Dear Bookish Friends,
I hope this letter finds you well. Have you read anything good lately? I have and I think it is something you really need to know about.
Doesn’t that make you excited? Oh what can it be? What can it be? Would you believe a new literary journal? And would you believe it is all written in letters? The Letters Page is published by the school of English at the University of Nottingham. They have thus far produced two issues and you can download them for free at the link above.
I had heard about them a number of months ago before they even published their first issue and then I forget about them. But my friend Cath emailed me the PDF of the first issue when it was published thereby reminding me and making me really happy. I let it sit for awhile being busy reading other things, but over this last weekend I finally read the first issue and then immediately went and downloaded the second issue, joined their mailing list and followed them on Twitter and Tumblr. I’ve not finished the second issue yet but I am enjoying it very much.
The journal is all letters. Letters as story, as memoir, as whatever one can do with a letter. And the journal editors get happy with footnotes, but don’t worry, they are fun/funny/enlightening notes that add to the pleasure of the letter. As in footnote number two in the letter from Magnus Mills:
It’s worth noting here that a significant proportion of the letters we received for this issue featured prominent apologies; for poor handwriting, for not coming to a conclusion, for not having fully understood the submission guidelines. (Hint: a guideline is not a rule.) And this editor has noticed, in a recent revival of personal correspondence- by-post, how easily people feel the burden
of letter writing. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t replied sooner,’ our letters all seem to begin, in the tone of a muttering student handing in a late assignment. Dear readers and fellow letter- writers, don’t be so burdened! Write, or don’t write, but enjoy it when you do. It’s nice to reply to a letter, but there’s no need to turn
it into a chore; after all, if there’s a message that can’t wait, you can always send an email. (Remember email?) One of our editorial board members, the poet and publisher Éireann Lorsung, puts it very well: ‘A letter,’ she tweeted recently, ‘is not a system of debt.’
A letter is not a system of debt, I like that.
Submissions are to be handwritten and sent through the post. The letters that make it into the journal are typed for easy reading, but they also include an image of all or part of the handwritten letter. And anyone can send a letter submission. How cool is that?
Since I am on the topic of letters, if you have found yourself missing the getting and sending of mail lately, you can join in a letter/card exchange hosted by The Estella Society. (via Iliana). You can sign up for 1, 3, or 5 letters and have until January 20th to do it, so don’t wait! You have to write a letter to get a letter!
Take care, be well, and happy reading.
Yours,
Stefanie
Dear S:
Thank you for your letter. I always enjoy receiving them, but I enjoy even more replying. Like now.
I regret I don’t write as many letters as I used to. Such is life, these days. Must go with the flow, I guess.
I used to write to my family. It began when I went to camp as a young child and was ask to write everyday. Sometimes I found it hard to say anything. I was told to tell us what you ate.
Dear Mom and Dad: Tonight I had a burger and fries. Love, Richard
Then I started writing real letters each week. But now everyone in my family is gone, so there is no one around to write to. Sadness envelops my soul.
However, I do have one letter writing friend, a person I’ve never met and don’t imagine I ever will. She is erudite, a scholar in the best sense, lives the life of the mind. We exchange letters each month. How I enjoy that.
Thank you for bearing with me,for your newsy letter and suggestions. It was kind of you to write.
As ever, R
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Dear R,
It is hard to write letters like we used to when the culture doesn’t support such a thing any longer, which is indeed a regret.
I had foreign pen pals when I was a kid and began writing letters in earnest when I went off to college. I have enjoyed a 20+ year correspondence with my grandmother and when she died a year ago I was very sad knowing I will never get another letter from her again. She was 98 and I was apparently the only one she still wrote to. But I have kept all that she wrote me and they are a treasure. I hope you still have the letters your family has written you. I imagine you do.
My best childhood friend, whom I have known since I was 5, and I correspond regularly, bless her for that. Her now teenage daughters are tickled that we write letters. I send them birthday cards with notes in them and they have begun doing to same to me. Perhaps one day it will blossom into letters.
You know I am always glad to write and even happier to hear from you.
