About

When was the last time you received something in the mailbox that wasn’t a bill or junk mail? I become excited when I see an envelope containing something personal—an invitation, a Christmas card, and most of all, a letter. Those that are handwritten are especially precious, but every letter I've ever opened is dear to me.

For one thing, there is the time and labor it took for someone not only to craft a letter, but to buy a stamp and travel to a mailbox or post office to send it. And there is the physical presence of a mailed letter; being able to hold something in my hands as I savor it instead of reading something on a computer or phone screen.. And then there is the charming, and at times sobering reality that you are possessing ephemera, and how precious it is that this paper exists in the here and now—not in the digital cloud, but as something transient. Letters can reveal clues, not just in what is written but what is left out, or in how quickly they wrote one section vs. another. Glimpses into the writers’ lives are also offered by the marks on the page (a coffee stain; the shavings of an orange crayon; the smudge left by a teardrop). And for handwritten letters in particular, one takes into consideration that someone likely thought carefully about each individual word, being unable to simply hit the backspace key.

But I’ve also loved writing to other people too: I send personalized thank yous to people and businesses; sometimes I send hello letters to people I haven’t spoken to in a while. I have two pen pals. I have an overflowing box of address labels and stationery and wax seals in multiple designs. Last Christmas, I asked my mother to buy me stamps as a gift. This year, I asked her for envelope liners. Letter writing is my way.

So, this practice is not new to me, but a while ago I set out on a personal mission: I made a list of everyone I needed to say something important to and I set out to mail them letters. I called it “The Letter Project.” Some of the letters I've sent so far have been to make amends; others have been to let people know how much they matter to me; others have been to say thank you for something, or to express encouragement or understanding or admiration. One was to tell a friend how I had taken offense to something he'd said (my feelings can be easily hurt but I am rarely offended, so this was a really big deal). I know firsthand the power of the written word and how these letters have positively impacted my relationships.

I hope that you will all join me in doing the same—sending letters—whether the stakes are high or low. But instead of making a long list of everything you might want to get off your chest and everyone you want to write to, I’m asking you to choose just three people to write to in the next year. I call this idea: 3pistolary. Then, if you want to (but only if you want to) you can anonymously share up to one page of your letter with this website. This could be a word, a sentence, a paragraph, fragments here and there—whatever you wish as long as it does not exceed one page/one image.