Letter Writers Alliance

Letters on the Radio

A  number of members have sent in some links to some BBC programming featuring letters recently. As with all BBC stuff, these links will expire; so get them while they're fresh!

The Power of the Pen

Posties

Love Letters From the Front

 

 

 

Epistolary Radio Shows

We've pointed you towards the 99% Invisible podcast previously for their coverage of postage stamp designs and pneumatic tubes, but they recently had a show on the Dead Letter Office. Appropriate for the season, no? 

Even more epistolary radio fun comes to us from the BBC. The Art of Correspondence may interest you. It is up on the Internet for the next month or so. Get your ears on and start the fun.

 

P.S. Thanks to the L.W.A. member readers who sent in these links to us!

How Stamps are Designed

Since I mentioned 99% Invisible on a recent post, I thought I'd share my favorite episode with you. It's all about how the U.S.P.S. goes about deciding what goes on our stamps. It's fascinating! (Plus, as a Chicagoan, I have a soft-spot for Julie Shapiro for her work with Third Coast Festival.) Do go have a listen.

Oh, and if you like it, check out the podcast on pneumatic tubes as well. That's how the show came to my attention in the first place. At Renegade fair, a woman came up and chatted with us about our Pneumatic Post Kit. Turns out, her name is Molly Wright Steenson  and she is somewhat of an expert on them. She was  interviewed for this show. All the shows are really worth listening to and I thank her for the recommendation. I hope you like it too. 

Letter Writer Charles Morrison

This video is from the Creative Mornings talk given by Charles Morrison, a professor and avid letter writer. He writes four letters each day, using a dip pen and ink, on topics he's collected for letter-writing. He's got whole files dedicated to things to write about and also consults dictionaries for other prompts. He wasn't always a letter writer; he started in 2001 as a way to connect with a dying relative. His letters were emails then, but he evolved his process after his sister passed away into actual letters.

In the article written by Mónica Guzmán for the Seattle Times, she mentions that "Morrison hopes for a handwritten letter every time he checks his mailbox — who doesn’t, even today? — but he has just one correspondent, one person of the more than 100 he writes to who regularly writes him back." Yet he keeps writing on and people keep asking him for letters. I am inspired and I hope he continues to "explore his curiousity" through letters. I was unable to locate an address for him, but I'll bet if you wanted to, you could write to him care of Cornish University where he is an adjunct professor.

50 Years of 5 Digits

{From the Smithsonian National Postal Museum: Doe Stella, from the Tucson, Arizona area, poses with Mr. Zip and the Post Office Department’s Director of Customer Relations in 1964. She, like other women across the country, was crowned Miss ZIP as part of the ZIP Code promotional campaign. (Posing with Mr. Zip 1964, courtesy Postal History Foundation, obtained from http://azmemory.lib.az.us).}

Last week, the ZIP code celebrated it's fiftieth anniversary. To promote it, they had beauty contests, their own theme song and a snappy mascot- Mr. Zip! By moving to machine readable numbers, the Post Office improved the letter sorting rate from, at best, 60 letters a minute by hand to 1700 letters a minute by machine. Here's a nice little blurb from NPR about it, as well as a list of famous ZIP codes.

I don't remember a time without ZIP. I've always liked those five numbers at the end of my address. What I do find myself wondering about is the "Plus Four". We all have an additional four numbers within our ZIP to further help with sorting. I can't remember a real concerted effort on behalf of the Post Office to get us to use them. Mr. Zip didn't get a sidekick or anything. How many of you use your Plus Four? 

 

P.S. Also, the winner of the Rad & Hungry review and giveaway was randomly chosen commentor number: 11, Karen J.S.  Please contact us with your member number and mailing address to claim your prize!

BackStory Radio: You've Got Mail

"You've got no mail; you've got no country!" Words from the BackStory radio program You've Got Mail: A History of the Post Office. From abolishionist propaganda mail to the pneumatic post office with its 60 miles of tubes beneath major American cities, this podcast is entertaining and educational. For example, did you know that lipstick was a problem for V-Mail? This podcast will tell you why and tell you what V-Mail is too! How about Camel Mail? Camel Mail? Camel Mail.

This is a great program and certainly worth a listen. The History Guys did a great job with this overview. Thanks to Allison for bringing it to our attention!

Did you listen? What did you think? Let us know in the comments, or, better yet, send the History Guys some mail. Their address is:

BackStory
c/o Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
145 Ednam Drive
Charlottesville, VA 22903-4629

 

"This I Believe"...Thank You Letters

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've probably noticed that I listen to National Public Radio on a pretty regular schedule. Recently, the This I Believe essay on the Bob Edwards Weekend show was all about the importance and satisfaction of writing thank you letters. I think we can all agree with the sentiments expressed by Michelle Lee. Give it a listen. Add your own notes about thank yous in the comments.

And thank you for reading,

Donovan

BBC Limited Series: The Peoples Post

Sharp-eyed {and eared} member Alice S. alerted me to a fantastic series going on right now at BBC 4. It's a 15-part program called The Peoples Post which will only be available for a limited time. There's aditional information from the British Postal Museum and Archive as well as on their blog, where the image above is from.

Happy Postal Listening,

Message in a Bottle

While I've never been walking on the shore and found the proverbial glass bottle, stoppered and sea-worn; I have been the lucky recipient of a few mailed messages in the bottle. It's funny what the P.O. will sometimes mail through and sometimes return, but it's totally worth it when an experiment pays off.

If you, like me, adore the romance of the message in the bottle, here's a great BBC documentary by Nina Perry about them. If you feel you want to send one yourself, but would like a little help, Margaret at Paper Pastries has you covered. Remember, if you do send a mail experiment and want to share it with us, put it up on the L.W.A. Flickr group!

P.S. Thanks to David for the link to the documentary!