

DIY Trunkshow 2011

Come out, come out and visit us and our friendly mascot at the DIY TRUNKSHOW this Saturday! We'll have fair exclusives for sale as well as our regular stock and some of our vintage postal finds. It's our first fair of the holiday season and we are so excited!

Snail Mail Social

You guys got it? Snail Mail Social on October 8th from 1-4PM at Arch Drafting Supplies in San Francisco. Rumor has it you might could snag a snazzy L.W.A. red pencil at this fine event if you get while the getting's good.

P.S. And, AND!, there's another letter-writing get-together at the Stardust Cafe in Craftsbury, Vermont on October 7th from 6:30PM-8:30PM. Letter-writing from coast-to-coast!

Renegade Chicago Summer 2011!

It's that time again! Come see us and stock up on all your letter-writing supplies. Rumor has it that we'll have a typewriter there if you'd like to send a note from the fair itself. We'll be collecting your letters there to mail out and we'll stamp them with the official L.W.A. date stamper in commemoration.

Below is the fair layout - we are in Booth 242, east of Wolcott Avenue, on the North side of the street. Click to view full size.

Let us know you read this blog and I'll give you a free little gift. So, stop by and say hello!

Division Street in Wicker Park, September 10 + 11 from 11am – 7pm! Free-to-attend. See the Renegade Website for more.

See you there,

Kathy + Donovan