All the best,
S
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I still haven’t checked out the newsletters but am looking forward to doing that this weekend. I was mentioning to someone else that I’m getting very excited about Start Write and look forward to digging out my stationary paper. Maybe even do a bit of mail art! 🙂
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Iliana, I hope you enjoy them, they are very fun. I signed up for three letters at Start Write. I am hoping that at least one of them turns into some sort of regular correspondence. And a bit of mail art is always fun 🙂
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Oh gosh…the mental vibrations going on along the Internet. Just yesterday I was on the web looking for…stationery! Yes. Stationery! And a new fountain pen. I finally sighed and gave up. “Who in the devil writes real letters anymore?” I asked myself. “Just a waste of money on paper you’ll use to jot down a grocery list,” I said to myself – sadly. Of course, I then remembered I had received Christmas cards from old friends and I hadn’t sent any. I want to reform. Thank you for this link.
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Oh dear Grad, don’t give up! Have you been to Goulet Pens? It’s like crack for fountain pen lovers. I have bought pens and ink from them and they are fantastic. I still write letters and I know a few others who do too since we write to each other. I would also be thrilled to have a letter from you, or, if you’d like, I would love to send a letter to you, I just need your address 🙂
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Oh my, this is so exciting! Thank you so much for sharing, I look forward to exploring all the lettery goodness 🙂
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Melwyk, I thought of you while I was reading the first issue. I hope you enjoy it!
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Dear Stefanie
Thank you for your fascinating post! I will definitely have a look at that journal. I hadn’t heard of it – you always have your finger on the pulse, as it were.
The only physical letters I write these days are thank-you letters – I finished the Christmas ones a couple of weeks ago. Receiving a proper, paper letter is a joy, isn’t it? My mother is a great sender-of-postcards, which is also lovely. On the other hand, email allows people to send me – and me to send them – far more electronic letters than we ever wrote on paper, so I feel much more involved with them.
All very best wishes
Helen
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I will look this up. Interesting to see Magnus Mills involved – his novel The Restraint Of Beasts was nominated for the Booker prize in the 1990s and he is a very interesting comic novelist.
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Ian, there are quite a few “names” with letters in the journal. It really is wonderful.
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Dear Helen,
It was so kind of you to write back. I hope you enjoy the journal. It is something truly different and, I think, proves that letters aren’t dead yet.
I do love the sending and receiving of letters, they are gifts especially now when so few people write on paper. I understand about email too. I email a few friends with whom I also correspond through the post but it seems we save our most interesting thoughts for paper, which I believe delights all of us.
Should you ever wish for a paper letter, I’d be more than happy to write you one, just email me your address 🙂
All the best,
Stefanie
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That’s very cool indeed! I am off to check out the link (and download the issues myself!). I like the laid-back approach to it all. It’s meant to be fun and not a chore! Though I quite enjoy our correspondance and look forward to the sending and getting–as a matter of fact I have a postcard addressed right now and will be mailing it soon… I joined the letter exchange, too! 🙂
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Danielle, I think you will like the journal very much. I very much enjoy our correspondence and just put a card in the mail to you this morning 🙂 I know you signed up for the letter exchange, I noticed your comment there! I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if one of us drew the other’s name?
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Whilst on the topic of letters, have you had the chance to see the Letter of Note website? It contains some of the more famous (and scandalous) missives, but also includes Hemingway, Forster, a host of other authors. I heard somewhere that Hemingway and Forster kept up quite a close correspondence – now that would be something to read!
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Ian, yes, I have seen that website! I am not a regular reader of it but I pop over for a look now and then. Thanks for the reminder! I had no idea Hemingway and Forster had a close correspondence. Such an odd pairing!
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The quality of the letters in The Letters Page is high isn’t it? So much inspiration.
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Cath, they are wonderful. Thanks for that email reminding me about it!
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The English Department at Nottingham has a very good reputation and so I will definitely checking this out. They also have a very interesting MOOC starting later in the year on how we build a picture of fictional characters in our minds. It’s on the FutureLearn platform and is going to be the first of a series.
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Alex, well that’s good to know. And thanks for the tip on the class at FutureLearn. They don’t have it listed yet for signing up but I saw the cognitive poetics class and signed up for that one. Only two weeks in March and it looks kind of interesting. Are you currently doing the Hamlet class?
