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On April 14th, the Letter Writers Alliance reached 2,500 members! Donovan and I both thought we were the only one who cared about letter writing anymore until we met each other and started the Alliance. Now we have over 2,500 card carrying letter writers proving that letters are still awesome.
While I am on the topic of awesome mail, although we send you all thank you notes back, I would like to publicly express just how important your thank you letters are to us. The LWA is something Donovan and I do in our "spare" time and we keep at it because we love it and truly believe letter writers around the world need to know there are other like-minded folks out there. We are working at making the sense of the LWA Community stronger between members, because you all are quite amazing people. We see that everyday with the awesome letters you send us. Thank you for sending us these notes and thank you for making the LWA awesome.
-Kathy & Donovan
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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."
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The mirroring in this stamp is kinda trippy, no? I flop back-and-forth between liking and not liking it. I think I would be more favorable towards it if it were an illustration rather than a photograph, like the Arizona stamp of recent issue. Still, I do like it better than the previous Louisiana stamp. You can read more about this stamp design at Beyond the Perf. It will be released today.
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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.
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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.
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This block of ten stamps was issued on Saturday in Los Angeles, CA. It features promenient poets of the twentieth century. Not that I don't already love her poetry, but Gwendolyn Brook's photo makes her seem like someone I would really enjoy hanging out with. Seriously, she looks like a lady who knows how to have a good time. Everyone elses' photos look like "I am a serious poet." Can I just buy the Gwendolyn stamps? She makes me happy.
You can read more about these poets and their stamps on Beyond the Perf. The First Day of Issue postmark for these features typewriter keys. Bonus!
Being released tomorrow are these two stamps commemorating the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. Underwhelming in my opinion, but I do like the neutral colored border instead of just white. I find the FDOI black and white postmark superior in design to the color one.
Lastly, we have a stamp celebrating the artistry of José Ferrer as part of the Distinguished Americans series. It's another colored border stamp. I like this trend.
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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.
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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!
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:
Our neighbor to the North, Jaime's blog has photos that bring me to a very calm place, full of stamps and good mail:
A tumblr blog devoted to what we are all devoted to; the love of mail:
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!
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PostSecret has been around since 2004. It is a place where people can send in their secrets anonymously via postcard and some show up on the PostSecret blog. They can be fun, touching, heart-breaking, weird and a bunch of other things besides. To date, the creator of the PostSecret project, Frank Warren, has recieved over 500,000 postcards. He recently did a talk on the project at TedTalks. I enjoyed it and I think you might too. {I have embedded it here, but it plays better on their site.}
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Letter Socials:
TBA
Host your own Social!
Tips on how right here.
Then email us to add your social to the LWA calendar.
Copy and paste the code to add the LWA button to your website or blog.
