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!
We've got another workshop at West Town Library this week. Space is limited and an R.S.V.P. is required. Be prepared to get in front of the camera and use what develops in unique ways. By incorporating instant photos, we'll show you how to personalize your Mother's Day cards this year. Snap, cut, and stick - this workshop will change your correspondence from blah to bold. Bring your address book and some stamps; we'll provide the rest of the materials.
Say Cheese and Stamps Please,
P.S. I took these photobooth pictures with the express purpose of turning them into postcards. I enlarged them and wrote my message on the blank space. What we're doing at the workshop is a similar sort of concept.
We get a lot of mail at the Letter Writers Alliance P. O. Box. Much of it is decorated or out-of-the-ordinary in some fashion and the postal clerks at my branch have taken notice. "You get such creative mail," they say. I think they enjoy it as much as we do.
Kathy and I often post our incoming and outgoing mail to our Instagram accounts (Donovan & Kathy) and to the Flickr group for the Letter Writers Alliance. Embracing these technological tools can enhance the mail experience. We're all about blending with digital to improve the tangible here at the Alliance. In that spirit, I recently figured out how to make a little video of a particularily interesting piece of mail that came in to the mailbox. Enjoy and we hope to have more videos to share soon!
Pieritz Bros. is one of my favorite places in Chicago. I love taking the Green Line to the Ridgeland Stop and seeing the flower pots painted like pencils flanking the front door. I love all of the old typewriters and other office equipment squirreled around the merchandise. I love the merchandise: Le Pens in all colors, Rhodia notebooks, typewriter ribbons, stock certificates, fountain pens and all other manner of office supplies.
When Carolee came to visit, Kathy and I took her on an excursion here and John was happy to talk to us for an hour about old stock and pens and typewriters. He also graciously allowed us to set up a time for letter writing social right in the store! Please join us on Saturday, April 6th for letter writing. We'll have free stationery and typewriters out for you to use. The social is from 1PM - 4PM. Pieritz Bros. is at 401 S Blvd # 4 Oak Park, IL 60302. It's also, like I mentioned above, right off the Green Line at Ridgeland. Pull out your pocket money because there just might be some older stock for sale from the vaults!
Kathy and I just restocked our vintage section on the member
site with all kinds of postal and office items. If you’ve been hunting for a
rubber stamp carousel or two, now’s your chance. Plus, we have even more (Hint: more typewriters and stamp dispensers!) in the next couple of weeks. We might even have more old
postal stamps in our next update.
We have also added items to the 16 Sparrows shop and released the glow-in-the-dark Letter Writers Alliance buttons for sale. We have only a limited quantity of them and when they are sold out, that will be the last of the L.W.A. buttons. We’re also now selling our snazzy “You have to send a letter to get a letter” postcards. All kinds of new fun! Thanks for making us creative and pushing us to make more mail.
I originally posted this love note to letter writing on my personal blog back in September. Donovan thought I should share this post with the LWA community. I hope you agree. - Kathy
I hear a lot of different comments when someone finds out I co-run The Letter Writers Alliance. One of the ones I never really understand is "So you must really hate email!" I suppose I get the reaction - because I am promoting an analog way of communication, I must want to abolish the digital version that is slowly dragging it to its grave, right? Yeah, not really.
Firstly, I don't consider letter writing a "dying art." It is very much alive, but it is gaining popularity in a different way than what it used to be. There is a tool for every job, and that is exactly how I feel about email, Twitter, and letters. They all have their place in our daily lives, Donovan and I are just trying to make letters more of an everyday occurrence.
There is no denying that letters are the most intimate form of long-distance correspondence we have available, but it must also live side by side with our digital lives. A lot of my mail art ideas come from things I see online, free downloads I find, or from a museum's digital archives. I gather what I see in the digital and turn it into a physical communication. That is how letter writing will survive now. No matter how easy technology makes our lives, you can never take away our desire to create something tangible and our want to share that with someone we admire.
Where to start? 365 days is a lot of letter writing time. I haven't really got hard numbers for the amount of letters I sent, but I average around 85 a month which gives a ball park of a little over 1000 pieces of mail. So that's just one (admittedly fairly prolific) member at work. As of 12:01AM on January 1, 2013, we have 3,407 members in the Letter Writers Alliance. If half of them are half as active as I am in their letter writing, that's still 850,000 letters sent by members last year. DID YOU SEE THAT NUMBER?
Let's be even more pessimistic. Let's suppose that only a quarter of our members are a quarter as busy writing letters as I am. That's around 212,500 letters sent last year by members. GOOD LORD THAT'S A LOT OF LETTERS. In U.S.P.S. First Class stamps, that's $95,625.00
Feel free to leave your End of Year numbers in the comments. There were a couple left on our "2013" post which inspired me to make these calculations. Thanks for writing so many letters. Now go write more!
It's only the ninth day of the year and we've already got socials on the books! Our first two socials of the new year are just around the corner and they are in two different states! Yes, we are taking the show on the road again. This time, not too far from our Chicago headquarters, but in February we will be hosting a social in Indianapolis, Indiana at the lovely Indy Reads Books.
This Saturday, we are in our beloved Read/Write Library here in Chicago. All the details are below. Stop by, write a letter, and try out one of typewriters. Both socials are free to attend and will have free stationery, envelopes, and supplies for your use.
Jan. 12th (Saturday) - Chicago, IL
Read/Write Library
1pm-4pm
914 N. California Ave., 60622
[Entrance on Walton St.]
Feb 2nd (Saturday)
- Indianapolis, IN
Indy Reads Books, event run by Trade School Indianapolis
1pm-4pm
911 Massachusetts Ave., 46202
Sign-up required. RSVP here.
Remember to check the calendar for all upcoming letter socials and other L.W.A. events, and we hope to see you soon,
Kathy + Donovan
This year, don't' forget to write more letters.
Happy new year from the Letter Writers Alliance,
Donovan & Kathy
Nothing sadder than a NIXIE. A gentle reminder to write your addresses clearly in you rpen pal requests and to check those Paypal addresses when you order goodies from the LWA or 16 Sparrows.
First class letters
1 ounce: 46¢
2 ounces: 66¢
3 ounces: 86¢
3.5 ounces: $1.06
postcard: 33¢
square env.: add 20¢
International Letter Rates
Canada & Mexico
(up to 2oz) $1.10
Other countries
(up to 1oz) $1.10
Copy and paste the code to add the LWA button to your website or blog.
