Letter Writers Alliance

The Traveling Christmas Card

The Irish Times has a sweet article about two friends who have passed the same Christmas card between one another for the past 63 years. Faithfully, since 1956, the two friends, Eunice Baily and Clare Brazil, have given each other the card on alternating years. “Isn’t it a credit to the post office that it’s never been lost,” Eunice said. Why yes, Eunice, it is! And it's a credit to you and Clare that you've kept with it all these years. The Irish Times has all the details and more pictures of the "famous" card. I love how they've added pages to it over the years. This is quality, heart-warming holiday content.

Love & Letters Written

Letters are a constant source of amazement for me. We've been running L.W.A. since 2007 and I'm still overwhelmed by the sheer love that the mail can contain. Thank you all for sharing in this tangible cross connection magic that is mail. One of my pen pals, Barbara, just wrote me me about a story over on Handwritten (who are also my pen pals) about her pen pals Jim & Donna. They have a long-distance letter writing romance that is as about as heart-warming as it gets. I love everything about this, but am so enamored by the overlapping circles of letters happening here. I thank them for sharing. I thank Barbara for linking. I thank Handwritten for hosting. I thank you for reading. 

Unlikely Pen Pals

The friendly people over at Moo.com, makers of quality cards and stickers and such, sent over an article he wrote about pen pals to share with us. It's a fun exploration of people's unexpected relationships formed through letters. Enjoy and thanks Moo!

Letter writing is often described as a lost art, but if these letters are anything to go by, it’s one that should be revived. Once the predominate method of long distance communication, letters tell a story long after the people who wrote them can. And, as we’ve discovered, there can often be a very interesting story to tell! Who’d have thought some of these pairs would be in correspondence? 

“I love you very much and wish you luck. Wish me some too. Book is on page 592.”

Ernest Hemingway to Marlene Dietrich

After meeting aboard a ship bound for New York, author Ernest Hemingway and actress Marlene Dietrich struck up a risqué friendship which saw the pair exchange a series of love letters. Addressing Dietrich as ‘Dearest Kraut’ and signing off ‘Papa’, the letters caused quite a stir when sent to auction earlier this year.

 “Do not for a moment suppose that I have ever thought of you but with a pleasant recollection.”

Charles Dickens to Edgar Allen Poe

Whilst in the US in 1842, Charles Dickens met with poet Edgar Allen Poe who asked the renowned author to help get his book published in England. A man of his word, Dickens tried his best and later wrote Poe to inform him of his failure to find any interest. Despite this, reports suggest that the feelings between the pair were frosty. 

“Try to understand me: I love you while paying attention to external things. At Toulouse I simply loved you. Tonight I love you on a spring evening.”

Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir

The love affair between French philosophers and writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir has been well documented; however letters between the pair give a deeper insight into their open relationship. Following Sartre’s death, de Beauvoir published edited versions of the letters they sent to each other. 

“In the course of the last four months it has been made probable…that it may become possible to set up a nuclear change reaction.”

Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt

In 1939, physicist Leó Szilárd convinced Albert Einstein he should inform President Roosevelt about the possibility of atomic bombs following the discovery of nuclear fissure. Dictated by Szilárd and written by fellow physicist Wigner, the letter was then signed by Einstein before being sent to the President, who subsequently convened a board. This letter sparked a chain of correspondence between the physicist and the leader of free world.

 This post was written by Rob Young at MOO, the digital printer and business card specialists. To start creating truly remarkable products visit MOO online today. 

Letters Outside the Box

The first letter to start off the pen pal relationship.

A few weeks ago I got an interesting letter from LWA member David Solomon. He wrote to us about how he became pen pals with a friend of a friend, who he didn't know, and how it turned into an amazing pen pal relationship.

At first, they mailed letters conventionally through USPS, but then David thought of another way to deliver letters to his new pen pal Tiffany.

Voice recorder with an audio letter tape & the box it came in that Tiffany left under David's car

Drop locations, scavenger hunts, audio letters - without even thinking about it, they were expanding what their personal correspondence could be. Here is an excerpt from David's letter explaining how this started:

She was also a student at FSU. In the Fall, I sent her a short letter telling her to go to the campus library and go to a certain floor and look for a certain book and flip to a certain page. In this book was another book she was to go to. And so on until she ended up at the National Geographic section of the library to find a handmade booklet made for her including random things such as a play I wrote for her, a to-do list, recommended reading, a poem, etc. This started our new correspondence via a drop spot in the library.

We walked the same paths, but never saw each other, which added some excitement and intimacy to our relationship. Two years later and we are still friends. In fact, I consider her my best friend...and yet, we have spent no time in the other's presence.
        - Personal correspondence with David Solomon

A photo Tiffany took of herself reading the zine David made her, which was the final object of the scavenger hunt he sent her on in the library. She's reading it right where she found it.

I think this speaks volumes of how intimate letter writing and the pen pal relationship can be. This also is a great example of how letter writing can be expanded upon, outside of the realm of envelopes, or even paper. Perhaps this will give Initiative Response participants some ideas for their "Out of the Box" tasks?

Thank you to David and Tiffany for allowing me to share their story with fellow LWAers.

-Kathy

P.S. David has been recording his astounding outgoing mail on his blog Because I Really Felt It. I was extra impressed by his "Book as Envelope" mailing.

-Donovan