Letter Writers Alliance

You're Wrong About... Going Postal

I've mentioned I am not a fan of the phrase "going postal." While it does have a historic, cultural precedence, I really hate how it's become short-hand for something so awful and that it is associated with something I love so much. (See also, "drinking the Kool-Aid," not that I love Kool-Aid the way I love the Post Office, but I think you take my meaning.) While I learned a little about it from our L.W.A. Book Club pick, Neither Snow Nor Rain, I learned a lot more from the podcast called You're Wrong About. In it, two writers, Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall, who are my age, explore the news stories from their youth and what we have misremembered about them. In addition to things like Iran-Contra and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, they also examine how the phrase "going postal" became a part of our national lexicon. I recommend this podcast highly. I've learned a lot about what I didn't really know, but thought I did, in listening to their back catalog. All curious persons should give it a listen.

Write Me a Letter Playlist

Back in 2015, L.W.A. member and Chicago neighbor, Eliza, put together a playlist featuring all sorts of letter writing themed songs. She has added a lot more songs and moved the list over to Spotify. Thanks for sharing, Eliza! We appreciate it!

P.S. This image comes from a music learning game that I found online. I wish it were a mail learning game that used music, and not the other way around, but beggars and choosers and Google Image search users and all that. 

The Postcardist Podcast

The Postcardist Podcast, by Frank Roche, came across my radar because the recent episode features Sissy Cross of the Lone Star Letter Writers. There's over 50 episodes. I haven't listened to them all, but what I have heard is a real cozy time. I believe it's something ya'll might enjoy. Check it out.

People's Post on the BBC

A member, who requested anonymity, sent us a link to this great BBC Radio 4 series titled The People's Post: A Narrative History of the Post Office. It's a great listen. Get to it soon because the content over at the BBC rotates out rather swiftly. Thanks for the tip, Mysterious Member!

"Dearest Joan"

From a letter I received from Member Liz in Nanimo:

"I write to bring your attention to a radio program I listened to recently on CBC Radio (Canadian Broadcasting Company). The program is entitled "Dearest Joan." Now, that's a title that grabs the attention of a letter writing enthusiast indeed!

"Dearest Joan" is a program from "The Doc Project". Doc as in documentary, and can be found at www.cbc.ca/radio/docproject. The programs tell the story of now 90-year-old Joan Gillis, who when she was a 13-year-old girl in 1942 in British Columbia went against the tide of the horrible prejudice of the time when people of Japanese-Canadian ethnicity were being demonized and victimized by opportunistic Anti-Asian sentiment in a government-sanctioned act of ethnic cleansing. Joan steadfastly stood by her school friends who with their families (22,000 people in total!) were torn from their schools, jobs, homes, properties in BC and forced to live in Interment camps and work on farms as labourers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Joan wrote to her friends, and received their letters in return. Luckily she had the wisdom to keep these letters, postcards, pictures, envelopes (147 in total) and she has now donated this treasure trove to be kept safe and sound in the archives department of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 

These letters are powerful. They give voice to the teenage experience of war. They speak of loneliness and homesickness, as well as the harsh conditions and manual labour these kids were forced to endure. We in the Letter Writers Alliance know in our guts the power, beauty, magic of the humanity of a written letter. This documentary show us the power of how letters can endure the passage of time and stand as a witness to history to make us accountable for our actions as a country."

Thank you for sharing, Liz. Your letter is also powerful. 

Music to Write Letters To

Everyone writes letters in their own way. Some people require a meditative silence, others can scribe their thoughts anywhere. I'm somewhere between. I can't seem to focus in complete quiet. What really works for me is either writing outside on my porch or in a cafe or coffeehouse. If I can't get out, I'll keep myself company with "Chill Hop". 

I'm not a big music lover. I don't listen to the radio. I once, hilariously, turned to my husband and said, "I am an old. Please, what is Trap Music?" He knows and cares far more about music than I. We also share a home office/studio space. So, sometimes he'll put something on and I'll really like it. Well, I really, really like this. The slight movement in the animation and the relaxing music work together to help me compose my letters. There's a few different YouTube videos up and sometimes they stream live, like the radio I suppose, but through YouTube. 

Since it helps me work, I'm sharing. Do you write your letters to music? What kind? 

Pen Pals By Radio

BBC Radio 4 has a great program up for listening right now all about pen pals. Many of you sent in this link and I thank you for it. It's in the negative numbers temperature-wise in Chicago, and there's nothing better than cozying up and listening to stories of things that I love. I hope you enjoy it too!

International Postage Fees

I ordered a piece of my Halloween costume from China. The shipping was paltry for something that needs an International flight to reach me. A recent Planet Money segment from NPR sheds some light on why the fees are so low. 

"China delivers a lot of small packages to the United States. But under current agreements, it doesn't send much stamp money to the U.S. to pay for our postal trucks and our mail carriers. That's why you can order a tiny adapter from Shanghai and only get charged a few bucks for delivery. In fact, U.S. companies like Amazon have complained that the U.S. postal system is essentially subsidizing Chinese shipping." -Robert Smith, of the Planet Money team. You can read the whole transcript or listen to the audio here. It's a short piece, but clear and thought provoking.

This is where the Universal Postal Union comes in. It used to be that mail to and fro was less one-sided. It was assumed that the resources one country expended handling another country's mail would be recouped in the reply. Nowadays, they have big regulatory meetings to decide who gets what portion of that $1.15 stamp used to send your letter to Jakarta, or Istanbul, or Vancouver. China's discount will be going to just 50% come 2020. That seems more fair. I'm glad I don't have to crunch the numbers to decide these things. 

Your Postal Podcast

I love the new world of radio given to us by podcasting. There's so much good stuff out there. Add to the pile "Your Postal Podcast" which has been highlighting postal stories since 2008. I particularly like how you can sort by category. Do you have an interesting postal podcast to share? Let us know in the comments!  

Postal Rankings and the Happiness Index

Canadian member Liz sent over a nice note about this CBC radio program Spark. She thought our members would be curious to learn about "what mail can show us about economic growth." Turns out, the postal patterns of a country directly relate to the "Happiness Index" of that country. You can listen to the program here. It is part of a larger story about communication which is pretty fascinating, but if you'd like to skip to the mail-related portion of the show, go to time mark 37:20. Liz says she hopes the story inspires L.W.A. members to start pen pal relationship with people residing in countries with a lower "postal partners ranking" to help increase the world's Happiness Index. That's a great idea, Liz. Thanks for sharing!