Dear Letter-writers and potential letter-writers,

Happy Spring from the Modern Letter Project headquarters. Our heads have been spinning as this project grows, and now that this project is officially a year old, we've decided to take some time off so we can take a breather, and rebuild the project in ways we've long been wanting to. Over the next few months, we'll be developing the technological infrastructure to support growing membership, including ways to track sent/received letters, create personal histories, and an administrative system to manage address updates and changes. We've provided some information below which we hope will answer your questions:

Why are you putting MLP on hiatus?
We've learned a lot from this first year of running the project, but due to the extreme growth of the project from 50 to ~ 350 people in a dozen countries with almost 50 people on a waiting list to join, we want to implement both the technology and management to make sure letter-receiving becomes more frequent, more regular, and mostly—more fun--for everyone through improved administration.

What will happen to my address?
We'll be cleaning out our entire database of addresses at the end of the month, but will hold onto your emails so we can notify you when we are ready to relaunch.

How and when can I rejoin?
When the project reopens, we will let you know via email and also announce the reopening via the project website. At that point, everyone will need to rejoin the project if you want to continue participating.

What next?
Sit tight! Catch up on old letters! We'll continue updating the MLP blog and hope you'll want to rejoin we are back up to speed.

The two of us can't thank all of you who have participated up to this point enough for being part of this project. We know some of you have written and received dozens of letters, others of you only a handful – and always with good ones and disappointing ones mixed into the bag. If anything, we've learned immense amounts about what it is to be a letter-writer amidst extremely busy lives, hope you've met made interesting connections along the way, and hope you'll keep with us as we take a step forward to the next version of this project.

All best,
Corie and Youngna

Reuters reports in hilarious fashion that the snail mail postal service--in Poland, at least--is truly slower than snails.

"An IT worker, after receiving a letter on January 3 that was sent on December 20 as priority mail, calculated that a snail would have made it even faster to his home than the letter."

Read the full article here.

Reports from the Universal Postal Union tallied in more letters to Santa (Father Christmas) this year than ever before, topping 2006s count of approximately 6 million letters. The majority of letters are addressed "To Santa, North Pole," where assistants in the North Pole (Alaska) help answer his mail and deliver return notes and cards to those who have written him.

Reuters noted, "Text messages, e-mails and social networking are challenging traditional mail but Santa Claus at least is receiving more and more old-fashioned letters, according to the world's postmen." We're glad to know technology isn't deterring kids from contacting Santa the old fashioned way.

Read the full article here.

Time and time again when we google “letters,” it comes up in the context of the headline, “The Lost Art of Letter Writing.” We ask: to where has it been lost? And why is it disappearing? A recent post by “cyanide bunny” on her personal telegraph blog reveals her take on letter-writing:

“With letter writing there is some kind of ill defined link between sender and recipient which surpasses the email experience. Perhaps it’s something to do with the concerted effort that goes into writing a letter. An email can comprise a couple of hastily written sentences but letter writing always involves more work than that. Even reading a letter is different to reading an email. There is something about having a correspondence from family or friends that you can hold in your hand. Trying to decipher the sender’s spiderlike scrawl or admiring their perfect script is something you can never experience with email. Likewise, opening a thick letter and having photos or newspaper cuttings fall out can never be copied with the internet.”

We hear that sentiment again and again—email is easier, but different, than writing a hand-written letter. There is the tactility, the notion of intent, the obvious time that had to have been invested into the piece of writing.

Cyanide Bunny goes onto write,

“But upon my arrival in China, the complication of fighting the populous at the local post office just to buy an envelope and stamp and then having to queue up again to send the bloody thing dampened my enthusiasm for writing. Also, if you send a letter internally, you write the sender’s address in the top left corner of the envelope and your own address in the centre. And both addresses must be in Chinese. I found this out the hard way after painstakingly copying out both addresses and then being handed another envelope and being brusquely informed they were the wrong way around.”

Is it logistical complications that stops us from sending letters?

Earlier this year when Youngna was traveling in Bolivia, the realization that a letter would take upwards of twenty-one days to reach its destination was definitely a limiting factor. Would the words be relevant then? Would they even cross continents successfully? What does it mean to have time-delayed, unreliable correspondence when it is an option rather than a necessary form of communication?

What do you think? Is letter-writing really a lost art? Do you find yourself opting out of writing a letter and gravitating towards email instead? Why—aside from convenience? Is a letter too permanent? Too costly? Too time consuming? We’d love to hear your feedback.

Fall is here and we promise, your October addresses are on the way. We're sorting out addresses and dealing with some technological bumps in the road, so please be patient, they should be in your inboxes in the next day or two.

*Note! If you do not receive your address by the end of the week, please check your spam or junk mailbox. If it is not there, email us at themodernletter(at)gmail(dot)com.

[Photo by Nicole Marti on Flickr]

+ If you're a participant in the Modern Letter Project you should have received your September address via email. Please email us at themodernletter(at)gmail(dot)com if you have not received the address.

+ We're looking for a few more people to fill open slots this month, so if you are interested in participating, read more about it here and send us an email with your address, birthdate, and the subject line: "I want to write letters."

Today the NY Times featured excerpts from letters between presidential hopefully Hillary Clinton and high-school friend John Peavoy during the mid-to-late 1960's. A picture of Clinton's youthful self (read: embarrassing college photo) is displayed alongside excerpts from college letters during a time author Mark Leibovich notes are from when she was going through a "period of profound political transformation." The letters reflect a transformative time where Clinton transitions from being a Young Republican to a Democrat, as well as touching on daily ruminations and missives about peers in her dorm, the news, college life (a little talk of drugs and boys), the state of American politics -- both critical and analytical of her surroundings with a precocious air.

Leibovich makes note of the aesthetics of the letters, saved by Peavoy after all these years despite 38 years since he last received one:

Ms. Rodham’s letters are written in a tight, flowing script with near-impeccable spelling and punctuation. Ever the pleaser, she frequently begins them with an apology that it had taken her so long to respond. She praises Mr. Peavoy’s missives while disparaging her own (“my usual drivel”) and signs off with a simple “Hillary,” except for the occasional “H” or “Me.”

We at Modern Letter Project must admit we are pretty impressed with Hillary's circa 1960's letter-writing. She reveals herself to an acquaintance by being analytical, self-critical, and whimsical enough to convey everyday drama with an air of self-importance.

We thought it'd be great to see where our letters are coming from so we threw together a quick map locating our participants. Click HERE to see the map.

A few stats:
+ Brooklyn is the most heavily represented city with 32 participants!
+ Jackson, Mississippi and Chicago, Illinois come in a distant second with 6 participants apiece
+ Canada is the most well-represented country outside of the United States with 7 participants. Germany comes in second with 4 participants.

Welcome to the new and quickly slapped together Modern Letter Project website. Hopefully, when time allows, we will make it prettier. In the meantime, this site should serve as a source of information for current participants, as well as those interested in the project.

We welcome any suggestions regarding what the content for this site should be. It will probably remain rather static until the summer, when Corie and Youngna return from their May travels.