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Yes, it’s funny watching the people I work with week in and week out on video. I think Michael had the level of material right this week but I do wonder at how little they offer in comparison with the Coursera modules. This seems to be common to all FutureLearn courses and something I think they will need to address. I’m now looking forward to next week which Martin is doing because he is an unqualified genius with all the ‘baggage’ that goes with that. He is normally a brilliant lecturer but if he didn’t by any chance really want to do this then it could be disastrous. The one thing it won’t be is mediocre!
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I suppose it will take some time to get course offerings worked out. I am really glad the cognitive poetics course is so short. I feel like I can dip in my toe without getting too bogged down with a full class. Glad the Hamlet course is going pretty well!
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I’m having that same feeling about Future Learn -my first experience with them was very poor, there was so little meat to the topic each week and none of the ‘further reading’ resources we had with Coursera.
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Heh, what a great idea. The peeps at the university of Nottingham must have been pleased with themselves to come up with such a cool notion. I’m not a great letters fan, but this is something I’ll definitely check out.
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Litlove, it is clever and a good way to distinguish their journal from everyone else’s. Definitely not more of the same!
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I’ve been indulging in those letters – what struck me was how fresh those voices sounded. I spotted a reference that in their first issue there was a letter by Colum McCann so clearly this idea has some illustrious contributors
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There’s one from Kevin Barry too I noticed. Fascinating project. And, I don’t feel anywhere near as badly now about the quality of my handwriting.
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I had the exact opposite reaction – no way would I show my handwriting to anyone.
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Dear Stefanie
I’m so sorry1 that I didn’t read your letter more promptly as I’ve missed the deadline for the letter/card exchange. Serves me right, eh?
Now, what has been happening in my life? Well, for one, last week, I went to my monthly Jane Austen Society meeting. As you know, I think, we have been discussing her letters bit by bit over the years. This year will be the last bit. I’m feeling rather sad about that.
Letters in fact seem to have been a feature of my week. I also saw the film The Railway Man. Letters were important in that story because the subject of this biopic, Eric Lomax, became friends with the Japanese interpreter who’d been involved in his torture and they maintained a friendship for 17 years or so, mostly by letter. I saw a documentary about them too, and it was a letter from Lomax’s wife to the Japanese man that initiated their first contact.
Now, as it’s always best to do things in threes, I need to come up with one more letter story. Ah, I know. Today I received my weekly letter from my good friend in California. The day her letter arrives is always a red-letter (ha!) day. She told me about her daughter who’d been home for Christmas. This daughter moved to Minneapolis last year to go to Law School, and is finding it very cold. She’s decided she won’t send back after all, the “ugly” mail-ordered coat that “looks like a big sleeping bag”! Only mad people live in Minneapolis, surely, I’ll write back to her!
And now, I think I’ve bored you enough. Although you did tell me that a letter is not a system of debt, I sure would love a reply.
Yours in cyberspace,
Gummie
1 I’m sorry, I always apologise in letters!
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Dear Gummie,
Thanks for your wonderful letter! Definitely nor boring. It certainly has been a week filled with letters for you, isn’t that such a good feeling?
I can understand being a sad about finishing up with Austen’s letters after spending so much time with them. I imagine it might be a bit like she has stopped writing to you. What will you do next? Did Jane keep a diary?
Railway Man sounds like a good film. It is amazing how important a part of life letters can be. Do you think emails and texts will be as important in relationships as letters have been? I don’t think they will and that seems a loss to me and makes me sad.
The story about your California friend’s daughter made me laugh. I am afraid fashionable outer wear goes out the window when it gets as cold as it does here. No one cares about looking good, we just care about being warm and not getting frostbite! Perhaps those of us who call Minneapolis home are a bit mad, especially those of us who came here from California and decided to stay. If nothing else, your friend’s daughter can take comfort in knowing she will only have to spend one more winter here and she will likely never be as cold as she is now. She will have some good stories to tell the fair weather folk in California!
I hope you have been having a wonderful summer. I heard something about a drought there but maybe not in your area?
Wishing you all the best,
Stefanie
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Dear Stefanie,
Thanks for doing me the honour of a detailed reply. However,mI fear I don’t have the time for a full reply now. My yoga mat is calling.
I may write again soon, but please accept my apologies in advance if it takes a while.
Yours in blog land, always,
Gummie
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Dear Gummie,
No worries! A letter is not a system of debt and the mat yoga should not be neglected! No need to apologize 🙂
Yours,
Stefanie
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